Obituary Notice of the late Rev. George Gordon, LL.D. 355 
XXVII. Obituary Notice of the late Rev. George Gordon, LL.D., 
of Birnie. By J. Horne, F.G.S., Geological Survey. 
(Read 21st March 1894.) 
The name of Dr Gordon has been intimately associated 
with the history of certain branches of local scientific 
research in the North of Scotland during the present 
century. Born in 1801 in the Manse of Urquhart, he was 
ordained as minister of the parish of Birnie in 1832, retiring 
in 1889 to Elgin to spend his closing years. His early 
observations were botanical; for in 1827 he is quoted as an 
authority on Northern Botany in Jamieson’s Hdinburgh 
New Philosophical Journal. In 1832, in the “Catalogue of 
Rarer Plants,” Kew Library, he is mentioned as the discoverer 
of Pyrola uniflora, near Golspie. In the same year he 
forwarded to Murchison the first notice of the patch of 
Secondary Rocks at Linksfield, near Elgin, which appeared 
in the Proceedings of the Geological Society. In 1839 he 
published “ The Flora of Moray,” which embodied the results 
of work extending over several years. In one of these 
expeditions he discovered, on the Rosehaugh estate, 
Pinguicula alpina—a plant new to British botany. 
His friendship with Dr Malcolmson led him to examine the 
Old Red Sandstone formation on the south side of the Moray 
Firth. His enthusiasm for this investigation was heightened 
by the publication of Hugh Miller’s volume on “The Old 
Red Sandstone” in 1841, and by the subsequent discovery 
of reptilian remains in the Elgin sandstones. In 1858, chiefly 
by his unwearied exertions, a third reptile was obtained, named 
by Professor Huxley Hyperodapedon Gordoni, who pointed 
out that it is closely allied to the Triassic Rhyncosaurus. 
While pursuing his geological observations, he found time 
for other researches, for between 1844 and 1860 he con- 
tributed several papers to the Zoologist on the fauna of his 
native province, including an exhaustive paper on the 
Coleoptera of Moray. 
In 1859 he published his excellent paper “ On the Geology 
of the Lower or Northern Part of the Province of Moray,” in 
the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, and in that year the 
