MURCHISON. 291 



and with a few fundamental principles which have 

 determined the sculpturing of the earth's surface. 

 His audience came to see merely a rich vale in the 

 midst of fertile England, but before they quitted 

 the ground, the landscape had been made to yield 

 up to them, clear notions of the origin of springs 

 and the principles of drainage. This was the very 

 kind of instruction needed to fan the growing flame 

 of Murchison's zeal for science. He returned to 

 town burning with desire to put his knowledge to 

 some use by trying to imitate, no matter how 

 feebly, the admirable way in which the Oxford 

 professor had applied the lessons of the lecture- 

 room to the elucidation of the history of hills and 

 valleys. 



Murchison started with his wife in the middle of 

 August, on a tour of nine weeks along the south 

 coast, from the Isle of Wight into Devon and 

 Cornwall. Taking a light carriage and a pair of 

 horses, he made the journey in short stages, linger- 

 ing for days at some of the more interesting or 

 important geological localities. Driving, boating, 

 walking, or scrambling, the enthusiastic pair sig- 

 nalized their first geological tour by a formidable 

 amount of bodily toil. 



Mrs. Murchison specially devoted herself to the 

 collection of fossils, and to sketching the more 

 striking geological features of the coast-line, while 

 her husband would push on to make some long 

 and laborious detour. In this way, while she re- 

 mained quietly working at Lyme Regis, he struck 



