THE LIFE OF MURCHISON.
The older rocks of the globe studied accurately and
surveyed—The general similarity of the succession of strata
in many parts of the world decided—The geology of Wales and
Scotland described—The commencement of accurate geological
surveys.
Roderick Impey Murchison was the descendant of a very old Rossshire
family, who were great supporters of the Stuarts in the wild western
country of the north of Scotland. His great-grandfather fell at
Sheriffmuir, and his grandfather, a tenant farmer, had to struggle with
slender means during a long life. But long before this fine old man died,
at the age of ninety-nine, he saw the fortunes of his family retrieved by
his eldest son, whom he outlived.
This son, Roderick Impey Murchison’s father, was born in 1751, and,
thanks to the cheap and good education which was to be got at Edinburgh
and Glasgow, he became a surgeon. Passing the examination at the Royal
College of Surgeons in England, the young man was sent out to India, and
living at Lucknow for seventeen years, made a fortune. He came home to
the old country, and bought the estate of Tarradale, in the eastern part
of Ross, kept up the old Highland customs, and made himself useful as
a medical man when aid was required. He married, in 1791, the daughter
of Mackenzie, of Fairburn, lineal representative of the Rory More, or
Big Roderick Mackenzie, to whom the estates had been granted by James
V. Their younger son, Roderick Impey was born in February, 1792, and
was reared by the “sonsie” miller’s wife of Tarradale, who hushed him
to sleep with gaelic lullabies, and gave him an occasional taste of
the famous whiskey distilled on the adjacent lands of Ferrintosh. But
the father got delicate and moved to the south, carrying with him his
household. On the way an end nearly came to the future geologist, for
his father, wishing to make the boy “stand fire,” presented what was
thought an empty pistol at him. The mother snatched the child away, and
instantly a charge of shot rattled through the window. The father died
when Murchison was only four years of age, and the boy wrote in after
years his sad memory of the last of his father: “The opening of the red
damask curtains of the lofty old-fashioned bed, the last kiss of my dying
parent, and the form of the old-fashioned edifice to which the invalid
had been removed, have been stereotyped in my mind.” The father was
an accomplished gentleman, and the mother a young and attractive lady.
A second marriage gave Murchison a good step-father in Colonel Robert
Macgregor Murray, a friend of the deceased; but home life was broken up
when the colonel was ordered off to Ireland during the rebellion. So
Murchison was sent to the Durham Grammar School in 1799. He had a bitter
parting from his mother and from Sally, the Devonshire lass, who gave him
his English accent, which he retained through life. Six years were passed
at school, and he was as full of mischief as most boys; picking up at the
same time some of the so-called rudiments of learning.
He was ringleader in most of the exploits of the school, and during the
holidays led a very active life with the assistance of his pony and
terrier. One day his uncle told him that in due time he would make a good
soldier, and from that day Murchison read of nothing but military heroes.
At the early age of thirteen he was sent to the military college at Great
Marlow, and, after one pluck, was admitted as cadet. There he became
conspicuous as a daring leader of fun and frolic, and as a moderate
student; nevertheless he was great at drill. A gift which decided in
after years much of his success was fostered at Great Marlow. His
exercises in military drawing led to the future rapidity and correctness
of his “eye” for “country” in geological surveying.
At fifteen years of age Murchison was gazetted as an ensign in the 36th
regiment, and at Edinburgh he took lessons in French, Italian, German,
and mathematics. He learned to ride and fence, and went in for debating.
So having, as he said, done so much in the way of having a good opinion
of himself, he was ordered to join his regiment at Cork in the winter
of 1807-8. He was wonderfully surprised to find the officers anything
but dandies, and, in fact, true old soldiers, quiet, well disciplined
and associated with a first-rate fighting regiment. His chief, Colonel
Burne, was a cool and gallant officer, and a favourite of Sir Arthur
Wellesley’s. In 1808 the regiment was prepared for service in South
America, and was suddenly ordered to Portugal, and on August 1st he
landed, and saw the future Wellington put his foot on Portuguese soil,
followed by his aide-de-camp, the future Lord Raglan.
A battle was soon to be fought, and at Vimiera.
Professor Geikie’s charming “Life of Murchison,” from which this
little history is compiled, gives the following graphic description of
Murchison’s first fight, at Vimiera:—
“To return to our own part of the battle, _i.e._, to our left wing,
the fire of the enemy soon became very hot, and even though the 36th
were lying on their breasts under the brow, our men were getting pretty
much hit, whilst the regiment in our rear, the 82nd, which at that time
could not fire a shot, suffered more than we did. General Spencer, who
commanded the division, when moving about to regulate the general
movements, was hit by a ball in the hand, and I saw him wrap his
handkerchief round it, and heard him say, ‘It is only a scratch!’ Soon
after the light infantry in our front closed files and fell in; our guns
we pulled back, and then came the struggle. General Ferguson waving his
hat, up we rose, old Burne (our colonel) crying out, as he shook his
yellow cane, that he would knock down any man who fired a shot.
