304 HEROES OF SCIENCE. 



product of violent convulsions and floods. His 

 frame of mind was not difficult to account for. He 

 had found, in investigating the Alps, that move- 

 ments amongst the strata had occurred on a vast 

 scale, and that whole series of them, hundreds of 

 feet thick, had not only been bent, but positively- 

 turned upside down. In 185 1 Murchison visited 

 Ireland, and geologized there, and gradually began 

 to complete his great work, entitled " Siluria ; or a 

 Description of the Geology of the Silurian Rocks 

 of the World and of their Fossils." This was 

 published in 1854. The next great act of Mur- 

 chison's was the assisting and promoting the 

 success of the geological survey of the United 

 Kingdom, and the establishment of the museum 

 in Jermyn Street. This led to the establishment 

 of the Royal School of Mines. Murchison became 

 the director of the survey, and went into the 

 subject with heart and soul, and found himself 

 surrounded by the most distinguished teachers in 

 England. 



Murchison worked personally at the Scottish 

 rocks from 1855 to 1858, and it is a matter of 

 interest that at the present day his admirable work 

 relating to the order of the older rocks is a vexed 

 question. In i860, Murchison went to the high- 

 lands for the fourth time, and came to the same 

 conclusions as before. 



Year after year the grand old man laboured on 

 for the benefit of the sciences of geology and geo- 

 graphy, and kept the geological survey in capital 



