393 



MURCHISON, SIR RODERICK, M.A., D.C.L. 



MURE, SIR WILLIAM. 



391 



Hartz district and Franconia on the one side, and Belgium and the 

 Boullonais on the other ; in the latter of these they were accompanied 

 by M. de Verneuil, who in 1840 was invited by Mr. Murchison to assist 

 him in exploring the peological structure of Russia, at that period very 

 little known. They visited the banks of the rivers Yolkoffand Siass, 

 and the shores of Lake Onega, then proceeded to Archangel and the 

 borders of the White Sea, and followed the river Dwina into the 

 government of Vologda. After traversing to the Volga, they returned 

 by Moscow to St. Petersburg, examining the Valdai Hills, Lake Ilmen, 

 and the banks of the rivers which they passed. Mr. Murchion 

 returned to England in 1840; but having, together with M. Verneuil, 

 been invited by the late Emperor Nicholas to superintend a geological 

 survey of Russia, the two geologists returned to St. Petersburg in the 

 spring of 1841, and being joined by Count Keyserling and Lieutenant 

 Kotsharof, they proceeded to explore the Ural Mountains, the 

 southern provinces of the empire, and the coal district? between the 

 Dnieper and the Don. In 1842 Mr. Murchison travelled alone through 

 several parts of Germany, Poland, and the Carpathian Mountains, and, 

 with the same object of rendering his great work on the geology of 

 Eastern Europe as perfect as possible, he explored in the summer of 

 1844 the Palaeozoic formations of Sweden and Norway. After his 

 return to England he completed in 1845, in conjunction with M. de 

 Verneuil and Count von Keyserling, his magnificent work on the 

 ' Geology of Russia and the Ural Mountains.' This consists of two 

 volumes in quarto ; the first relating specifically to the geological 

 part of the subject, consisting of above seven hundred pages; the 

 second, in the French language, relating to the ' Paleontologie," occu- 

 pying more than six hundred pages ; the whole copiously illustrated 

 by geological maps and sections, and by accurate figures of organic 

 remains. In 184, not Ions; after the publication of this work, Mr. 

 Murchison was knighted by her Majesty, the Emperor Nicholas having 

 previously conferred upon him several Russian orders, including that 

 of St. Stanislaus. The ' Geology of Russia ' was translated into the 

 Russian language by Colonel Oseraky, and published in 1849. In the 

 same year the author received the Copley medal from the Royal 

 Society, for the establishment of the Silurian system in geology. 



In the 'Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society,' vol. v., is 

 Sir Roderick's memoir, of more than three hundred pages, ' On the 

 Geological Structure of the Alps, Apennines, and Carpathians,' pub- 

 lished after a sixth visit to the Alps. In this he establishes the fact 

 of a graduated transition from secondary to tertiary rocks, and clearly 

 separates the great Nummulite formation from the cretaceous deposits 

 with which it had been confounded. Of this memoir a translation into 

 Italian has been published by Professors Savi and Meneghini, in their 

 work on the Alps and Apennines. 



The uppermost series of the paleozoic rocks, reposing immediately 

 upon the carboniferous system, consists of those formerly known in 

 England as the lower new red-sandstone, and the tna&mesian lime- 

 stone, and marl-slate. Sir R. Murchison having satisfied himself that 

 they constituted one natural group only, which from its organic 

 contents must be entirely separated from all formations above, pro- 

 poted in 1841 that the group should receive the name of the ' Permiau ' 

 bystem, from its extensive development in the ancient kingdom of 

 Permia, in Russia, and this denomination has been universally adopted 

 by geolo.'i-t-!. In a recent memoir (1855), produced in conjunction 

 with Professor Morris, on the German palaeozoic rocks, he has returned 

 to the subject of the Permian system, and shown that there is no 

 break between it and the lowest system of the mesozoic strata the 

 triassic which succeeds it in the ascending series ; a fact which har- 

 monises, it has bet n remarked, with an hypothesis in palaeontology 

 enunciated by the late Professor Forbes [FORBES, EDWARD] that has 

 not yet received the attention it merits. 



Th latest separate publication of Sir Roderick is an 8vo volume 

 of 538 pages, published in 1854, entitled 'Siluria : the History of the 

 oldest known Rocks containing Organic Remains, with a Brief Sketch 

 of the Distribution of Gold over the Earth." This volume, besides 

 the subjects indicated in the title, includes a brief general view of the 

 structure of the earth's crust, and more particularly of the more 

 ancicut series of strata, of which the Silurian system is the lowest; 