“This made some merriment among the men, as tumbling over was the fashion
without the application of their colonel’s cane. “Charge,” was the word,
and at once we went over the brow with a steady line of glittering steel,
and with a hearty hurrah, against six regiments in close column, with six
pieces of artillery, just in front of the 36th. But not an instant did
the enemy stand against this most unexpected sally within pistol shot.
Off they went, and all their guns were instantly taken, horses and all,
and then left in our rear, whilst we went on chasing the runaways for
a mile and a half, as hard as we could go, over the moor of Tourinhâo.
They rallied, it is true, once or twice, particularly behind some thick
prickly-pear hedges and a hut or two on the flat table-land; but although
their brave General Solignac was always cantering to their front, and
animating them against us, they at last fled precipitately, until they
reached a small hamlet, where, however, they did make a tolerable stand.
“Here it was that Sir Arthur Wellesley overtook us after a smart gallop.
He had witnessed from a distance our steady and successful charge, and
our capture of the guns, and he now saw how we were thrusting the French
out of this hamlet. Through the sound of the musketry, and in the midst
of much confusion, I heard a shrill voice calling out, ‘Where are the
colours of the 36th?’ and I turned round (my brother ensign, poor Peter
Bone, having just been knocked down), and looking up into Sir Arthur’s
bright and confident face said, ‘Here they are, sir.’ Then he shouted,
‘Very well done, my boys! Halt, halt—quite enough.’
“The French were now at their last run, in spite of every effort of
Solignac to rally them. Several of our bloody-minded old soldiers said in
levelling, ‘they would bring down the —— on the white horse,’ and sure
enough the gallant fellow fell, just as the 71st Highlanders, who were
on our left, being moved round _en potence_, charged down the hill, with
their wounded piper playing, sitting on the ground, and completed the
rout of the enemy, taking General Solignac of course prisoner.”
Subsequently Murchison’s regiment joined the expedition of Sir John
Moore, and participated in the disastrous retreat upon Corunna.
“Murchison (writes Professor Geikie) suffered much, although he was
strong and in good health, from the excessive fatigue. On one occasion,
after a fruitless midnight march against the enemy, who was supposed to
be advancing to the attack, Murchison, commanding that night an outlying
picquet, threw himself into a corner of a farmer’s yard, and soon fell
asleep. Day had scarcely broken when the cry of ‘Picquet, turn out!’
roused him from his rest, but not in time to escape the notice of the
vigilant Colonel Packe, who, however, allowed him to escape with a severe
reprimand. But after the halt at Tugo, when having vainly offered battle
to the French, the British army retreated by a forced march to Corunna,
the young lieutenant fairly broke down. The mule, which had hitherto
carried himself or his kit, was lost; his old soldier servant had gone
back to seek among the snow for his wife and child.” Of this sad time
he has preserved the following recollections:—“Never shall I forget the
night which followed the abandoning of our position in front of Tugo.
We marched through that city at dusk, and then blew up the bridge,
which was to check for awhile our foe. In darkness, with no food, and
after sleepless nights, with worn-out shoes, and thoroughly disgusted
with always running off and not fighting, this army now fell into utter
disorder. Starved as they were, the men soon became reckless, and all the
regiments got mixed together; in short, the soldiers were desperate, in
spite of the exertions of the few mounted officers. For my own part, I
walked on, usually in my sleep, with the grumbling and tumultuous mass,
until awakened by the loss of my boots in one of the numerous deep cuts
across the roads, which were like quagmires, so that with my bare feet I
had some twenty miles still to march. Many of the soldiers got away from
the road to right and left. Marching all that dreadful night my young
frame at last gave way, the more so as I was barefoot, cold, and starved,
and already the great body of troops had got ahead of me. In short, I
was now one of a huge arrear of stragglers when day broke and the little
hamlet was in sight.
“Seated on a bank on the side of the road, and munching a raw turnip
which I had gathered from the adjacent field, and just as I was feeling
that I never could regain my regiment and must be taken a prisoner, a
black-eyed drummer of the 96th came from the village, whither the young
fellow had been to cater. Seeing I was exhausted, and almost as young as
myself, and not yet a hardened old soldier, he slipped round his canteen,
which he had contrived to fill with red wine, and gave me a hearty drink.
He thus saved me from being taken prisoner by the French, who were
rapidly advancing, and who, if they had had a regiment of cavalry in
pursuit, might at that moment have taken prisoners, or driven into the
mountains, a good third of the British forces.
