Reviews — Clark's Life of Sedgwick. 425 



or the University ; be became Vice-Master of Trinity College, and 

 Secretary to the Chancellor (Prince Albert) ; and be took a prominent 

 part in election contests. His geological work shows how " by 

 steady application a man of talent may be able to make observations 

 of the first order in the field two years after commencing the study 

 of the subject." He was, however, slow to publish the results of 

 his labours, and sometimes four .or five years elapsed before his 

 observations were worked out. His acquaintance with Murchison 

 commenced in 1827, and the two friends were soon journeying 

 together to the Highlands, and ultimately to parts of Wales and 

 Devonshire. If it is regretted that Sedgwick never married, and 

 indeed refused, in 1832, a comfortable living in the south of England, 

 it may be questioned if he would have done more for science (as 

 Lyell suggested), for he could not then have continued his long 

 and arduous excursions. His friend Conybeare writes in 1828 : 

 " I shall not be very efficient in the field, for I have not, from the 

 demands of a large family, either time or funds for much touring." 



Particular accounts of Sedgwick's work in Wales are given, with 

 facsimiles of some of his MS. sections : and when he had practically 

 completed his explorations in 184G, at the age of 61, he says he 

 had the precise genei'al views he had at the end of 1832, of course 

 with infinitely improved details and better sections. It was not, 

 however, till 1852 that matters were entirely cleared up, when the 

 Caradoc Sandstone, which had been the main source of difficulty and 

 confusion, was clearly separated from the May Hill Sandstone by 

 Sedgwick, with the aid of M'Coy. The unfortunate association of 

 these strata by Murchison was doubtless the cause of the Cambro- 

 Silurian troubles, and Murchison admits that it was not he "who 

 made Cambrian into Lower Silurian, but the Government surveyors 

 and palaeontologists." Sedgwick's views, too, became misinterpreted, 

 owing to unauthorized alterations in one of his papers published by 

 the Geological Society, so that De la Beche was led to remark to 

 him, " Sedgwick, you have given up a very good nomenclature ! " 



Geologists now in the Biographies of Sedgwick and Murchison 

 have ample material in which to read the history of the great work 

 done by these old masters. In his latest work, Sedgwick thus 

 speaks of the " Silurian System " of his comrade : — " But the chief 

 honour will ever be given to the author of the System, who brought 

 the materials together and arranged them in that manner in which 

 they are seen in his splendid work. Under his hands the older 

 Palaeozoic Geology had assumed a new and nobler type." These 

 generous words, penned by Sedgwick the year before he died, urge 

 us to deal in the same spirit with the respective claims of Sedgwick 

 and Murchison to fix the nomenclature of our older Palaeozoic rocks. 

 The order of succession is not in dispute. The claims of science 

 stand before purely personal matters. A threefold division of these 

 rocks has been found most convenient, so that the new term 

 Ordovician, proposed in place of the Upper Cambrian of the one 

 author and the Lower Silurian of the other, has been widely 

 adopted. By its use students at once understand the series of strata 



