10 A Yorkshire Rector of the Eighteenth Century. 



patience constructed his own telescope at Bath in the midst 

 of all the distractions of his musical profession there. 



The parish of Thornhill in the latter half of the eighteenth 

 century was practically a good deal more remote from the 

 centres of scientific enquiry than it has now become. But its 

 rector in those days made frequent journeys to London, which 

 brought him into personal touch with the Royal Society and 

 its Fellows. He was welcomed to the table of the Society's 

 Dining Club, even before he was elected a Fellow of the Society, 

 and after he became F.R.S., he was so habitually invited that 

 there would seem to have been a kind of friendly competition 

 among the members for the pleasure of securing him as a 

 'guest.* For some years he spent several weeks in London 

 every summer, and during his stay he was seldom absent from 

 the Club's weekty dinner at the ' Mitre ' in Fleet Street, and 

 subsequently at the ' Crown and Anchor ' in the Strand. He 

 thus enjoyed opportunities of discussing with the physicists, 

 astronomers, chemists and naturalists the problems which were 

 engaging his attention. 



In our consideration of the scientific work accomplished by 

 this Yorkshire rector, it will be convenient to begin by looking 

 into what he did in the investigation of the crust of the earth, 

 and thereafter to pass in review his contributions to Physical 

 Science and to Astronomy 



L — Contributions to Geology. 



These may be grouped in two sections — first, his observa- 

 tions and deductions regarding the structure of the terrestrial 

 crust ; and second, his elucidation of the phenomena of move- 

 ment in the crust shown in earthquakes. 



L — In Michell's time. Geology had not yet come into 

 existence as a definite branch of natural science. The vaguest 

 and most inaccurate notions prevailed as to the nature and 

 arrangement of the materials that constitute the outer portions 

 of the earth. In particular, the old doctrine was not yet 

 extinct that the organic remains imbedded in the stratified 

 rocks, if they are not mere random 'sports of nature,' but relics 

 of once living organisms, were accumulated among the debris 

 that subsided from the Deluge of Noah. That these remains 

 actually embody a complicated history of the earth's crust, 

 and reveal a vast evolutionary progress, during incalculable 

 ages, from the simplest forms of life up to man himself, was a 

 revelation still undisclosed. Even John Woodward, founder 

 of the Chair of Geology at Cambridge, though he clearly 

 recognised the organic nature of the fossils, could not disabuse 

 himself of the belief that they were all accumulated during 



* Antmls of the Royal Society Club, p. i66. 



Natiualist,. 