“With the draught of wine I trudged on again, and came in, at eleven
o’clock of the 10th, into the town of Betanzos, and rejoined my regiment,
which had marched in about fifty men only, with the colours, though ere
night it was made up to its strength of six hundred and odd men. This
fact alone shows better than a world of other evidence, what forced
night-marches with a starving and retreating army must infallibly
produce. At Tugo the 36th regiment was fit to fight anything; in two days
it was a rabble.
“Happily for me I tumbled into a shoemaker’s house. His handsome young
wife washed my feet with warm water, and furnished me with stockings,
while her husband came to my further aid with shoes. But my swollen feet
had no time to recover. On the following day the whole army, such as it
was, passed over the river, blowing up the bridge and taking up its last
position.
“There, remnant as it was, the army formed a respectable line—Corunna
within two miles of us, and our fleet ready to back us. Provisions and
shoes were served out to us, and with such luxuries the bivouac, even
in the month of January, was well borne. In truth, the army got into
comparative good spirits, and on the 15th the French crossed the last
bridge we had blown up, and were defiling at a respectable distance
along our front. We were quite refreshed, and ready to repel them. The
picquets, indeed, of our (Hope’s) division had a sharp encounter in that
evening, and when looking through the colonel’s glass, I saw Colonel
Mackenzie, of the 5th regiment, fall dead from his grey horse whilst
leading an attack on two of the enemy’s guns.
“On the 16th, just after our frugal repast, and whilst leaning over one
of the walls where we lay, my old colonel, after looking some time with
his glass, suddenly exclaimed to me, ‘Now, my boy, they’re coming on;’
and when I took a peep to the hills beyond on the right and south-west, I
perceived the glitter of columns coming out of a wood. Scarcely had the
colonel given the word to fall in, when a tremendous fire opened from a
battery of seventeen to twenty pieces, under cover of which the enemy
was rolling down in dense columns from the wooded hills upon our poor
fellows, who were in a hollow with their arms piled, like our own, until
they were assaulted.
“For our cavalry was extinct, as the horses and men, as well as most
of our artillery, were embarked on the 13th and 14th; yet never since
Englishmen fought was there a more gallant fight than was made by the
4th, 42nd, and 50th regiments (Lord W. Bentinck’s brigade), who rushed
on with the bayonet, and, supported by guards, held their own against a
terrific superiority, until General Paget was ordered to move his brigade
towards the enemy’s flank, and compelled them to withdraw; not, however,
before poor Moore, galloping out from the town, fell while encouraging
the troops, and Baird, who marched his division out of the town, had lost
his arm. My own brigade had much less to do, our front line and picquets
being alone engaged.
“As night fell, and after the firing had ceased, the enemy having
returned to his own ground, we received the order to march into Corunna
and embark. Our fires were left burning to deceive the enemy, and make
him believe that he must fight us again next morning if he hoped to beat
us.
“Silently and regularly we moved on this our last short night-march in
the dark, tranquil night of the 16th, and, passing through the gates,
reached the quay. The names of our respective transports had previously
been explained to us, my own being the brig _Reward_, which I found to
be from Sunderland. I was on deck as light dawned, and then at once saw
the danger of the position of this miserable little transport, as well
as of a dozen or more of the same craft. They had been foolishly allowed
to anchor immediately under the tongue of high land which forms the
eastern side of the harbour, and on which there were no land defences.
Knowing that this ground was only a continuation of the hilly track on
which my division had marched a few hours before, and being certain that
the French would with the peep of day pass over our old bivouac to this
promontory, I at once urged our skipper to get up his anchor betimes. But
the grog had, I suppose, been strong that night. He exclaimed, ‘Why, I
tell you, the brave Highlanders are there; they have not come away like
you folks.’ Scarcely had he spoken when a battery of field-pieces opened
their fire and sent some balls through our rigging. Turning pale as death
under the fire of these mere field-pieces, and seeing that his crew were
ready to run below, he applied the axe to the cable, and in a few minutes
we were drifting away as we best could. The wind being from the east, we
were fast approaching the rocks on which the Castle of Antonio stands,
and on which at least five transports similarly circumstanced to my own
were wrecked, the men being saved with difficulty, after losing their
arms, colours, and baggage.
“I have often reflected on the extraordinary want of all due arrangement
on the part of our admiral, in command of a splendid fleet, who allowed
those miserable transports to anchor in such a position without placing
a frigate or two near them to silence the puny battery and prevent the
dismay which seized the skippers.
“Not missing stays, the _Reward_ floated away, and was soon going fast
before a strong nor’-easter, with the rest of the fleet helter-skelter
for the Channel.”
In 1815 Murchison met Charlotte Hugouin, the daughter of General Hugouin,
and as she was attractive, piquante, clever, and highly educated, she
made a conquest of the gallant soldier. They were soon married, at
Buriton, in Hampshire.
