May 25, 1857.] OBITUARY. 385 



self to obtain that post of Eeader in Mineralogy and Geology, in 

 performing the duties of which, he had the great merit of rousing 

 the University of Oxford from its lethargy in respect to the natural 

 history sciences, and in rendering attractive the study of primeval 

 nature. 



It is true that his predecessor, Dr. Kidd, had opened out some 

 good paths in the science of mineral geology; but it was reserved 

 for Buckland to create by his native eloquence and his illustrations, 

 a real and solid taste for geology properly so called, whether as 

 based upon the records of lost races of animals, or on physical 

 geography and the mineral composition of rocks. 



Those persons who, like myself, can go back to the days when 

 our deceased member was an inmate of Corpus Christi College, can 

 never forget the impression made upon his visitors, when with diffi- 

 culty they discovered him in the recess of a long collegiate room, 

 seated on the only spare chair, and buried, as it were, amidst fossil 

 bones and shells. So strange was this conduct considered by the 

 graver classicists, and so alarmed were they lest these amoenitates 

 acadeiniccB should become dangerous innovations, that when he made 

 one of his early foreign tours to the Alps and parts of Italy, which 

 enabled him to produce one of the boldest and most effective 

 of his writings, an authoritative elder is said to have exclaimed, 

 " Well, Buckland is gone to Italy, so, thank God, we shall hear no 

 more of this geology I " Augmenting his class of students, however, 

 Dr. Buckland persevered successfully in spite of the opposition of 

 the pedagogues of the old school, and certain narrow-minded theo- 

 logians, who, ignorant of the imperishable records which the Creator 

 has set before us in the book of Nature, endeavoured to destroy the 

 moral influence, if not the character, of any clergyman who boldly 

 taught those undeniable truths. Success happily attended his 

 efforts, and if Buckland had done nothing more than educate a 

 Lyell, a Daubeny, and an Egerton, he would justly have been placed 

 among the most successful instructors of our contemporaries. 



Marking the progress which has been made in this branch of 

 science in. the few years which have elapsed since it was publicly 

 taught, we may indeed well look back with pity on its feeble 

 opponents, and rejoice that the alumni of the Buckland school have 

 become such strong men, and that the chair, which owed its 

 origin to my illustrious friend, should now be filled by that sound 

 geologist, John Phillips, the nephew of AYilliam Smith, who has 

 added to the genius of that geological lawgiver, the richest accom- 



