22 



NATURE 



[May 13, 1875 



bolder man than the writer of that memoir who should 

 affirm that no sound progress was made in geology by 

 hirp. 



It is true enough, no doubt, as Prof. Geikie says, that 

 "he was not gifted with the philosophic spirit which 

 evolves broad laws and principles in science," and he 

 therefore contributed nothing to this branch of geology. 

 It is strange, in fact, that when he did express any opinion 

 on debated theories— and he did so frequently with 

 vehemence— he generally took that side which the ad- 

 vance of science has condemned as untenable ; so that 

 the only assistance he gave to theoretical geology was 

 that of affording the holders of any new theory the noto- 

 rious advantage of having some one to argue against. 

 He made no speculations himself, but only discussed 

 those of others. In fact, "he had the shrewdness to 

 know wherein his strength lay. Hence he seldom ven- 

 tured beyond the domain of fact, where his first suc- 

 cesses were won, and in which throughout his long life he 

 worked so hard and so well. In that domain he had few 

 equals." 



But for the observation of geological facts there is no 

 necessity for a universal acquaintance with science, how- 

 ever great an advantage such an acquaintance may be ; 

 and this is proved by the successful labours of many a 

 field geologist — by the example of Wm. Smith, so often 

 called the Father of English Geology, who had no such 

 advantages, and by Murchison himself, as these pages of 

 Prof. Geikie abundantly show. 



Yet there are qualities requisite for such work as Mur- 

 chison's, which are rarely so abundantly possessed as by 

 him ; they are, a keen perception of the really essential 

 features of a district, or, as Smith somewhat quaintly 

 expressed it, " a fine eye for a country ;" a power of corre- 

 lating apparently dissimilar objects ; and last, not least, 

 anuntiringindustry and perseverance that persist in pur- 

 suing an intricate subject until it is fully mastered. These 

 appear in all his work, and are well brought out in his 

 " Life." 



Although the name of Murchison is now indissolubly 

 connected with Palasozoic rocks, he did not begin his 

 geological work among them, but among those easier 

 Secondary rocks in which the order and arrangement is 

 so much clearer. His first work, in 1825, was a " Geo- 

 logical Sketch of the North-western extremity of Sussex 

 and the adjoining parts of Hants and Surrey," which was 

 certainly up to the average geology of the time, and gave 

 promise of better things in the future. Indeed, when it 

 was thus seen that he had the ability, and intended to be 

 a worker in the science, he was elected to the secretaryship 

 of the Geological and fellowship of the Royal Society, 

 rather from the hope of what he would do than from 

 what he had done — and fortunately the hope was not dis- 

 appointed. 



His next work was the determination of the age of the 

 coal-beds of Brora on the east coast of Scotland, in con- 

 nection with which he described those remarkable re- 

 mains of Secondary rocks so marvellously preserved on 

 both sides of Scotland, and which have lately been the 

 subject of such admirable and beautiful memoirs by Judd 

 and others. 



The difficulties he found in understanding some of the 

 rocks he saw on this tour induced him to seek the co- 



operation of Sedgwick, and thus commenced that long 

 and happy association of two great men, which, though 

 clouded for a time, cannot be said to have been entirely 

 broken up. We may mention here that these volumes 

 are enriched with portraits of some of the chief geologists 

 that h^ve been or are, and nothing more life-like, as far 

 as we know the originals, could be desired. 



Another of his early works, in conjunction with Sedg- 

 wick, was an account of the structure of the Eastern 

 Alps, which raised much discussion among European 

 geologists, who have not finally accepted the conclusions 

 they contended for — as, for instance, as to the age of the 

 remarkable Gos^u beds which they considered to be 

 Tertiary— though they are now generally regarded as 

 Cretaceoi]s. 



During all this time he had, like rnost geologists, 

 avoided as much as possible what he called the " inter- 

 minable Grawwacke." In the summer of 1831, however, 

 he started with his wife and " two grey nags " to make 

 the first attempt at unravelling the complicated features 

 of these slaty rocks. He determined to begin at the top 

 and trace the succession downwards. In this way he 

 made out satisfactorily that summer the limits and range 

 of the Ludlow rocks. Subsequent summers were devoted 

 to the same work, and arrangements of the Silurian rocks 

 of increasing accuracy were from time to time presented 

 to the Geological Society until his final conclusions made 

 their appearance in the " Silurian System." 



On the controversy concerning the nomenclature of the 

 Palaeozoic rocks, which led to the painful estrangement 

 between Murchison and Sedgwick, Prof. Geikie throws 

 every possible light, and renders the whole matter per- 

 fectly clear. We cannot but think, however, that Sedg- 

 wick had more cause for complaint than Prof. Geikie 

 would seem to admit, for if Murchison had no iritentio|i 

 to disparage Sedgwick's work, he really, to a great extent, 

 ignored it in comparison with his own. The facts are these. 

 Murchison, in working downwards, described as l.Qwer 

 Silurian the rocks which formed his Caradoc and Llaji- 

 deilo scries, but without defining any satisfactory base 

 line. Sedgwick, in working upwards, described as lying 

 above a series of, at that time, unfossiliferous slates, a set 

 of rocks which he called the Bala group, or Upper Cam- 

 brian. Now, though both these geologists went in com- 

 pany over both districts, they failed to discover that these 

 two series were the same — in fact, they pronounced them 

 distinct. Hence, when it was discovered that the one 

 series, the Upper Cambrian, rolled over an anticlinal into 

 the other, the Lower Silurian, each geologist blamed the 

 other for the error. But in the meantime it was ascer- 

 tained that the fossils were identical, and hence, " zoolo- 

 gically speaking," two different names could not be 

 employed. If, as Murchison supposed, there was a total 

 absence of organic remains beneath these disputed rocks, 

 much might be said in favour of associating thein in 

 name with the fossiliferous Silurian rather than with the 

 azoic Cambrian. Yet the manner in which this was done 

 by Murchison, so fully explained by his biographer, leaves 

 little surprise at Sedgwick's indignation, but only that he 

 should have been so long in discovering the drift of what 

 was being done. For in 1842 Murchison writes him a 

 letter, begging the whole question by calling them Lower 

 Silurian, as if there could be no possible idea of calling 



