MURCHISON, RODERICK I. 



533 



had written, for some time, poems and prose 

 articles over his fictitious signature of Fried- 

 rich Halm, and in 1834 procured, while still 

 preserving his incognito, the representation of 

 his first drama, "Griselda," at the Royal Theatre 

 of Vienna. It was received with the most 

 enthusiastic applause, and had a long run. 

 This was followed by " Camoens" (1838); 

 "Imelda Larribertazzi" (1839) ; " The Son of the 

 Desert" (1842); "Maria de Molino" (1847); 

 "A Mild Decree " (" .# Mildes Urtheil ) (1849) ; 

 and the " Gladiator of Ravenna " (1856). The 

 continued success of the last betrayed the real 

 name of the author, who had, for more than 

 twenty years, preserved his secret. Several 

 of these dramas have been translated into most 

 of the languages of Europe. Baron Miinch- 

 Bellinghausen had also translated and adopted 

 very successfully several of Shakespeare's and 

 Lope de Vega's plays. He composed two or 

 three classic tragedies, his "Sampiero" and 

 "Iphiyenia in Delphis " being those best known. 

 He has also produced a number of comedies 

 which are very popular on the German stage. 

 His poems have been collected in a single vol- 

 ume, published in 1850. Since 1840, he had 

 been a Government Councillor, and since 1845 

 Grand Councillor of State and First Director 

 of the Imperial Library, and in connection 

 with the latter appointment published in 1852 

 a treatise on the old collections of Spanish 

 plays. He was one of the most active and in- 

 fiuential members of the Imperial Academy 

 of Vienna. Baron Munch - Bellinghausen's 

 great ability as a dramatic writer lay in his 

 objectivity. Unlike most of the German dram- 

 atists, he never gave his own sentiments and 

 emotions as those of his dramatic heroes. For 

 the time he so thoroughly lived and acted the 

 character he represented, that he uttered its 

 thoughts rather than his own. 



MURCHISON, Sir RODERICK: IMPEY, Bart., 

 K. C. B., an English geologist, geographer, and 

 author, born at Tarradale, Rosshire, Scotland, 

 February 19, 1792; died in London, October 

 22, 1871. He commenced his education at 

 Durham Grammar-School, whence he pro- 

 ceeded to the Royal Military College at Marlow. 

 In 1807 he obtained his commission in the ar- 

 my, and served throughout the Peninsular 

 War. He was first in the Thirty-sixth foot, af- 

 terward on the staff of his uncle, General Sir 

 Alexander Mackenzie, and lastly became cap- 

 tain in the Sixth Dragoons. In 1815 he married 

 Charlotte, only daughter of General Hugonin ; 

 and it was from Lady Murchison, herself a 

 most able conchologist, that he received his 

 first impulse toward the pursuit of geological 

 science. His first geological observations were 

 made in the south of England ; and, in 1825, he 

 read before the Geological Society, of which 

 he had just become a member, a paper "On 

 the Geological Formation of the Northwest 

 Extremity of Sussex, and the Adjoining Parts 

 of Hampshire and Surrey." In 1826 he ex- 

 amined the coal strata of Sutherlandshire, 



which he proved to be a branch of the Oolitic 

 series ; and, in 1827, accompanied by Prof. 

 Adam Sedgwick, he again explored the High- 

 lands of Scotland, and showed that the pri- 

 mary sandstone of McCulloch was but the Old 

 Red Sandstone, now called Devonian. The 

 next year, accompanied by Mr. Lyell, he ex- 

 amined the volcanic rocks of Auvergne, and 

 the tertiary strata of Southern France, and 

 illustrated, from their united observations 

 thereon, the process of excavation of valleys. 

 He then traversed, alone, the eastern chain of 

 the Alps, and, conjointly with Prof. Sedgwick, 

 published the results in 1829 and 1830. About 

 the year 1830 Mr. Murchison undertook a sys- 

 tematic examination of the sedimentary de- 

 posits of remote periods, as seen in South 

 Wales, Herefordshire, and Shropshire, and, 

 introducing order where confusion had been 

 before, he formed a unique system, to which 

 he gave the name of the " Silurian System," 

 as one of the great distinctive divisions of 

 English geology. In 1831 he laid the result 

 of his researches before the first meeting of 

 the British Association, of which he was gen- 

 eral secretary for several years, and in 1846 

 president. His important work, entitled " The 

 Silurian System," was published in 1839. In 

 1840 he invited M. de Verneuil to assist him 

 in exploring the then little-known geological 

 structure of Russia; and, in 1841, these two 

 geologists were requested by the Emperor 

 Nicholas to superintend a geological survey of 

 the empire. Accompanied by Count Keyser- 

 ling and Lieutenant Hotsharoff, they explored 

 the Ural Mountains, the southern provinces 

 of Russia, and the coal districts between the 

 Dnieper and the Don. In 1842 he traversed 

 alone a great portion of Germany, Poland, and 

 the Carpathians, and, in 1844, explored the 

 paleozoic formation of Sweden and Norway. 

 Having satisfied himself that the uppermost 

 series of the palaeozoic rocks, consisting of 

 those formerly known in England as the lower 

 New Red Sandstone, and the magnesian lime- 

 stone and marl slate, constituted one natural 

 group only, he proposed, in 1841, that it should 

 receive the name of the Permian System, from 

 its extensive development in the ancient king- 

 dom of Permia, in Russia. In 1845 he pub- 

 lished, in conjunction with M. de Verneuil, his 

 " Geology of Russia and the Ural Mountains," 

 2 vols., 4to. One result of these Russian ex- 

 plorations was that remarkable deduction, 

 worked out by force of comparative geology 

 in his own study, which of itself would ^have 

 sufficed to win him an undying reputation 

 viz., the theoretical discovery of the gold- 

 fields of Australia, from the analogy of their 

 physical formation to that of the Ural Moun- 

 tains. In 1855 Sir Roderick was appointed 

 Director General of the Geological Survey of 

 England, as successor to Sir Henry De la 

 Beche. In 1854 he summarized his experiences 

 on the Silurian System, in his great work en- 

 titled " Siluria;" and, in 1856, he brought out 



