1864. | Geology and Paleontology. 679 
cliffs of lias afford to the collector such rich treasures of past living 
forms. His love of geology increased with his years, and seems to 
have been especially marked by an appreciation of its practical bearings. 
Having left the army and arranged his private affairs, he commenced 
with the whole force of his character to elaborate those plans for a 
national survey, which he lived to see crowned with success. Being 
firmly convinced of the importance of a geological survey, on the basis 
of the Ordnance maps, he determined on a plan which involved no 
little cost of labour and money to himself, in order to bring the sub- 
ject forcibly before the leading statesmen of the day. He consequently 
commenced to trace on the Ordnance maps of Cornwall the boundaries 
of the geological formations, as well as to insert the mineral veins, 
dykes, and other phenomena; and haying drawn up illustrative 
sections, “he thus took a first step,” to quote the words of his successor, 
Sir R. I. Murchison, ‘in leading public men to see the good which 
must result from the extensive application of sucha scheme.” Having 
by this means succeeded in inducing the Government of the day to 
grant a sum for the support of a limited number of assistants, the 
Geological Survey was established as a branch of the Ordnance. The 
grant once made has been gradually augmented, so as to allow the 
employment of a larger staff of surveyors than was at first contem- 
plated, and the whole undertaking, after having been dissociated from 
the Ordnance, has at length been placed under the Science and Art 
department of the Committee of Council on Education. 
While pursuing his investigations in the mining districts of Corn- 
wall, Sir H. De la Beche became “forcibly impressed” with the 
conviction that the survey presented an opportunity not likely to recur 
of illustrating the useful application of geology, and he in consequence 
represented to Mr. Spring Rice (afterwards Lord Monteagle), then 
Chancellor of the Exchequer, that a collection should be formed and 
placed under the office of the Board of Works, comprising specimens 
of various mineral substances used in the construction of roads, build- 
ings, and public works, as well as minerals, and models of machinery 
used in mining, the whole to be tabulated and arranged for easy 
reference, and thus to illustrate at a glance the mineral resources and 
mining enterprise of the United Kingdom. Government having 
acquiesced, the Museum in Craig’s Court was appropriated for the 
purpose. Specimens rapidly flowed in, and the small building was 
speedily filled. A larger structure was urgently needed, and the 
director having succeeded in convincing Sir Robert Peel that the 
dignity and interests of the country required that an adequate and 
appropriate structure should be erected for the exhibition of the 
mineral treasures with which it abounds, the present Museum of 
Practical Geology was founded. ‘Then arose,” to use again the 
language of the present director-general, “and very much after the 
design of Sir H. De la Beche himself, that well-adapted edifice in 
Jermyn Street, which, to the imperishable credit of its founders, stands 
forth as the first palace ever raised from the ground in Britain which 
is entirely devoted to the advancement of science.” Indeed, when we 
recollect that the value of the minerals raised in the United Kingdom 
