294 HEROES OF SCIENCE. 



might readily settle this question ; Murchison 

 resolved to try. 



Again he prepared himself by reading and study 

 of fossils to understand the evidence he was to 

 collect and interpret, and in order to do full justice 

 to the Scottish tract, he went first to the Yorkshire 

 coast, and made himself master of the succession, 

 and leading characters of the rocks so admirably 

 displayed along that picturesque line of cliffs. 

 The summer had hardly begun before he and his 

 wife broke up their camp in London and were on 

 the move northwards. At York he made the 

 acquaintance of two men, with whom he was 

 destined in after life to have much close intercourse 

 and co-operation— the Rev. William Vernon (after- 

 wards Vernon Harcourt) and Mr. (subsequently 

 Professor) John Phillips. 



Murchison's own record of the meeting is as 

 follows : — " Phillips, then a youth, was engaged in 

 arranging a small museum at York. He recom- 

 mended Murchison strongly to his uncle, William 

 Smith, who was then living at Scarborough, and 

 had little intercourse with the Geological Society. 

 From the moment I had my first walk with William 

 Smith (then about sixty years old), I felt that he 

 was just the man after my own heart ; and he, on 

 his part, seeing that I had, as he said, * an eye for 

 a country,' took to me, and gave me most valuable 

 lessons. Thus he made me thoroughly acquainted 

 with all the strata north and south of Scarborough. 

 He afterwards accompanied me in a boat all along 



