482 Biographical Sketch of Sir B. I. Murchison, Bart, F.E.8. 



few months at the University of Edinburgh, he obtained a com- 

 mission in the army in 1807, and joining his regiment the following 

 year, served in the 36th Foot with the army in Spain and Portugal 

 under Lord Wellington, afterwards on the Staff of his uncle, General 

 Sir Alexander Mackenzie, and lastly as Captain in the 6th Dragoons. 

 He took an active part in several of the most important battles in 

 the war, and earned the reputation of being a brave and able officer. 

 He carried the colours of his regiment at the Battle of Vimiera, and 

 afterwards accompanied the army in its advance to Madrid and its 

 junction with the force under Sir John Moore, and shared in the 

 dangers and retreat at Corunna, At the end of the war in 1815, he 

 married Charlotte, only daughter of the late General Francis 

 Hugonin. It was Sir Eoderick's own conviction that to his wife's 

 influence was mainly to be attributed the choice he made in following 

 scientific pursuits with her, and giving up, as he did, the ordinary 

 amusements of a retired cavalry officer.^ She was his friend, com- 

 panion, and fellow-labourer, in geology aiding him in his observa- 

 tions, and making for him those remarkable geological sketches of 

 landscape that illustrate his works. He is also said to have early 

 become acquainted with Sir Humphry Davy, who suggested to him 

 that he should attend the lectures of the Eoyal Institution. This 

 advice he followed, and he also studied with Mr. Eichard Phillips, 

 F.E.S. 



In 1825 he was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society of 

 London, and in the same year he read his first paper on " The 

 Geological Formation of the North-west extremity of Sussex, and 

 the adjoining parts of Hants and Surrey," before that Society.^ 



In 1826 he recorded the results of his investigations in the Oolitic 

 series of Sutherland, Eoss, and the Hebrides, and in the same year 

 he was elected to the Fellowship of the Eoyal Society ; the follow- 

 ing year he again visited the Highlands in company with Professor 

 Sedgwick and succeeded in showing that the primary Sandstone of 

 McCulloch was really the true Old Eed Sandstone or Devonian. 



In 1828 he resolved to extend his researches abroad, and to study 

 the extinct volcanos of Auvergne and the geology of the Tyrol. He 

 was accompanied on this occasion by Mr. (now Sir Charles) Lyell. 



Following Dr. Buckland's advice, Murchison next devoted him- 

 self to a careful examination of the geology of Hereford, Shropshire, 

 and the Welsh Borders, the ancient country of the Silures, and it 

 was upon this investigation that his great Silurian system was after- 

 wards founded. 



These researches he afterwards followed up by others in Pem- 

 brokeshire, to the west of Milford Haven ; and his conclusions as to 

 the stratigraphical relation between the Devonian and the under- 



1 See notice of Lady Murchison, Geol. Mag., 1869, Vol. VI., p. 227, by Prof. 

 Geikie, F.R.S., President Edinburgh Geological Society. 



2 This paper is of great historical interest, being accompanied by a letter from the 

 illustrious Baron Cuvier, in which he gives a detailed description of the Reptilian 

 remains f awarded to him by Mr. Murchison for examination. The specimens which 

 are figured and described in this paper are now preserved in the British Museum. 