Hitherto he had lived at his own free will. From this time he came under
the influence of a thoughtful, cultivated, and affectionate woman.
Quietly and imperceptibly that influence grew, and she led him, with
true womanly tact, into a sphere of exertion where his uncommon powers
might find full scope. To his wife he owed his fame, as he never failed
gratefully to record; but years had to pass before her guidance had
accomplished what she had set before her as her aim.
Tired of the army, and possessing a great amount of energy and physical
power, Murchison longed for a profession, and at one time seriously
contemplated entering the Church. But money was scarce, and he went
with his wife to live economically in Italy. This was an epoch in his
life, and he went by way of Paris, and there he heard Cuvier lecture.
At Geneva he met De Candolle, and as his wife had relatives at Vevay,
they spent some time there, and Murchison began taking walking tours.
On one occasion he walked four hundred and thirty-two miles over
mountain ground, in fourteen days, finishing with a last day’s walk of
thirty-seven miles. In another excursion to Mont Blanc he walked one
hundred and twenty miles in three days. This was characteristic of the
man. But it was not simple exercise that he took, for his retentive
memory and eye for landscape were occupied; and such walks always
produced good results in after years.
Arrived at Rome they went into lodgings, and Murchison became a confirmed
visitor of galleries, museums, and churches. Then Mrs. Murchison fell
ill, and they went, on her recovery, to Naples, where, of course,
Vesuvius was seen, but oddly enough, his written impressions of the scene
do not tell of any geological tastes. Two years glided away, and they
founded his intellectual life, and impressed him that it was better than
gaiety. When returned to England, Murchison sold his Scotch estate and
went to live in a most out of the way old mansion at Barnard Castle,
in Durham. Then there was no art, and therefore Murchison became a
sportsman, and for five years rode as hard and as well to the front as
any of his fox-hunting friends. Every now and then some intellectual
society was enjoyed at some of the great houses of the neighbourhood, and
Murchison made the acquaintance of Sir Humphrey Davy. Mrs. Murchison did
not care about the everlasting hunting, and tried, in her wise manner,
to wean him from the purposeless life he was leading. She knew botany,
and tried to interest her husband in it, but he did not care for it;
then she tried to learn mineralogy to get him to help her. But Murchison
got deeper and deeper into the love of field sports, and took a house
at Melton Mowbray and hunted six days in the week. Murchison got tired
at last, and having met Sir Humphrey Davy again, was advised by him to
interest himself about chemistry. So Murchison sold his horses and gave
up his establishment, really intending to settle in London. But probably
want of means prevented his having an establishment in the West End at
first, so he led a less active but still sporting life in the south of
Scotland for some time.
Murchison was now to change his method of life completely, and the summer
of 1824 saw the last of his rambles, wherever the rocks around him
made no direct and urgent appeal to him. Bringing his wife to London,
they rented a house in Montague Place, and Murchison began to attend
scientific lectures, and especially those on geology, which was at that
time much talked about. Hutton’s admirable views of the causes of the
changes on the surface of the earth, and their possible comparison with
those of the present day, was making progress, but was still antagonized
by the notions of sudden convulsions and great underground movements. He
went to the Geological Society, a young and ardent one, which had sprung
into active work in spite of the opposition of the nursing mother of
science, the Royal Society.
With hearing lectures on science, scientific papers and discussions,
attending evening soirées, and the opportunity of hearing and talking to
men who had already made themselves famous, Murchison found enough fully
to fill up his time, and to make London life a very different thing to
him from what it had been in the old days, when he used to escape to town
from the monotony of a country barrack. With his characteristic ardour,
he had not completed his first winter’s studies in geology before he
longed to be off into the field to observe for himself.
“My first real field work,” he says, “began under Professor Buckland,
who having taken a fancy to me as one of his apt scholars, invited me to
visit him at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and attend one or two of his
lectures. This was my true launch. Travelling down with him in the Oxford
coach, I learned a world of things before we reached the Isis, and,
amongst other things, I enjoyed a lecture on crustacea, given whilst he
pulled to pieces on his knees, a cold crab, bought at a fishmonger’s shop
at Maidenhead, where he usually lunched as the coach stopped.
“On repairing from the Star inn to Buckland’s domicile, I never can
forget the scene which awaited me. Having, by direction of the janitor,
climbed up a narrow staircase, I entered a long corridor-like room (now
all destroyed), which was filled with rocks, shells, and bones in dire
confusion, and, in a sort of sanctum at the end was my friend, in his
black gown, looking like a necromancer, sitting on the sole rickety chair
not covered with some fossils, and cleaning out a fossil bone from the
matrix.”
