THE GEOLOGICAL WORK 



OF 



CHARLES LAPWORTH, M.Sc., LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S. 



I. LIFE. 



CHARLES LAPWORTH was born on September aoth, 1842, at 

 Faringdon, in Berkshire. Five years afterwards his parents re- 

 moved to Lower Newton, one of the farms rented by his grand- 

 father. He attended the country school of Buckland, about two 

 miles off, and the Vicar of the parish, the Rev. Joseph Moore, 

 finding him an omnivorous reader, lent him books from the library 

 of his beautiful house and practically directed his early education. 

 His mother's influence supported him in his determination to devote 

 himself to the profession of teaching. At the age of 15 he became 

 a pupil teacher in the school, and in the year 1862 entered the 

 Training College at Culham, near Oxford, passing out thence in 

 1864 with a first-class Government certificate. Of the posts as 

 schoolmaster offered to him he selected that connected with the 

 Episcopal Church at Galashiels, because it would give him a home 

 and work in the fascinating borderland of Sir Walter Scott. This 

 post he retained for eleven years, and was married in 1869 to the 

 daughter of Mr. Walter Sanderson, who survives him, and to whose 

 lifelong devotion and thoughtful care he owed much that rendered 

 his work possible. 



His holidays and spare time were spent in wandering over 

 the Border region, and about 1866 or 1867 he appears to have 

 become interested in geology, zest being given to the work by the 

 discovery of fossils in rocks which had hitherto been considered 

 barren. In 1869, m company with his friend, Mr. James Wilson, 

 he began the study of the geology of the district round Galashiels. 

 As his work became known he was visited by many eminent 

 geologists, among whom may be named Sir William Dawson, 

 Mr. Hopkinson, Professor Harkness, and Professor Nicholson, with 

 whom he formed a life-long friendship. 



In 1875 he was appointed to one of the assistant-masterships 

 in the Madras College, St. Andrews. While here he not only 

 continued his study of the Scottish Uplands, but found time to 

 visit localities in England and Wales of importance to his work. 



He was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society in 1872, 

 and received the Murchison Fund in 1878, a few months after the 

 reading of his great paper on the Moffat Series. 



