17 



PORTEUS, BEILBY. 



POHTLOCK, JOSEPH ELLISON. 



PORTEUS, BEILBY, an eminent English prelate, was born at York 

 in 1731. He passed reveral yean at a imall school in bin native city, 

 and at the ace of thirteen he was removed to a school at Kipon. 

 From tins plare he went at an earlier age tlmn uiual to Cambridge, 

 where h was admitted a sizar of Christ's College. His personal 

 worth, united with his superior attainment*, both classical and mathe- 

 matical, soon procured him a fellowship in his college, and by the 

 exertions of his friends he was made esquire-beadle of the university. 

 This office he did not long retain, but chose rather to give bia 

 undivided attention to private pupils. In 17S7, at the age of twenty- 

 fix, he was ordained deacon, and soon after priest. 



He first became known as a writer by obtaining Seaton'a prize for 

 the best Kneli-h poem on a sacred subject On this occasion the 

 subject was ' Death/ and the production of Mr. Portens was univer- 

 sally deemed one of great merit. In 1762 he was made chaplain to 

 Archbishop Seeker. His first preferments were two small livings in 

 Kent, which he soon resigned, and took the rectory of H union in the 

 tame county. He was next appointed prebendary of Peterborough, 

 and not long afterwards, in 1767, he became rector of Lambeth. In 

 the same year he took the degree of D.D. at Cambridge, and in 1769 

 was made chaplain to King George III., and master of the hospital of 

 8t Cross, near Winchester. In 1773 Dr. Portous, with a few other 

 clergymen, joined in on unavailing application to the bishops, request- 

 ing that they would review the Liturgy and Articles for the purpose 

 of making some slight alterations. In 1776 Dr. Portens, without any 

 solicitation on his part, was made bishop of Chester ; and in 1787, on 

 the death of Bishop Lowth, he was promoted to the diocese of London, 

 over which be presided till his death. In 1798 he began a course of 

 lectures on St Matthew's Gospel, which he delivered at St. James's 

 church on the Fridays in Lent, and which he afterwards published. 

 These lectures have been perhaps the most popular of all his works. 

 He died on the 14th of May 1808, in the 78th year of his age. 

 Though Bishop Portens cannot be called a profound scholar or divine, 

 he was a man of considerable learning and ability ; and he pursued 

 through life a steady course of pious exertion for the benefit of his 

 fellow-creatures, which procured him a high reputation among men of 

 all parties. His works, consisting of sermons and tracts, with a ' Life 

 of Archbishop Seeker,' and the poem and lectures already mentioned, 

 were collected and published in 1811, in 5 vols. Svo, with his 'Life/ 

 making another volume, by his nephew, the Rev. Robert Hodgson, 

 afterwards dean of Carlisle. 



PORTLOCK, JOSEPH ELLISON, Lieutenant-Colonel of Royal 

 Engineers, F.K.S., President of the Geological Society. The subject 

 of this notice is one of the many distinguished men who have been 

 supplied to the service of science, and not nnfrequcntly to that of 

 administrative government, by the corps of Royal Engineers, and of 

 whom some eminent examples have already been commemorated in 

 this work. Several of these, like Colonel Portlock, have been officers 

 of the Ordnance Survey ; but the character of being equally aecom- 

 plUhod in geodesy and geology is almost peculiar to him. The Trigo- 

 nometrical Survey of Ireland having bcecn determined upon by the 

 government in the year 1824, Lieutenant Portlock was immediately 

 attached to that great work : lie enjoyed during the early periods of 

 the survey the privilege of a most close and confidential intimacy 

 with the superintendent, the late Major-General (then Colonel) Colby 

 fCoLBT, THOMAS], and performed the same functions as regarded the 

 Irish as were performed by the late Colonel R. Z Mudge in respect to 

 the Knzlish survey. In this commencement of the Irish survey, the 

 staff of officers of the Royal Engineers attached to the superintendent 

 comprised Lieuts. Portlock, Drummond [DKUMMOND, THOMAS], aud 

 Murphy. The actual survey was begun in 1825, and, among other 

 preparatory measures, Lieutenant Portlock was sent in that year into 

 the Isle of Man, and in the following year into Wales and Anglesca, to 

 recover the sites of the old station*, and re-establish upon them the 

 means of recognition when they should be again observed in connecting 

 the former trianculation of Gnat Britain with that about to be com- 

 menced in Ireland. When this had been accomplished, he joined Lieu- 

 tenant (now Colonel) Larcom at Slieve Donnrd, in the county of Down, 

 the station for that year ; and after his chiefs arrival and departure, 

 computed the observations of the station, Lieut Larcom reflecting to 

 him with a heliostat from Anglesea. From this time the personal 

 superintendence of the great triangulation of Ireland (with the 

 exception of the stations connected with and in the immediate vici- 

 nity of the Lough Foyle base) was confided to Lieutenant Portlock, 

 who also eventually received the charge of the secondary and minor 

 triangulation, and of the computation! for the supply of distances and 

 altitudes, Colonel Colby continuing however to visit the stations occa- 

 sionally. The privations and the consequences of exposure to the 

 rngg>d influences of nature which wore endured by the officers both 

 on the Scotch and the Irish surveys have been related in articles 

 already referred to : Lieutenant Portlock fully participated in them. On 

 the station of Cnooanafrion, in the county of Waterford, the otwerva- 

 tory was placed on a stage erected against the face of a rock, the 

 actual peak of which wan the station, and stood on the very brink of 

 a precipice. At the station of Culcagh, a lofty mountain near Swod- 

 Unbar, on the borders of the counties of Cavau and Fermanagh, 

 I'ortlock had subsequently to explain the system pursued in the great 

 triangulation to the late Sir Jamce Carmichaol Smith and Lieut-Col. 



