These bronze reliefs are a copy of the reliefs on the memorial for Jan Pieter Minckelers (1748-1824), erected in Maastricht in 1904 by sculptor Bart van Hove (1850-1914). Minckelers was a lecturer at the University of Leuven and in 1783, he succeeded in producing the very first lighting gas. The reliefs show how Minckelers, supported by the Duke of Arenberg, released the very first gas balloon in the Low Countries on the lawn in front of Arenberg Castle on 20 November 1783, and how already in the following year his own laboratory was illuminated with the technology. The artist donated the reliefs to the university at the inauguration of the statue in Maastricht.
Naturalist Robert Atkinson embarked on a survey of Hebridean Islands in the mid-1930s to survey and count the Leach's fork-tailed petrel. He landed on St Kilda in July 1938, which had been evacuated in 1930. Atkinson captured the transition and re-wilding of the island during his search for the rare petrel, going into vacant cottages and buildings. This gentle photograph captures a small wren resting in the warm light of a window in the old School House.
