146 Eminent Living GeoCogists — Prof. Sedgwick. 



Society, at its establishment in 1819, and has frequently been an 

 office-bearer since. 



In 1818 he was elected a Fellow of the Eoyal Society, and in the 

 same year he was also made a Fellow of the Geological Society of 

 London. In this last-named Society he filled several offices, and in 

 1830 was elected President, holding the post for the usual term of 

 two years, and delivering the annual addresses to that learned body. 

 In 1836, Prof Sedgwick and Mr. (now Sir Eoderick) Murchison 

 communicated to the British Association at Bristol, a paper on the 

 Culmiferous strata between Dartmoor and the north-west of Devon, 

 pointing out, for the first time, the true geological position of these 

 deposits. 



In June, 1837, they gave to the Geological Society their account 

 of the whole district—" for they not only attempted to describe the 

 order of the successive formations north of Dartmoor, but also to 

 bring them into comparison with the formations which are expanded 

 from the South side of the Dartmoor granite to Start Point, and to 

 the other headlands of the south coast of Devon." Sir H. De La 

 Beche, Mr. James Sowerby, and Mr. Austen, on the other hand, 

 regarded the Plymouth and Newton Limestones at that time as 

 Carboniferous. 



In 1838 Mr. Sedgwick re-surveyed the country south of Dart- 

 moor, and Mr. Lonsdale, Mr. James Sowerby, and Mr. Phillips, 

 examined the fossils.^ 



In March, 1839, Professor Sedgwick and Sir Eoderick Murchison 

 adopted their final classification of the older sedimentary rocks of 

 Devon and Cornwall. 



Mr. Lonsdale speaks of the "bold removal of the whole of the 

 schistose and greywacke rocks of Devon and Cornwall to the Old 

 Eed Sandstone," as " a generalization which could only arise from 

 long, patient, accurate, and extensive practice in the field ; and a 

 willingness to adopt a suggestion from whatever quarter it might be 

 advanced." Geol. Trans., vol. v., p. 725. 



In February, 1851, the Council of the Geological Society awarded 

 to Professor Sedgwick the Wollaston Palladium Medal, for his 

 original researches in developing the geological structure of the 

 British Isles, the Alps, and the Ehenish Provinces. The President, 

 Sir Charles Lyell, in presenting the medal, said it was impossible to 

 embody, in the brief terms of such a speech, an analysis of his 

 varied labours, but referred especially to his memoirs on the 

 Magnesian Limestone of the North of England, on the Trap-rocks 

 of Durham and Cumberland, on the Fossiliferous strata of the 

 North of Scotland, and on the Isle of Arran ; on the Mountains of 

 Cumberland, and the adjoining Lake-district, and of North Wales, 

 his essays on Slaty Cleavage, the determination of the true age of 

 the strata of Devon and Cornwall, which are now termed Devonian ; 

 and on the Alps and Ehenish Provinces. 



^ Mr. Lonsdale liad suggested, in December, 1837, that they were intermediate in 

 character between the Silurian and Carboniferous, and therefore of " Old Eed 

 Sandstone " age. Proceedings Geol. Soc, vol. v., p. 727. 



