248 The Founders of Geology LECT. 



war. He carried the colours of his regiment at the battle 

 of Vimieira, took part in the retreat to Corunna and 

 narrowly escaped being taken prisoner by the French. On 

 the conclusion of the Napoleonic wars, seeing no longer 

 any prospect of military activity or distinction, he quitted 

 the army, married, and for some years devoted himself 

 with ardour to fox-hunting, in which his love of an open-air 

 life and of vigorous exercise could have full gratification. 

 But he was made for a nobler kind of existence than that 

 of a mere Nimrod. His wife, a woman of cultivated tastes, 

 had led him to take much interest in art and antiquities, 

 and when Sir Humphry Davy, who also recognized his 

 qualities, urged him to turn his attention to science, she 

 strenuously encouraged him to follow the advice. He at 

 last sold his hunters, came to London, and began to attend 

 lectures on chemistry and geology at the Eoyal Institution. 

 Murchison was thirty-two years old before he showed 

 any interest in science. But his ardent and active tempera- 

 ment spurred him on. His enthusiasm was thoroughly 

 aroused, and his progress became rapid. He joined the 

 Geological Society, and having gained the goodwill of 

 Buckland, went down to Oxford for his first geological 

 excursions under the guidance of that genial professor. 

 He then discovered what field-geology meant, and learnt 

 how the several parts of a landscape depend for their 

 position and form upon the nature of the rocks underneath. 

 He returned to London with his zeal aflame, burning to 

 put into practice the principles of observation he had now 

 been taught. He began among the Cretaceous formations 

 around his father-in-law's home in Sussex, but soon 

 extended his explorations into Scotland, France and the 



