114 HISTORY OF GEOLOGY AND PAL/EONTOLOGY. 



of the rocks, and by their extraordinary number of careful 

 observations. 



Farey published a General View of the Agriculture and 

 Minerals of Derbyshire in 1815, with geological sections and 

 maps. Thomas Webster and Professor William Buckland 1 

 studied the character and distribution of the younger sedi- 

 mentary rocks of England. Buckland described in detail 

 the pebble and sand deposits above the Tertiary formations 

 and below the very youngest fluviatile, lacustrine, or marine 

 deposits. He identified the widely-distributed pebble-beds 

 with the epoch of the universal Deluge, and called them 

 Diluvial detritus; the youngest deposits he termed Post- 

 diluvial (alluvial) detritus. He also made a large collection of 

 fossils from the Liassic and Oolite series in the Midlands, and 

 followed William Smith's initiative in working out successive 

 horizons upon palaxmtological evidence. Buckland's system 

 of the Secondary formations, more especially of the Jurassic 

 formation, has remained a model of clearly-defined paUeonto- 

 logical horizons of strata. 



The magnificently-formed basaltic pillars of StafTa, the 

 Giant's Causeway, and County Antrim early attracted notice. 

 Pennant's Book of Travel (1774) gave descriptions and illus- 

 trations of these, without attempting any explanation of their 

 origin. John Whitehurst (1786), the Rev. William Hamilton 

 (1790), and Abraham Mills (1790) advanced the idea of a 

 volcanic origin, and Faujas de Saint-Fond, after a journey in 

 Scotland and Ireland, supported this explanation. 



On the other hand, Kirvvan (1799) and the Rev. William 

 Richardson (1808) reported the discovery of fossils in the 

 basalt of Ballycalla, near Portrush, and consequently advocated 

 the aqueous origin of basalt, trap, granite, etc.; but Playfair 

 proved that the supposed fossiliferous basalt of Portrush was 

 only metamorphosed Lias. 



Contributions to the geology of Ireland were made by 

 Conybeare and Buckland (1813), Vaughan Sampson (1814), 



1 William Buckland was born 1784, the eldest son of the Rev. Charles 

 Buckland, at Axminster, in Devonshire ; studied theology in Oxford, and 

 was a Fellow of Christ's College there. In 1813 he was appointed 

 Professor of Mineralogy, and in 1819 was made in addition the first Pro- 

 fessor of Geology in Oxford ; in 1845 he became Dean of Westminster. 

 He died 1856, held in the highest respect and esteem by all English 

 geologists. (The Life and Correspondence of William Buckland, by his 

 daughter, Mrs. Gordon; London, 1894.) 