The few days spent at Oxford were memorably pleasant. Buckland’s wit
and enthusiasm glowed all his scientific sayings and doings, and he had
a rare power of description, by which he could make even a dry enough
subject fascinatingly interesting. Murchison heard one or two brilliant
lectures from him, but what was of still more importance, he accompanied
the merry professor and his students, mounted on Oxford hacks, to
Shotover Hill, and for the first time in his life had a landscape
geologically dissected before him. From that eminence his eye was taught
to recognize the broader features of the succession of the oolitic rocks
of England up to the far range of the Chalk Hills, and this not in a
dull, text-book fashion, for Buckland, in luminous language, brought the
several elements of the landscape into connection with each other, and
with a few fundamental principles which have determined the sculpturing
of the earth’s surface. His audience came to see merely a rich vale in
the midst of fertile England, but before they quitted the ground, the
landscape had been made to yield up to them, clear notions of the origin
of springs and the principles of drainage. This was the very kind of
instruction needed to fan the growing flame of Murchison’s zeal for
science. He returned to town burning with desire to put his knowledge to
some use by trying to imitate, no matter how feebly, the admirable way in
which the Oxford professor had applied the lessons of the lecture-room to
the elucidation of the history of hills and valleys.
Murchison started with his wife in the middle of August, on a tour of
nine weeks along the south coast, from the Isle of Wight into Devon
and Cornwall. Taking a light carriage and a pair of horses, he made
the journey in short stages, lingering for days at some of the more
interesting or important geological localities. Driving, boating,
walking, or scrambling, the enthusiastic pair signalized their first
geological tour by a formidable amount of bodily toil.
Mrs. Murchison specially devoted herself to the collection of fossils,
and to sketching the more striking geological features of the coast-line,
while her husband would push on to make some long and laborious detour.
In this way, while she remained quietly working at Lyme Regis, he struck
westward for a fortnight into Devon and Cornwall, to make his first
acquaintance with the rocks to which, in after years, Sedgwick and he
were to give the name by which they are now recognized all over the
world. It was in the course of this tour that he met with a man, whom
he has the merit of having brought into notice, and who certainly amply
requited him by the services rendered in later years. William Lonsdale
had served in the Peninsular war, and retired on half-pay to Bath. With
the most simple and abstemious habits, his slender income sufficed
not only for his wants, but for the purchase of any book or fossil he
coveted, and so he spent his time in studying the organic remains, and
especially the fossil corals, to be found in his neighbourhood. Murchison
met him accidentally in some quarries, “a tall, grave man, with a huge
hammer on his shoulder,” and found him so full of information, that he
stayed some days at Bath under Lonsdale’s guidance.
With the enlargement of view which so instructive a ramble had given
him, Murchison prepared and read to the Geological Society, on 16th
December, 1825, his first scientific paper—“A Geological Sketch of the
North-western Extremity of Sussex, and the adjoining parts of Hants and
Surrey.” This little essay bore manifest evidence of being the result
of careful observation of the order of succession of the rocks in the
field, followed by as ample examination of their fossils as he could
secure, from those best qualified to give an opinion upon them. In these
respects it was typical of all his later work. Having shown by this first
publication his capacity as observer and describer, and being further
recommended by the leisure which his position of independence enabled him
to command, he was soon after elected one of the two honorary secretaries
of the Geological Society. “Lyell being then a law-student, with chambers
in the Temple, could only devote a portion of his time to our science,
and was glad to make way as secretary to one who, like myself, had
nothing else to do than think and dream of geology, and work hard to get
on in my new vocation.”
In the spring of 1826 he was elected into the Royal Society—an honour
more easily won then than now, and for which, as the President, his old
friend Sir Humphry Davy told him, he was indebted, not to the amount or
value of his scientific work, but to the fact that he was an independent
gentleman, having a taste for science, with plenty of time, and enough of
money to gratify it.
Murchison next investigated, at the instance of Dr. Buckland, the
geological age of the Brora coalfield, in Sutherlandshire. Some
geologists maintained that the rocks of that district were merely a part
of the ordinary coal, or carboniferous system; others held them to be
greatly younger, to be, indeed, of the same general age with the lower
oolitic strata of Yorkshire. A good observer might readily settle this
question; Murchison resolved to try.
Again he prepared himself by reading and study of fossils to understand
the evidence he was to collect and interpret, and in order to do full
justice to the Scottish tract, he went first to the Yorkshire coast, and
made himself master of the succession, and leading characters of the
rocks so admirably displayed along that picturesque line of cliffs. The
summer had hardly begun before he and his wife broke up their camp in
London and were on the move northwards. At York he made the acquaintance
of two men, with whom he was destined in after life to have much close
intercourse and co-operation—the Rev. William Vernon (afterwards Vernon
Harcourt) and Mr. (subsequently Professor) John Phillips.
