52 



BIOGEAFHICAL NOTICE OF SIR RODERICK MURCHISON. 



[1854. 



Lyell Island and the Fisliing Islands give a stone precisely 

 similar to that of Chiefs' Point and under exactly similar cir- 

 cumstances ; and so indeed does nearly the whole coast to Cape 

 Hurd, on which the rocks, running on the strike, are exposed 

 neai'ly the whole way. Hitherto the only trial that has beea 

 made of this part of the formation is on one of the Fishing- 

 Islands, where a house, to which allusion has already been made, 

 was constructed some years ago by a fishing company for the 

 superintendent. 



Biographical Uotice of Sir Eoderick MurcMson."' 



Sir Roderick IMurchison was born on the 19th of February, 

 1792, at Taradale, a picturesque estate on the Beauly Loch, 

 and was the eldest son of Kenneth Murchison, Esq., of Tara- 

 dalc, by the sister of General Sir Alexander Mackenzie, Bart., 

 of Fairburn, in the sanie county, a distinguished officer, who 

 was second in command at the capture of the Cape of Good 

 Hope, in 1795, and subsequently served in the Mediterranean. 

 The Murchisons derive their descent from Colma, (subsequently 

 M'Colmans,) the son of Anselm, a son of Ryan, King of Ulster, 

 who had been driven from his country by the Danes. One of 

 the M'Colmans, called Murdo or Murcho-du, settled in Kintail, 

 in Ross-shire ; but the fanuly fell into comparative poverty. 

 One of his descendants, John Murchison, the great grandfather 

 of our author, who held a Major's commission in King James's 

 army, fell, at the age of thirty-five, in the battle of Sherifimuir. 

 His grandson Kenneth, our author's father, born in 1752, was 

 educated for the medical profession, and held lucrative appoint- 

 ments in India. He was the friend of Hastings, Impey, and 

 Sullivan ; and after his return to Europe he purchased the 

 estate of Taradale from his maternal uncle, Mr. Mackenzie of 

 Lentron. It is a curious circumstance that ho kept journals 

 written in Gaelic and in the Greek character, — a fact which 

 may probably have been known to Macpherson and John 

 Home, who had at one time proposed to have the poems of 

 Ossian printed in the same character. Ha^'ing, on account of 

 his health removed to England in 179-1, — he died at Bathamp- 

 ton, near Bath, in 1796, in the forty-fourth year of his age. 

 Inheriting the martial spirit of his uncle, young Murchison 

 chose the profession of a soldier, and while imbibing the first 

 elements of learning, at the school of Durham, under Dr. 

 Britton, to which he went in 1799, he exhibited among his 

 school-fellows that daring spirit and recklessness of danger 

 which so well harmonizes with the ambition of military adven- 

 ture. On one occasion he performed, to the wonder of his 

 school-fellows, the hazardous feat of getting outside of the 

 balustrade of the great tower of the cathedral, and seating 

 himself on a corner spout projecting from a dragon ; and at 

 another time he began his career of subterranean exploration 

 by crawling, as we have heard him say, in the society of rats 

 not yet fossilized, along the conduit which begins at the Water- 

 gate and terminates at the river Wear, where he was received 

 with open arm.s by his admiring school-fellows. 



From the grammar-school of Durham he went, in 1805, to 

 the Military College of Marlow, where he remained till 1807, 

 when, at the age of fifteen, he got a commission in the 86th 

 regiment of foot. By the interest of his uncle. Sir Alexander 

 Mackenzie, he was transferred to the University of Edinburgh 

 to pursue his studies, at a time when he had a recruiting party 

 under his orders in the town. He was boarded in the house 



* Abstract of an article in tbe Nortli Bi-;tisli Review for August, 185i. 



of Mr. Manners, then bookseller, and librarian to the Faculty 

 of Advocates, where he had among his associates the late M. 

 Schwertzkoft', who died when Russian Minister at Florence, 

 and the present Sir Thomas Birch, M.P. for Liverpool, and 

 private secretary to Lord Melbourne when his lordship was 

 Chief Secretary in Ireland. Our young Ensign does not seem 

 to have drawn much wisdom from the Modern Athens, or to 

 have acquired, in his University studies, any knowledge in 

 those branches of science to which he was afterwards devoted. 



After he had joined his regiment at Cork, in the winter of 

 1808, it was moved to Fermoy, when it was suddenly ordered 

 to embark for Portugal under Sir Arthur Wellesley. After 

 the army landed at Lisbon and advanced into the interior, he 

 was present at the battle of Roleia, where General Laborde was 

 defetrted on the 17th August; and he carried the colours of 

 his regiment, the 36th, when it so nobly distinguished itself 

 at the battle of Vimiera on the 21st of August. Sir Arthur's 

 despatch specially recommended Colonel Burne, who com- 

 manded the 86th, and, what was unusual, he devoted a whole 

 paragraph to the praise of the regiment. Having observed the 

 brilliant charge executed by General (afterwards Sir Ronald) 

 Ferguson's brigade, of which the 86th formed the right, and 

 noticed the manner in which they captured the enemy's guns, 

 and drove them across a moor away from their main body, Sir 

 Arthur followed them at a gallop) from the centre, where he 

 had repulsed Junot in person, and reached them only at a 

 hamlet where the French were rallying in their front. At 

 this moment our author's brother Ensign was shot. In the 

 confusion and din of the fight, a shrill voice was heard, 

 " Where are the colours of the 86th ?'. — " Here, Sir !" replied 

 the young Ensign. The regiment was immediately halted, 

 and the welcome sound of " Very well, my boys," conveyed 

 the satisfaction of their distinguished chief. Our limits will 

 not permit us to follow our young soldier in his military career 

 in the Peninsula. He accompanied the army in its advance to 

 Madrid through cold and snow to meet Soult ; and after its 

 retreat, and junction with Sir John Moore, he was present at 

 the battle of Corunna, and shared in all the dangers of that 

 unfortunate event. He was subsecjuently removed to the staff 

 of his uncle. General Sir Alexander Mackenzie, in Sicily, and 

 afterwards served in the Mediterranean at the siege of Cadiz, 

 and in Ireland as a captain in the InniskilHng or 9th dragoons. 

 Amid the excitements and dangers of war, the germ of science 

 which Nature had planted within him had not yet shown its 

 peaceful foliage, and, though his eye dwelt on the fine gorges 

 and rugged outlines of the mountain ranges between Spain and 

 Portugal, — on the masses of granite in the famous pass of 

 Guadaramma, — he was ndt aware that he was treading upon 

 Silurian pavements, which, in other countries, it was to be the 

 business of his life to explore. 



In 1815 he married the only daughter of General Hugonin, 

 a lady of congenial taste and great accomplishments; and, 

 considering the married state as incompatible with the duties 

 required from a soldier, he left the service, and sought for 

 amusement and instruction in foreign travel, and, when at home, 

 in the occupations of the sportman and fox hunter. De.stined, 

 however, for higher objects, it required only the vciice of aifee- 

 tion and friendship to remove him to more rational and more 

 congenial pursuits. Herself a good florist and botanist, Lady 

 Murchison attracted him to scientific studies, and having thus 

 been initiated into the temple of knowledge, it was not difficult 

 to fix him at its shrine. When in company with Sir Humphiy 

 Davy, and engaged with him in field-sports at the hospitable 