 and also a summary exposition of the author's views of geological 

 theory, in which, it may be noticed, he differs almost wholly from his 

 friend and contemporary Sir C. Lyell, except indeed as to the immen- 

 sity of the time which they both believe to have been required for 

 the deposition of the sedimentary rocks, though they diner again 

 perhaps in their estimate of this. The following extracts from an 

 article in the ' North British Review,' founded upon the statements of 

 '.siluria,' gives a condensed view of the subject of the discussions 

 respecting the nomenclature of the oldest strata, which have for some 

 years taken place between Sir Roderick and his former fellow-labourer 

 Professor Sedgwick, and which have attracted a considerable degree of 

 public attention. At the time when the term ' Silurian ' was applied, 

 "it was believed that the great slaty masses of North Wales, which 

 had been under the survey of Professor Sedgwick, but whose fossils 

 had not been made known, were inferior in position to the formations 

 which had been classed and whose fossils had been identified as 

 Silurian. This belief continued to be in force when the large work 

 entitled the ' Silurian System ' was published (1839) ; the itipjivtcd 

 lower rocks having been termed 'Cambrian' in 1836 by their explorer, 



Professor Sedgwick, it being then presumed that this would prove to 

 contain a distinct group of organic remains. When the masses how- 

 ever to which the name Cambrian had been given were examined in 

 detail by the numerous geologists of the Government Survey, and 

 were thus for the first time placed in correlation with the previously- 

 established Siluriau strata, it was found that the great and apparently 

 chaotic pile of Snowdon, though full of porphyry and other igneous 

 rocks, was nothing more than the absolute physical equivalent of the 

 Llandeilo formation of the Lower Silurian, and hence these gentlemen, 



with the entire approval of [the late] Sir H. T. de la Beche 



restricted the term Cambrian to the underlying grauwacko without 

 fossils." Silurian fossils being alone found in what were called 

 Cambrian rocks, the opinion expressed by Sir R. Murchison after his 

 first return from Russia " that the so-called Cambrian rocks which 

 contain fossils are merely geographical extensions (under those 

 different mineral characters so admirably described by Professor 

 Sedgwick) of the Lower Silurian deposits of the typical region .... 

 in Shropshire and the adjacent counties" must be regarded to be 

 fully verified. But it has been truly remarked that all territorial 

 designations in geology can only be provisional, and that the dawn of 

 an era in the science is already perceptible, when the terms Silurian 

 and Cambrian must both be merged in some purely philosophical 

 appellation. The name of Sir Roderick Murchison will ever be 

 associated in the genuine records both of science and of commerce 

 with the discovery of the gold-fields of Australia. The actual dis- 

 covery of the precious metal in New South Wales was made by Count 

 Strzelecki ; but to Sir Roderick belongs the merit, first, of having 

 made the inductive theoretical discovery of gold in the Australian 

 Cordillera, guided by the observations he had made in the Urals, 

 but without any knowledge of what had previously been effected; 

 and secondly, of having endeavoured (though without success) to 

 awaken the attention of the home government to the great import- 

 ance of the subject. The Rev. W. B. Clarke's indications upon it 

 in Australia seem to have been contemporaneous with those of Sir 

 H. Murchison in England. 



Referring the reader to the ' Bibliographia ' of Agassiz and Strick- 

 land for a catalogue of Sir Roderick's papers, exceeding a hundred in 

 number, inserted in the Transactions of societies and in scientific 

 journals, we may appropriately conclude this article by noticing some 

 of his more general labours in the promotion of science and its objects. 

 "After having for five years discharged the arduous duties of secretary 

 to the Geological Society, he filled the office of president in the years 

 1831 and 1832, and 1842 and 1843. When the British Association 

 assembled at York for the first time in 1831, he was one of the few 

 geologists that respoude 1 to the invitation of its founder, Sir David 

 Brewster [BHEWSTER, DAVID] ; and, fully appreciating the value of 

 such au institution, he discharged the arduous duties of general 

 secretary for several years, and was president of the Southampton 

 meeting in 1846. lu the important discussions which took place in 

 the geological section he took an active part; he communicated many 

 important papers to its different meetings ; and at Ipswich, in 1851, 

 he succeeded in establishing the new section of physical geography, 

 ethnology, and philology, thus removing geography from the geological 

 section, in which it was overborne by more popular topics of dis- 

 cussion." In connection with the British Association, he has also 

 taken an active part in pressing upon the government and the legis- 

 lature the importance of carrying on the Ordnance Trigonometrical 

 Survey of Scotland with greater speed. 



In 1844 Sir R. Murchison was elected President of the Royal 

 Geographical Society, and was re-elected in the following year. In 

 1852 he again became president, and succeeded in obtaining from the 

 government a grant of awl. annually in aid of its maintenance and 

 public objects. On the decease of Rear- Admiral Beechcy, in 1856, 

 he was made president of this important society for the third time. 



Sir Roderick has received the honorary degrees of M.A. from the 

 universities of Cambridge aud Dublin and D.C.L. from that of Oxford; 

 he is a trustee of the British Museum. He is also a member of all the 

 principal scientific academies of Europe, including the Imperial Insti- 

 tute ot France. In 1855, in consequence of a memorial which had 

 been presented to the government alter the decease of Sir H. T. de la 

 Beche, signed by the leading geologists and men of .science in every 

 department, the direction of the National Geological Survey, and of 

 the School of Practical Science in connection with it, including that of 

 the Museum of Practical Geology in Jermyn-street, London, was 

 conferred upon Sir Roderick Murchison. 



MURE, SIR WILLIAM, of Rowallau, in the county of Ayr, was 

 born about the year 1594. He was the eldest son aud heir of a knight 

 of the same name, and the family to which he belonged was one of 

 the most ancient and distinguished in that part of the country. Of 

 the poet's early life few memorials have been preserved. It would 

 appear however that his character and genius were soon developed : 

 there is a specimen of his verses in English, dated in 1611, when he 

 could be little more than seventeen years old. Before his twentieth 

 year he attempted a version of the classic story of Dido and yEneas ; 

 and in 1617, when he was scarce four-and twenty, he addressed the 

 king at Hamilton, ou his progress through the country, in a poetical 

 piece which is embodied in the collection entitled ' The Muse's 

 Welcome.' Previous to this time, when he came of age, yet before he 