Murchison’s own record of the meeting is as follows:—“Phillips, then a
youth, was engaged in arranging a small museum at York. He recommended
Murchison strongly to his uncle, William Smith, who was then living at
Scarborough, and had little intercourse with the Geological Society. From
the moment I had my first walk with William Smith (then about sixty years
old), I felt that he was just the man after my own heart; and he, on his
part, seeing that I had, as he said, ‘an eye for a country,’ took to me,
and gave me most valuable lessons. Thus he made me thoroughly acquainted
with all the strata north and south of Scarborough. He afterwards
accompanied me in a boat all along the coast, stopping and sleeping at
Robin Hood’s Bay. Not only did I then learn the exact position of the
beds of poor coal which crop out in that tract of the eastern moorlands,
but collecting with him the characteristic fossils from the calcareous
grit down to the lias, I saw how clearly strata must alone be identified
by their fossils, inasmuch as here, instead of oolite limestone like
those of the south we had sandstones, grits, and shales which, though
closely resembling the beds of the old coal, were precise equivalents of
the oolitic series of the south. Smith walked about stoutly with me all
under the cliffs from Robin Hood’s Bay to Whitby, making me well note the
characteristic fossils of each formation.”
Though the main object of this summer tour was to work out the geological
problem which had been assigned to him in Sutherlandshire, he sketched
a most circuitous route, partly for the sake of showing Mrs. Murchison
something more of the Highlands than she had yet seen, and partly with
the view of putting to use his new acquirements in geology; so that after
reaching Edinburgh, and having its geology expounded to him by Jameson,
instead of striking north at once, he turned westwards to the island of
Arran, and spent many weeks among the western islands from the Firth
of Clyde to the north of Skye. The hills of his native country had now
acquired an interest for him which they never possessed even in the days
when they drew him off in eager pursuit of grouse and black cock. At
every halt his first anxiety was to know what the rocks of the place
might be, and how far he could identify their geological position. In
Arran he filled his notebook with observations and queries about granite,
red sandstone, limestone, and other puzzling matters, on which his
previous experience in fieldwork in the south of England and in Yorkshire
could throw no light, and for the elucidation of which he wisely resolved
to secure, at some future time, the guidance and co-operation of an older
geologist than himself. It was in the fulfilment of this resolution that
Sedgwick and he first became fellow-workers in the field.
In the wildest of the western islands he and his wife did excellent work
in collecting fossils, and thereby obtaining materials for making more
detailed comparison between the secondary rocks of the west of Scotland
and those of England than had been attempted by Dr. Macculloch. The
actual fossil-hunting was mainly done by Mrs. Murchison, after whom one
of the shells (_Ammonites Murchisoniæ_) was named by Sowerby, while her
husband climbed the cliffs and trudged over the moors and crags, to make
out the order of succession among the secondary strata. But the tour was
not merely geological; many a halt and detour were made to get a good
view of some fine scenery, or to make yet another sketch. Friends and
highland cousins, too, were plentifully scattered along the route, so
that the travellers had ample experience of the hearty hospitality of
those regions. An occasional shot at grouse or deer, varied the monotony
of the hammering; but even when stalking, Murchison could not keep his
eyes from the rocks. Amid the jottings of his sport he had facts to
chronicle about the gneiss or porphyry or sandstone through which the
sport had led him. This characteristic, traceable even at this early
period of his life, remained prominent up to the last autumn of his life
in which he was able to wield a gun or hammer.
The summer had in great part passed before he reached that part of the
eastern coast of Sutherlandshire where the scene of his special task
lay; but that task proved to be eminently easy. From Dunrobin, where he
was hospitably entertained, he could follow northwards and southwards a
regular succession of strata, and he recognized in them the equivalents
of parts of the oolite series of Yorkshire. The Brora coal, therefore,
instead of forming part of the true carboniferous system, was simply a
local peculiarity in the oolitic series. He made a collection of the
fossils, which offered a means of satisfactory comparison with the
oolitic rocks of England.
The rapidity with which this piece of work could be done left time for a
prolongation of the tour northwards through Caithness, even up into the
Orkney Islands, but at length the tourists had to prepare for a southward
migration again. Reaching Inverness, they turned eastward to Aberdeen,
and thence down the eastern coast by Peterhead, by Buller’s of Buchan,
Arbroath, and St. Andrews. The immediate result of this summer’s work was
seen in the preparation of a paper for the Geological Society.
Professor Sedgwick had already distinguished himself in the difficult
labour of unravelling the structure of some of the older rocks, and
Murchison suggested that they should visit Scotland and examine and
describe part of the country together. They desired to ascertain if
possible the position and general relations of the Old Red sandstone.
This journey, intensely amusing in its anecdotes, led to much united work
and good fellowship.
