Ixxv 



selves has been questioned even within a few years, and defended by none 

 more effectually than by Dr. Daubeny*. 



From the beginning to the end of his scientific career, volcanic pheno- 

 mena occupied the attention of Dr. Daubeny ; and he strove by frequent 

 journeys through Italy, Sicily, France and Germany, Hungary and Tran- 

 sylvania, to extend his knowledge of that interesting subject. In 1823-25, 

 he had by this means prepared the basis of his great work on volcanoes, 

 which appeared in 1826, and contained careful descriptions of all the re- 

 gions known to be visited by igneous eruptions, and a consistent hypothesis 

 of the cause of the thermic disturbance, in accordance with the view first 

 proposed by Gay-Lussae and Davy. Water admitted to the uncombined 

 bases of the earths and alkalies existing below the oxidized crust of the 

 globe, was shown to be an efficient cause of local high temperature, and a 

 real antecedent to the earthquake movements, the flowing lava, and the 

 expelled gas and steam. In later years f Dr. Daubeny freely accepted, as 

 at least very probable, a high interior temperature of the earth ; but he 

 did not allow that the admission of water to a heated interior oxidized mass 

 would account for the chemical effects which accompany and follow an 

 eruption. On this point there are still data to be gathered and inferences 

 to be examined. 



Four years previously to the publication of the 'Description of Volcanoes,' 

 Dr. Daubeny was appointed to succeed Dr. Kidd as Aldrichian Professor 

 of Chemistry, and took up his abode in, or rather below, the time-honoured 

 Museum founded by Ashmole. In these rather gloomy apartments nearly 

 all the scientific teaching of Oxford had been accomplished since the days 

 of Robert Plot; in them were still collected, as late as 1855, by gas-light 

 and furnace-fires, the most zealous students of Practical Chemistry ; but 

 now they are filled with Greek sculpture, and Chemistry has flitted to the 

 magnificent laboratories of the University Museum, directed by Sir Benja- 

 min Brodie. 



In 1834 he was appointed Professor of Botany, and migrated to the 

 " Physic Garden," as it was called, which had been founded in the early 

 part of the reign of Charles I. 



Under his diligent and generous management, with liberal aid from the 

 University, Dr. Daubeny lived to see the old Garden entirely arranged, 

 enriched with extensive houses, extended in area, and made both attractive 

 and beautiful. 



In the pleasant residence at the Botanic Garden, Dr. Daubeny passed 

 the remainder of his life — the third of a century. Here, incessantly 

 active, he instituted many experiments on vegetation under different con- 

 ditions of soil, on the effects of light on plants, and of plants on light, 

 on the distribution of potash and phosphates in leaves and fruits, on 



* Quarterly Journal of Science, 1866. 



t " Memoir on the Thermal Waters of Bath," British Association Reports for 1864. 



/2 



