292 HEROES OF SCIENCE. 



westward for a fortnight into Devon and Cornwall, 

 to make his first acquaintance with the rocks to 

 which, in after years, Sedgwick and he were to 

 give the name by which they are now recognized 

 all over the world. It was in the course of this 

 tour that he met with a man, whom he has the 

 merit of having brought into notice, and who cer- 

 tainly amply requited him by the services rendered 

 in later years. William Lonsdale had served in 

 the Peninsular war, and retired on half-pay to 

 Bath. With the most simple and abstemious 

 habits, his slender income sufficed not only for his 

 wants, but for the purchase of any book or fossil 

 he coveted, and so he spent his time in studying 

 the organic remains, and especially the fossil corals, 

 to be found in his neighbourhood. Murchison met 

 him accidentally in some quarries, "a tall, grave 

 man, with a huge hammer on his shoulder," and 

 found him so full of information, that he stayed 

 some days at Bath under Lonsdale's guidance. 



With the enlargement of view which so in- 

 structive a ramble had given him, Murchison 

 prepared and read to the Geological Society, on 

 i6th December, 1825, his first scientific paper — "A 

 Geological Sketch of the North-western Extremity 

 of Sussex, and the adjoining parts of Hants and 

 Surrey." This little essay bore manifest evidence 

 of being the result of careful observation of the 

 order of succession of the rocks in the field, 

 followed by as ample examination of their fossils 

 as he could secure, from those best qualified to give 



