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SIR RODERICK IMPEY MURCHISON, K.C.B., D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S.,

DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE UNITED KINGDOM.

To say that at seventy-one years of age health and intellect are vigorously retained, is saying much; but to say that at that advanced age the latest scientific labour is the most brilliant of a gigantic series of a long and incessantly-active life, is saying that which few indeed can lay claim to. Yet such may be-nay, must be-truthfully said of Roderick Impey Murchison. Famous as he everywhere is as the author and elaborator of the Silurian system,that wonderful classification of the oldest, most difficult, and vastest of all the geological formations,-his last labours, in 1860-61, "On the Classification of the Mountain Rock-masses of the Highlands of Scotland," eclipses all his former successes in grandness of intellectual grasp and simplicity of reduction. Whatever Sir Roderick might have attained to as a soldier,-for in early life he served in the Peninsula and elsewhere (1807 to 1816), first under Wellesley and Moore, he must ever be looked upon as a Commanderin-Chief amongst geologists. The same quickness of sight and command of combinations, the same careful and forethoughtful collecting of materials for a decisive blow, and the same decisive energy of attack when the means are ready, which are essential to the General dealing with troops, Sir Roderick exhibits in his intellectual marshalling of scientific facts, and his power of hurling them upon the decisive point. But so long, so voluminous, so excellent are his numerous works, that what would form important items in many a biography sink into secondary positions, or can only receive the merest passing glance, in anything but a special memoir of his long and indefatigable career.

A Highlander by birth, it must have been a gratification in the highest degree to bring the mature knowledge of his most experienced life to bear upon the grand, massive hills of his childhood, and there to gather his crowning laurels.

Murchison was born at Taradale, in Ross-shire (an estate which he inherited), on February 19, 1792. He was first educated at Durham Grammar School, and afterwards at the Military College of Marlow. In 1807 he obtained an ensigncy in the 36th Regiment of infantry, and served in the battles of Vimiero and Roldia, under Sir A. Wellesley, at Corunna, under Moore, and afterwards in Sicily, the Siege of Cadiz, etc. After the close of the great war, seeing no hope of active employment, he retired from military service with the rank of Captain of Dragoons (6th regiment).

After some subsequent years, divided between foxhunting, which he pursued eagerly, and tours in the Alps, Italy, and various parts of Europe, his geological career began with an observant paper, "A Geological Sketch of the North-Western Extremity of Sussex, and the adjoining Parts of Hampshire and Surrey," in which he ably made out and described the succession and physical structure of the Cretaceous and underlying rocks of the western portion of that very interesting district the Weald of Sussex and Hampshire. In this year, too, he made a tour, with his accomplished wife, the only daughter of General Hugonin, of Nursted House, Petersfield, to the Isle of Wight, and along the south coast of England to the Land's End in Cornwall. The summer of 1826 was spent in exploring the Scarborough and Whitby coast, the Western Isles and North Highlands of Scotland, and in comparing Brora, in Sutherland, with the eastern moorlands of Yorkshire. From 1825 to 1829 Sir Roderick was one of the Secretaries of the Geological Society, and in that period the following papers were contributed by him:-"On the Coalfield of Brora" (1827); "On the Isle of Arran" (1828); "On the Primary Rocks and Oolites of the North of Scotland;" and "On the Bituminous Schists and Fossil Fish of Seefield, in the Tyrol ;" and "On the Tertiary and Secondary Rocks of the Alps," in the 'Philosophical Magazine;' the results of personal travels in the north of Italy, the Bassanese Alps (1828-30), and in Central France, and of a second survey of the Scottish Islands (1827-28). There also appeared, in conjunction with Lyell, articles "On the Excavation of Valleys in Central France" and "On the Tertiary Beds of

Aix" in the 'Edinburgh Philosophical Journal;' "On the Lacus. trine Deposits of Cantal," in the Annales des Sciences Naturelles.' In 1826 Sir Roderick had been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1831 and 1832 he filled the office of President of the Geological Society. In this period we have further geological essays (in 1830):-'Fossil Fox of Eningen;' 'Structure of Austrian Alps;' 'Tertiaries of Lower Styria;' and 'Austria and Bavaria;' 'Structure of Eastern Alps' (illustrated from a drawing by Lady Murchison); 'Secondary Formations of Germany;' 'Austrian and Bavarian Alps;' Vertical Stems of Plants in Oolites of the Cleveland Hills.' Besides these, were two most able Presidential addresses, and a 'Guide to the Geology of Cheltenham.'

