CHAPTER III 



THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY UNDER THE OFFICE OF WORKS 



ON the ist April 1845, the beginning of the Par- 

 liamentary financial year, the Geological Survey was 

 formally taken over from the Master -General and 

 Board of Ordnance, and was placed ' under the direc- 

 tion and supervision of the First Commissioner of Her 

 Majesty's Woods, Forests, Land Revenues, Works, 

 and Buildings.' The staff was partly reorganised and 

 somewhat augmented. At the same time the geo- 

 logical mapping of Ireland, which had been partially 

 done for some of the north-eastern counties by Captain 

 Portlock 1 under the Ordnance department, was now 

 definitely undertaken upon the same lines as those 

 followed in the larger island. The Irish Survey was 

 made to form part of an organisation which embraced 

 the whole United Kingdom, and which now became 

 1 The Geological Survey of Great Britain and 

 Ireland.' 



The chief appointments of the staff thus enlarged 

 were arranged as follows : Sir Henry De la Beche had 

 charge of the whole organisation, with the title of 

 Director-General. The immediate supervision of the 



1 J. E. Portlock, born 1794, died 1864 ; best known to geologists for his 

 excellent memoir on the ' Geology of Londonderry, Tyrone, and Fermanagh, 

 with portions of the Adjacent Counties.' He was President of the Geological 

 Society in 1856-58. 



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