ADAM SEDGWICK AND WILLIAM BUCKLAND. 
137 
Matthew Dawson, In 1808 he took his degree, when he was classed 
as fifth wrangler, and in the following year he was elected a Fellow 
in Trinity College, of which he became subsequently assistant tutor. 
He threw himself energetically into the ordinary work of the University 
until in 1818 he was appointed AV oodwardian Professor of Geology 
in the room of Professor Hailstone. In the same year he was elected 
a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Geological Society of London. 
In 1819, he, in conjunction with others, was mainly instrumental in 
founding the Cambridge Philosophical Society, of which he was one 
of the first secretaries, his colleague in that ofiice being Professor 
Lee. When appointed to the Woodwardian Chair, he modestly said 
that he knew nothing about geology ; he had not paid special 
attention to the subject ; his studies had been classics and mathematics, 
in both of which he Avas among the first men of his year, but there 
is evidence from many sources that he had long been an intelligent 
observer of geological phenomena, and whilst wandering amongst the 
streams and crags of his native Yorkshire, he had made observations 
on the stratification of the rocks and the occurrence of fossils. But 
whatever may have been his defects in this respect, he set himself 
most energetically to supply them. Almost immediately after his 
appointment he started with Professor Henslow to investigate the 
geology of the Isle of Wight, and upon the materials collected in 
this excursion his first course of lectures were founded. From this 
time he allowed no opportunity of acquiring knowledge to escape 
him, and as early as May, 1820, he communicated to Cambridge 
Philosophical Society his first paper, in which he treats of the physical 
structure of Devon and Cornwall. Early in his scientific career he 
visited Paris in successive winters, where he benefited by the instruc- 
tions, and enjoyed the friendship, of Cuvier, De Blainville, and of 
other eminent men who werp then at the head of science in France. 
In a syllabus published in 1821, for the use of his geological class, he 
gave the classification of the sedimentary rocks, which still holds 
good on all the chief points. The older Palaeozoic Rocks had not then 
been worked out ; he was himself the first to put them in order 
some ten years later. He did some good practical and original work 
on the phenomena connected with trap dykes in Yorkshire and Dur- 
