450 



Miscellaneous Intelligence. 



for their gifts, the most remarkable. These qualities made "Dr. Buckland 

 the most prominent of a band of philosophers who gradually worked 

 their way in geological science, redeeming it from the puerilities of a 

 popular hypothesis, and placing it high amongst the physical sciences. 

 In this great work Buckland was associated with Lyell, De la Beche, 

 Sedgwick, Murchison, Phillips, and Conybeare. 



Although we have now to record the death of Dr. Buckland, which 

 took place on Thursday, the 14th inst., at Clapham, yet he had many years 

 closed his scientific career. In the year 1850 his brain gave way under 

 the excessive activity to which it had been exposed, and from that time to 

 this he has never recovered sufficiently to attend to his scientific pursuits. 



Dr. Buckland was born at Axminster, in Devon, in the year 1784. 

 He received his early education at Winchester, and in 1801, obtained a 

 scholarship in Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He took his degree of 

 B. A. in 180-3, and was elected a Fellow of his College in 1808. At this 

 time Oxford was the most unpromising school in the world for natural 

 science. Nevertheless there were chairs of Botany, Chemistry, and Min- 

 eralogy to indicate to the student that all human wisdom was not bound 

 up in Classics and Mathematics. The tastes of young Buckland led him 

 to the study of Mineralogy, and in 1813 we find him appointed to the 

 Readership of Mineralogy, and in 1818 to the Readership of Geology. 

 In these positions he succeeded in attracting attention to the departments 

 of physical science which he taught. But as he excited interest he ex- 

 cited opposition, and every onward step that he made towards giving the 

 science of geology a position in the University, raised an opponent to its 

 claims. Through his long life he had to fight for his science in his Alma 

 Mater. But he gained the victory, — and Strickland and Phillips, his 

 successors, have obtained a universal recognition of the value and im- 

 portance of their teachings. 



In 1820 Dr. Buckland delivered a lecture before the University of Ox- 

 ford, which was afterwards published under the title of " Vindicise Geo- 

 logic^ ; or, the Connection of Religion with Geology explained." In 

 this work he showed that there could be no opposition between the works 

 and the word of God, and that the influence of the study of natural sci- 

 ence, so far from leading to atheism and irreligion, necessarily led to the 

 recognition of God and to his worship. At this time, however, Dr. 

 Buckland still adhered to the old hypothesis of the universality of the 

 Deluge. He, however, became convinced of the untenability of this po- 

 sition, and in his Bridgewater Treatise, published in 1836, entitled "Ge- 

 ology and Mineralogy considered in reference to Natural Theology," we 

 find him adopting the views of Lyell and others. 



Dr. Buckland's name will ever be associated in this country with his 

 discoveries of the remains of animals in the caves of Kirkdale, and other 

 parts of England. Of these discoveries he first gave an account in the 

 Philosophical Transactions in a paper, entitled " Account of an Assem- 

 blage of Fossil Teeth and Bones of Elephant, Rhinoceros, Hippopotamus, 

 Bear, Tiger, and Hyaena, and Sixteen other Animals, discovered in a 

 Cave at Kirkdale, Yorkshire, in the year 1821." These discoveries and 

 others served as a basis for a work published in 1823, entitled "Reliquiae 

 Diluvianae ; or, Observations on the Organic Remains attesting the Action 

 of an Universal Deluge." Although the occurrence of these remains are 