This brings us to 1831, the memorable year in which, by the advice of his friend and instructor Buckland, he commenced those strenuous labours in Shropshire, which next extended to Wales, and subsequently applied to every region of the habitable globe, will make the name of Murchison pre-eminent in all time, and the Silurian System an indelible landmark in geology. The first public announcement of these labours was made at the British Association (of which Sir Roderick was one of the founders) at the York meeting, in October, 1831. From this date until 1837 his time was mainly occupied in field investigations in Salop, Hereford, Montgomery, Radnor, Brecknock, Caermarthen, Pembrokeshire, etc., in collecting and elaborating the details of the geological structure and the succession of the vast primordial fossiliferous and metamorphic rock-masses, thousands of feet thick, of those strangely contorted regions. Isolated papers from time to time mark the course of his progress in this interval, especially that in the 'London and Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine' for July, 1835, in which the term "Silurian System" was first applied to the Ludlow, Wenlock, Caradoc, and Llandeilo formations. This led up to the publication, in 1838-39, of his first grand work, of eight hundred quarto pages and forty plates of fossils, coloured maps, and sections, The Silurian System,'-a magnificent work, far beyond the ordinary resources of individual efforts, equalled only by the best and finest of imperial and governmental productions, and dedicated to the only man whose name will be ever gloriously linked with Murchison's stupendous labours-Sedgwick, of Cambridge. In a list of his published works during this period in our possession, we

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find against the date 1836 the simple touching entry, in Sir Roderick's own handwriting, "death of my mother." No labours, even the highest mental or most active, take off pain of domestic trials, and this slight reference speaks more of filial love and deep respect than marble monument or word-eloquent eulogy.

Between 1836 and 1838, both inclusive, he first classified, with Sedgwick, the slate and culm rocks of Devonshire, and effected important changes in the geological map of Devon and Cornwall, carried on investigations in the Dudley and Wolverhampton coalfield, showing that coal could be profitably worked (as it has since been) under the Lower New Red Sandstone; and, completing the Silurian classification, he began that of the Devonian deposits.

In 1839, after the publication of his great work, 'The Silurian System,' he worked on these older rocks with Sedgwick and De Verneuil in various parts of France, Belgium, and Germany. At the invitation of the Emperor Nicholas I., he was engaged from 1840 to 1814, with Count Keyserling and M. de Verneuil, in the survey of the Russian Empire, having previously applied the Silurian classification to Germany. The results of these labours are recorded in another monumental work of large dimensions, 'Russia and the Ural Mountains' (1845), in two quarto volumes of 1200 pages, and 140 plates of fossils, views, maps, and sections, the result of four years of labour.

The high respect and value in which Murchison's labours were appreciated are testified by the honours conferred upon him by foreign Sovereigns. In 1841, while again President of the Geological Society, the Russian Emperor decorated him with the Cross of St. Anne, second class, in diamonds, and presented him a magnificent vase of Siberian aventurine; and again, three years later, on the completion of his survey, with the Grand Cross of St. Stanislaus. In 1844 the Royal Society granted to him their highest honour,--the Copley medal; and in 1846 his own Sovereign conferred on him the dignity of Knighthood.

It was in connection with these foreign labours that, in 1841, he proposed the term "Permian" for the classification of the highest Paleozoic rocks, and which system he subsequently applied to Germany, Britain, and other parts of Europe. Besides his labours in Russia, he worked out the Paleozoic Geology of Sweden and Norway by personal inspection, and classified the Silurian and Old Red formations of Scandinavia,-labours for which the King of

Sweden and Norway honoured him with a Commander's Order of the Polar Star, and the King of Denmark granted to him the Order of Dannebrog.

Having suggested, as early as 1844, that Eastern Australia might prove an auriferous country,-which he inferred from the similarity of its rocks to those of the Ural Mountains,―he incited the unemployed Cornish tin-miners in 1848 to emigrate thither and dig for gold, and in 1848 he received specimens of the metal. Thereon he wrote to Earl Grey, then Her Majesty's Secretary for the Colonies, pointing out that his theory had been realized, and that the Government should take immediate steps to secure the working of the metal on a well-arranged plan. In subsequent years, and also before the so miscalled discovery was made in 1851, Sir Roderick lectured on the same subject before the Royal Institute and the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and distinctly expressed his views regarding Australian gold in his article "Siberia and California," in the Quarterly Review' (1850).

In 1847-48 he travelled in the Alps and Italy, his work, 'The Alps, Apennines, and Carpathians,' being the result, and an Italian translation of it was made in 1850 by Professors Savi and Menegheni. This work is considered by many geologists as equal to any of the author's publications, and particularly in the clear demonstration he offered of the transition from the Secondary Cretaceous rocks of the Alps into the nummulitic Tertiary deposits.

In 1851 he revisited Scotland, and made important investigations, in company with Professor Nicol, proving the existence of Silurian rocks with fossils, and developing their classification, embodying the information in two valuable papers before the Geological Society, "On the Silurian Rocks of the South of Scotland," and "On the Geology of the North-West Highlands of Scotland." In 1854 he published his 'Siluria,' a history of the oldest known rocks containing organic remains,-a smaller form of the Silurian system, but embracing the application of the system to all parts of Europe and America; in which, giving a complete view of the result of his own many years' researches and the contemporary labours of others, he brought up the history of the primary fossiliferous rocks to the existing level of human knowledge. Three editions have since been printed, and 'Siluria' is classed with the indispensable standard works of science. The first edition was