267 



vial Phenomena in North Wales*/' He was a contributor to the 

 Linnean Society of a paper on the adaptation of Sloths to their way 

 of lifef (1835) ; and furnished many essays and notices on special 

 subjects of interest to the Philosophical Magazine, Silliman's Journal, 

 the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, and the Reports of the British 

 Association. The list published by Agassiz of the works and essays 

 which bear the name of Buckland, extends to 66 spread over the 

 whole period of his life in Oxford since 1813. In 1845 he became 

 Dean of Westminster, and changed his residence, but not his habits 

 of mental and bodily exertion. Sanitary measures, amendments in 

 his Cathedral, agricultural improvements, the potato disease, all oc- 

 cupied his attention, and consumed his time, so that from this time 

 he almost ceased to labour as an author, though he still continued 

 with unabated zeal the duties of his Professorship. 



Dr. Buckland's numerous publications include very largely the 

 results of personal observation, on features of physical geography, 

 the succession of strata, the distribution of glacial detritus, the struc- 

 ture, habits of life, manner of death, and mode of occurrence of ex- 

 tinct animals. To him, more than to any geologist, are we indebted 

 for unexpected suggestions, curious inquiries, and novel kinds of evi- 

 dence. Thus in Kirkdale Cave, the peculiar condition of the broken 

 hones the smoothed surfaces of some theworn aspect of others the 

 condition of the teeth the layers of Stalagmite the 'Album Graecum* 

 became in the mind of Buckland evidence of the mode of life and 

 death of the former inhabitants. The footprints of Cheirotherium 

 were joined with the ripple-mark of the rain-spot to determine the 

 character of the mesozoic shore : Coprolites were searched for the 

 food of the Ichthyosaurus ; snails were studied to explain holes in 

 limestone ; gelatine was extracted from the Mammoth's bones ; toads 

 were enclosed in cavities to determine their tenacity of life ; the living 

 hyaena was set to crush the bones of an ox, and thus to furnish evi- 

 dence for the conviction of the old midnight robber of preglacial 

 caverns. 



Of general views on geology, Dr. Buckland was sparing as an 

 author, though frequently and eloquently he declared them as a 

 Professor. Physical Geology in its higher forms had scarcely exist- 

 ence in the earlier part of his career. Instead of contributing to its 

 * Geol. Soc. Proc. vol. iii. t Linn. Trans, vol. xvii. 