Hoete, R.E., acting as commissioners of inquiry into the management 

 of the Irish survey, who were accompanied to the station by Colonel 

 Colby ; and, in answer to their questions, to vindicate its merits. One 

 of the most noticeable features here was an alteration in the con- 

 struction of the portable observatory of the survey, which had been 

 devised by him, the new observatory being first pitched on this moun- 

 tain. For the old canvas sides, with the exception of a rim at the 

 top of about nine inches deep, w<re substituted frame 1 wooden 

 panels, tied together with iron clamps, and secured in a similar 

 manner to the posts or pillars which supported the roof. This simple 

 alteration imparted to the observatory "a degree of itnbili- 

 security which banished from the observer's mind those terrors which 

 had before haunted and harassed him in stormy weather," and by 

 this effect had an important influence in the subsequent conduct of 

 the operations. A miniature observatory, exactly similar in 

 struction, contained the various meteorological instrument!. The 

 commissioners expressed the highest admiration of what they saw 

 and of what had been explained to them ; though, to the great regret 

 of Colonel Portlock, " whilst they praised the executive officer [him- 

 self], they overlooked or failed to appreciate the merit" of hia friend 

 and chief Colonel Colby. 



On making preparations for beginning the survey, Colonel Col' 

 expressed his conviction " that the Topographical Survey should be 

 considered a foundation for Statistical, Antiquarian, and Geological 

 Surveys." The government having concurred in this view, Portlock 

 was appointed to the charge of the last- mentioned portion of the work 

 as soon as the exigencies of the trigonometrical survey itself permitted 

 these subordinate objects to receive attention. The origin. .1 , 

 having been resumed about the year 1832, and Portlock having, about 

 the same time, commenced the formation of a geological deportment, 

 he was requested, in 1834, to contribute to the projected memoir of 

 Londonderry, in addition to the geology, the two sections, natural 

 history and productive economy. He engaged a botanist, and addi- 

 tional collectors for geology were employed, as well as collectors for 

 zoology, both land aud marine ; and a department was formed for 

 collecting and recording statistical information also. In 1837 I'ortlock 

 was enabled, from the advanced state of the works he had been pre- 

 viously conducting, to direct hia attention more exclusively to the 

 geological department, then comprising also the two sections just 

 mentioned. For this purpose, by Colonel Colby's desire, he formed at 

 Belfast a geological and statistical office, a museum for geological nnd 

 zoological specimens, and a laboratory for the examination of soils. 

 But only three years afterwards, " when every section of the depart- 

 ment was moving forward with a prospect of success, the design of 

 continuing the Londonderry Memoir was abandoned, aud the office, 

 museum, and laboratory at Belfast, were in consequence broken up, 

 aud everything connected with the department removed to Dublin." 



Soon after his own removal to the Irish metropolis, Captain I'ort- 

 lock was directed to prepare for publication all the geological data 

 which had been collected for the county of Derry and barony of L>un- 

 gannon in Tyrone (a district " comprising a Silurian deposit rich in 

 fossils, the old red sandstone, a portion of the carboniferous strata, 

 the new red sandstone including the trias, the chalk, and tertiary 

 deposits"), but he found it indispensable to extend his researches 

 further into Tyrone and also into Fermanagh. " In aelectiug the 

 silurian fossils for more especial illustration, I have been influenced," 

 says Captain Portlock, in the preface to the elaborate Report on hU 

 labours, ' by the principle of fixing the base of the Irish fossiliferoua 

 strata, and by a desire to make known a formation previously almost 

 new to Irish geology, and, though limited iu space, rich in the most 

 characteristic fossils of American, European, and British localities. 

 In like manner I have placed before the public the Irish to-ionic fossils 

 before unknown." The elaborate work thus produced is entitled 

 " Report on the Geology of the County of Londonderry, aud of parts 

 of Tyrone and Fermanagh. Examined and described under the 

 authority of the Master-General and Board of Ordnance,' Dublin and 

 London, 1843, Svo, pp. xxxi, and 784. It is illustrated by :; litho- 

 graphic plates of organic remains, 9 lithographic geological sections 

 and views, including a plan; also by a large "Index [Map] to the 

 Ordnance Geological Maps of the County of Londonderry and portions 

 of Tyrone, Fermanagh, Donegal and Armagh." In the actual field- 

 work as well as in the composition of the Report, Captain 1'ortlock's 

 chief-aniihtant was Mr. Thomas Uldbaui, afterwards president of tho 

 Geological Society of Dublin, and Professor of Geology in Dublin 

 University, and now (1 867) engaged iu the geological survey of India fur 

 the East India Company. The work it-elf is one of the most remarkable 

 contributions extant to the local geology of the British Islands. 



An interruption now took place in Captain Portlock's career as a 

 geologist Notwithstanding the eminence he was attaining as the 

 conductor of the geological department of the Ordnance Survey of 

 Ireland, he was ordered to thu Ionian Islands, in discharge of the 

 ordinary duties of an officer of engineers. But having been stationed 

 at Corfu, ho recommenced his scientific labours, both as a geologist 

 and a military engineer. Under the date of 'Corfu, October 4, 

 in vol. viii (London 1845) of 'Papers on subjects connected with the 

 duties of the Corns of Royal Engineers/ appears an important com- 

 munication by him, entitled 'Notes on Platforms.' This contains 

 both a theoretical and an experimental investigation of the requisite 