Having learned the principles of the science, Murchison went to study
geology in the field on the continent. Accompanied by Mrs. Murchison, he
visited the extinct volcanoes of Auvergne, the South of France and Italy,
and finally Germany. Next year the Alps were explored, and subsequently
Austria. At Vienna, Murchison indulged a little in what he always liked,
and which did good to science, good society, and then started for Styria,
and got much puzzled about the rocks and fossils at Gosau. On his return
to England Murchison became secretary to the Geological Society, and
held the position for five years, and then he became the president of
the society. Subsequently he began seriously to attempt the description
of the geology of Wales which ended in the establishment of the Silurian
system of rocks. Then the Devonian and old red sandstones were
considered, and the merits of the paleontologist, Lonsdale, who really
established the great geological division of the Devonian, were fully
conceded. About this time Murchison and his wife settled in the well
known mansion in Belgrave Square, which was such a home for scientific
men, British and foreign, for many a long year to come.
Russia was the next country to be explored, and Murchison spent a long
and very pleasant time there; and his description of the Ural Mountains
was of great importance. He was the first to sketch out broadly the
geological construction of that very monotonous country, and to point
out the existence there of a formation which covers the coal-bearing
rocks of England, and which he called the Permian. Returning to England,
after receiving the thanks of the Emperor Nicholas, Murchison again
became President of the Geological Society, and with increased experience
endeavoured to work out more fully than before, the old rocks of Wales,
which he and Sedgwick had laboured over in common. Murchison and
Sedgwick, however, began at this time to misunderstand one another, and
those admirable men, the one having recognized the higher strata, and
the other the lower, began to differ regarding the line of separation
of their work. It is an unsettled point even at the present day,
notwithstanding all the knowledge that these great men have left to us,
and all that has come to science since their time. Ever enthusiastic in
the cause of science as he had been in war and in the field, Murchison
allowed himself no rest, but started for Germany _via_ France to
examine the red sands and clays in those countries which, overlying the
carboniferous formation, resemble in position the Permian of Russia. The
geologist was treated like a prince by kings, emperors, and a host of
titled people who were glad to welcome the perfect gentleman so full of
good genial temper and amiability.
At the same time Murchison did not forget the British Association for the
Advancement of Science, with which he was officially connected. In 1843
he began to interest himself in the then little Geographical Society,
which had been founded in 1830, chiefly by members of the Rayleigh
Travellers’ club. Murchison was chosen its president, and he read an
address to the fellows in 1844. This society, now of great utility to
science and civilization, was fostered mainly by Murchison, and passed
through years of steady progress under his management. In the same year,
our geologist visited Scandinavia, where he found science more honoured
than anywhere else on earth, and went on to St. Petersburg. Returning
to England, Murchison and his fellow labourers, Von Keyserling and De
Verneuil, published the great work on “Russia, and the Ural Mountains,”
and our hero became a recognized pillar in geological science.
Knowing the geology of the Ural Mountains thoroughly, and having paid
much attention to those parts of them where gold is found, Murchison was
impressed, when he read of the nature of the Australian Alps, that they
ought to be auriferous. In 1845, and 1846, Murchison spoke and wrote on
this subject, and kept on directing the attention of the colonists to
the necessity of searching for the precious mineral. In 1846 Murchison
advised the unemployed tin miners of Cornwall to emigrate and dig for
gold in Australia. In 1847 a Mr. W. T. Smith, of Sydney, acquainted
Murchison that he had discovered gold, and a Mr. Phillips, of Adelaide,
wrote announcing the same fact. Finally, in 1848, Murchison impressed
on Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for the colonies the necessity of
having Australia surveyed, for the purpose of gold finding. Three years
afterwards a Mr. Hargraves came forward as the real Simon pure, and
was acknowledged by the ignorant legislature of New South Wales as the
discoverer of gold in Australia. Count Strzelecki, a geologist, sent
Murchison specimens of rocks from Australia, and positively found gold,
not by inference, as in Murchison’s case, but in reality. But at the
request of the colonial authorities it was kept a secret!!! The Rev. W.
B. Clarke, F.R.S., a capital geologist, found gold in places, and settled
what rocks it was in. This was in 1841. So that Murchison, although not
the first discoverer, or the first who inferred the existence of gold in
the Australian rocks, must have great credit given to him.
Twenty years had passed away since Murchison sold his horses and gave
up fox hunting, and he had done more than any man to establish the
grand features of the outside structure of the earth, and to prove the
succession everywhere of the same great formations. He was knighted in
1846, an honour which was appreciated in those days, but which is not
compatible with the proper simplicity and nobility of science at the
present time. Everybody was glad of the honour being given, and received
by Murchison, and “Sir Roderick,” for the future came as aptly to the
thoughts of his friends as “Mr. Murchison” had done of old. There is
no doubt that at this time this experienced geologist believed that
great lapses of time had occurred, involving great distinctions and
new creations between the successive geological formations, that great
changes had happened, universally, in the physical geography of the land
and sea before a new formation was produced, and that the vast majority
of fossils found in one were not recognized in a succeeding formation.
