2i: 



NATURE 



[July 3, 1890 



Neither of Sedgwick's opponents afterwards made any 

 name as geologists, though the second of them lived to 

 fight a battle for religious freedom in the Church of 

 England. 



At once Sedgwick threw himself heart and soul into 

 his subject. Geology at that time signified little more 

 than an excrescential growth from mineralogy, which 

 became the less scientific the further it departed from its 

 support. Still, the Geological Society of London had 

 already been founded full ten years ; and the men were now 

 hard at work who were to roll away the reproach from 

 geology, and lay its foundations on the sure ground of 

 observation and induction. Neptune had failed to ex- 

 tinguish the torch of Pluto, and the Wernerians were 

 retreating before the Huttonians ; William Smith had 

 already published his wonderful maps, and had set in 

 order, almost single-handed, the newer rocks of England ; 

 but below the base of the Carboniferous system a great 

 field for research still remained, in which the generation 

 of Sedgwick's more immediate contemporaries were 

 destined to win their laurels. 



Sedgwick's first geological journeys were in Derbyshire 

 and Staffordshire, in the Isle of Wight, and on the coast 

 of Suffolk. But the learner quickly became an investi- 

 gator. Even in 1818 he began to attack the problems 

 presented by the older rocks of the south-west of England; 

 thence he turned aside to examine Eastern Yorkshire 

 and Durham. Difficult problems seemed from the first 

 to have for Sedgwick a peculiar fascination, and in 1822 

 he grapi)Ied with those presented by the Lake District. 

 In 1827 began his association with Murchison, whom he 

 accompanied in a geological tour to Scotland, and joined 

 in a paper on the results. The following summer saw 

 them companions in their notable researches in Germany 

 and the Tyrol, which produced another joint communi- 

 cation. By this time Sedgwick's merits had been recog- 

 nized by his election to the Presidency of the Geological 

 Society. 



The year 1831 brought two important crises in Sedg- 

 wick's life — the one the offer of a valuable living from 

 the Lord Chancellor, the other the beginning of his work 

 in North Wales. That offer he declined, making a 

 mistake, as several of his friends thought — an opinion to 

 which his biographer inclines. Probably Sedgwick would 

 have been a healthier man in a country rectory — for the 

 climate of Cambridge was not suitable to him— and a 

 happier man in married life. But science, we think, 

 would have lost. It might not have been so with some 

 men, but it was Sedgwick's nature to throw himself with 

 all his heart into whatever work he undertook ; so that in 

 all probability the interest felt for his parishioners and 

 his home circle would gradually have extruded geology 

 from his thoughts. In this case science would have had 

 to wait some time for the unraveUing of much complicated 

 stratigraphy ; the collections of the Woodwardian Museum 

 might have remained in a comparatively impoverished 

 condition, and the University would have lost the quicken- 

 ing action of Sedgwick's influence on generations of its 

 students. 



Next year Sedgwick took a new departure in author- 

 ship. A College Commemoration sermon, which he had 

 been asked to print, increased under his hands, with a 

 ■prefatory head and a commentarial tail, till the " Discourse 

 NO. 1079, VOL. 42] 



on the Studies of the University of Cambridge " expanded 

 into a book, and became, as he phrased it, "a grain of 

 wheat between two millstones." In 1834 he was made a 

 Prebendary of Norwich, a preferment which, though its 

 duties often seriously interrupted his scientific work, was 

 a welcome addition to his income, which up to that time 

 had hardly sufficed for the numerous calls upon it. 



For the next six years his work in the field was less and 

 his papers rather fewer ; henceforth interruptions obviously 

 became more frequent. The rearrangement of his fine 

 geological collections, for which at last a museum had 

 been provided ; political incidents, in which he took an 

 active interest ; visits to and from distinguished friends, 

 which became more numerous as his fame increased — 

 all these proved, as they always prove, detrimental to 

 work which requires steady and continuous application. 

 But as the scientific interest of the book wanes a little, 

 its general interest increases. Graphic sketches of notable 

 personages appear more frequently in Sedgwick's letters, 

 which come nearer to being a journal of his life. They 

 bring out also — for many of them are written to young 

 folks — all the tenderness of his nature : they intersperse 

 fatherly advice with accounts of his doings, now grave, 

 now comic. One moment he pulverizes a scientific foe ; 

 the next, gives his niece a ludicrous lesson on the pro- 

 nunciation of Welsh. The election of Prince Albert to 

 the Chancellorship of the University of Cambridge, in 

 which Sedgwick took a leading part, still further interfered 

 with his devotion to science, for it led to his acting as the 

 Prince's secretary in Cambridge, and holding a place on 

 a Commission for the Reform of the University. This, 

 however, is a gain to the book, for his private letters give 

 many interesting details of the Royal visit to Cambridge, 

 and especially of the home life of the Queen and Prince 

 Albert at Osborne. 



After a time, about the year 1851, the Silurian question, 

 presently to be noticed, spurred Sedgwick into renewed 

 activity in his old field of work, but led to the unhappy 

 result of his alienation from Murchison and his estrange- 

 ment from the Geological Society. The burden of years, 

 however, was now beginning to make itself felt, for in 

 1855, when he reviewed the controversy in his introduc- 

 tion to McCoy's " Description of British Palaeozoic 

 Fossils," he attained the age of threescore and ten. 

 Henceforth the path of his life became sadder ; one by 

 one friends passed away, the infirmities of age increased, 

 and though at times the old fire flashed up, and for a 

 while the racy phrase and eloquent speech would 

 return, he now felt, as most must feel, something of the 

 poena diu viveiitibus. Still he was able, up to about 

 1863, to take occasionally an active part in passing events,, 

 though more and more he was compelled to avoid excite- 

 ment and fatigue, and thus his life at Cambridge was 

 often lonesome. During the last ten years he sometimes 

 suffered severely ; almost he might have described himself 

 as " sans teeth, sans eyes," sans ears, though happily not 

 " sans everything," for the mind, as his letters show, con- 

 tinued unclouded, though, of course, sometimes that 

 memory, once so marvellously retentive, failed a little. Na 

 part of the book is more tender, none more sympathetic, 

 than the account of Sedgwick's last years. Early in 1873 

 came the closing scene, in the rooms in Trinity, which had 

 been for so many years his chief home. 



