[A collection of original government correspondence]. Fossils Mesozoic-Age (secondary). London & Jerusalem, 1924-1938.

Folio (ca. 27 x 36 cm). [255] ll. With 13 illustrations, mostly showing different soil profiles relating to the fossils, including 10 drawn by hand. In a pink cardboard portfolio entitled "Fossils Mesozoic-Age (secondary)", including another portfolio with blue paper wrappers. Extensive correspondence addressed to George Stanfield Blake, mainly from Leslie Reginald Cox, discussing fossil specimens. Blake's additional correspondents were, among others, the deputy director of the "laboratoire de paleontologie" of the French national museum of natural history J. Coltreau and the director of the British museum of natural history C. Tate Regan. - Blake (1876-1940) was a British mineral and mining geologist and was from 1922 to 1939 the geological advisor to the Mandatory Government of Palestine, in which capacity he wrote and received the letters collected in the present portfolio. His work was essential, according to Israeli geologist Picard and others, for the expansion of geological knowledge of Palestine and Transjordan and their natural assets. Cox (1897-1965) was a British palaeontologist and malacologist (a specialist in molluscs), who was attached to the British museum of natural history and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1950. - Most of the letters are typed copies of letters with autograph signatures, except for a few autograph letters. The collection also includes a few illustrations of soil profiles and even some notes of thanks from the trustees of the British museum of natural history addressed to Blake, thanking him for his donations of information on fossils and the specimens themselves. - Paper wrappers show signs of wear, wrappers and documents inside are very slightly discoloured, most leaves are slightly frayed around the edges. Most leaves are numbered in blue pencil and the numbers correspond with the overview of the contents typed on a separate leaf, pasted on the inside of the front pink wrapper.