He believed much in grand and sudden catastrophic changes in nature. The
presidency of the British Association was given to the new scientific
knight, and he worthily occupied the chair at the meeting at Southampton
in 1846.
In 1848, the year of revolution in Europe, Murchison enjoyed foreign
politics and Alpine geology, and made the acquaintance of most of the
young Swiss geologists, whose names are now so celebrated. An essay on
the geology of the Alps was written, and our hero received the Copley
Medal of the Royal Society. But the many years of close and hard work
had told even on Murchison’s iron frame; and his wife was an invalid.
So they spent the summer of 1849 at Buxton, much to the disgust of the
geologist, however. He attended the meeting of the British Association
at Birmingham, however, and relapsed into a state of perpetual “liver,”
suppressed gout and “stomach attacks.” After awhile the invalid went
abroad and enjoyed rambling over the extinct volcanoes of Auvergne,
and had his trip over the same ground twenty-two years before, brought
before his mind. But he did not accept the theories of Lyell about the
formation of the valleys and the denudation of the district. He stuck,
unfortunately, to the violent in nature, and dismissed the truth of
the former uniform and slow action of the same forces as now prevail,
from his mind. In the next year Murchison was happy again with his old
friend Sedgwick, and they geologized in the highlands, and enjoyed the
hospitality of the young Duke and Duchess of Argyll. Then the southern
uplands of Scotland were examined; and Murchison, stimulated by the great
progress of the writings of Lyell, came out in strong opposition to the
Huttonian philosophy. Murchison contended in favour of great oscillations
and ruptures of the earth’s crust leading to the sudden breaking up and
submergence of tracts of land; but he did not explain how all this took
place or could take place. He believed in many superficial deposits, such
as drift, being the product of violent convulsions and floods. His frame
of mind was not difficult to account for. He had found, in investigating
the Alps, that movements amongst the strata had occurred on a vast scale,
and that whole series of them, hundreds of feet thick, had not only
been bent, but positively turned upside down. In 1851 Murchison visited
Ireland, and geologized there, and gradually began to complete his great
work, entitled “Siluria; or a Description of the Geology of the Silurian
Rocks of the World and of their Fossils.” This was published in 1854. The
next great act of Murchison’s was the assisting and promoting the success
of the geological survey of the United Kingdom, and the establishment of
the museum in Jermyn Street. This led to the establishment of the Royal
School of Mines. Murchison became the director of the survey, and went
into the subject with heart and soul, and found himself surrounded by the
most distinguished teachers in England.
Murchison worked personally at the Scottish rocks from 1855 to 1858, and
it is a matter of interest that at the present day his admirable work
relating to the order of the older rocks is a vexed question. In 1860,
Murchison went to the highlands for the fourth time, and came to the same
conclusions as before.
Year after year the grand old man laboured on for the benefit of the
sciences of geology and geography, and kept the geological survey in
capital order. He obtained the sanction of the Government for colonial
surveys, and was, in fact, the main stay of science in relation to the
state. For ten years he did all this, and occasionally indulged in a
trip to the north and west, and also into Bohemia. In 1862, Murchison
was terribly troubled by the sudden ill-health of his wife, to whom he
owed so much. She became more and more of an invalid, and died in 1869.
It was the greatest blow possible, and it brought the kindest letter
from his old friend Sedgwick, eighty-four years of age. In September,
1870, Murchison’s time was coming to an end. A slight attack of paralysis
warned him to retire from active life. In the spring of 1871 he prepared
his last address as president of the Royal Geographical Society, and
resigned the chair he had so ably filled for fifteen years. He lingered
on, and passed quietly away on October 22nd, 1871, full of years and
well merited honours. Murchison’s name will live for ever as a clear,
keen-eyed, careful observer of nature, and as a master of the facts
relating to much of the ancient history of the earth. He was a great
stimulator of men of science, assisted the weak, and helped the good
worker. He had a great personal character, religious, honest, truthful,
open and generous; he was a gentleman indeed. His biographer, Professor
A. Geikie, F.R.S., whose most charming book has been so freely quoted
by me, writes about his good old friend as follows: “A man’s face and
figure afford usually a good indication of the general calibre of the
spirit which lodges beneath them. The picture which rises to the mind
when one thinks of Murchison, is that of a tall, wiry, muscular frame,
which still kept its erectness even under the burden of almost fourscore
years. It seemed the type of body for an active geologist, who had to win
his reputation by dint of hard climbing and walking, almost as much as by
mental power. It was, moreover, united in his case with a certain pomp
and dignity of manner, which at one time recalled the military training
of the Peninsula days, at another the formal courtesy of the well-bred
gentleman of a bygone generation.”
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