xxxi 



Partly induced by the natural-history tastes of his wife, and partly 

 urged by the recommendation of Sir Humphry Davy (who, meeting him 

 at the house of Mr. Morritt, of Rokeby, and being struck with his active 

 habits of mind and body, pointed out to him the rising science of geology 

 as a fitting field for his exertions), Murchison turned his mind in that 

 direction, and began to attend lectures on different branches of science, 

 particularly those delivered at the Royal Institution. 



Science was thus taken up by him not as an original pursuit, but after 

 his powers of observation were matured, and when they had been further 

 quickened by an active life at home and abroad.. Being thus in a manner 

 self-taught, and having thrown himself with all the energy of his nature 

 into the study of geology, he was happily left to acquire his knowledge 

 direct from nature, with but little bias from the controversies then so 

 keenly carried on between the followers of Hutton and Werner. His 

 devotion to the new sphere of activity which he had now chosen was not 

 long in bearing fruit. In 1825, when thirty-three years of age, he pub- 

 lished his earliest paper, " A Geological Sketch of the North-western 

 extremity of Sussex and the adjoining parts of Hants and Surrey. " Sub- 

 sequently he explored parts of his native Highlands with Professor Sedg- 

 wick, and travelled through the volcanic district of central France with 

 Sir Charles Lyell. From these early researches he was gradually led into 

 that special field which he made his own, and from which his most im- 

 portant contributions to science were reaped. 



His rambles through different parts of England had shown him how ad- 

 mirably the order of succession among the Secondary rocks had been worked 

 out there by William Smith. But there was one great group of English 

 rocks to which the Wernerian term " Transition " had been applied, yet 

 of which the. true stratigraphical relations had still to be traced. Murchi- 

 son resolved to devote himself to the study of these rocks, in the hope of 

 being able to reduce them into something like the same intelligible order 

 which had been introduced among the later formations. The district 

 chosen by him as the scene of his labours was that border land between 

 England and Wales once the abode of the old British Silures. From time 

 to time brief notices of his progress were communicated to the Geological 

 Society, and at last, after five years of patient and enthusiastic labour, he 

 produced his ' Silurian System.' This work undoubtedly forms a land- 

 mark in the history of geology. Dealing with rocks which had previously 

 been but imperfectly known, he showed them to be capable of subdivision, 

 and that when grouped in their true order they were found to embody 

 some of the earliest chapters of the history of life upon the earth. His 

 classification was based on the local characters of the rocks with which he 

 was dealing ; but that he had proceeded on broad and sound principles 

 is shown by the way in which this classification has been adopted in all 

 parts of the world. 



This work laid the foundation of its writer's fame. In his subsequently 



