246 
SIR RODERICK I. MURCHISON'S ADDRESS. [May 24, 1858. 
and associates of the honour which justly belonged to us, of pro- 
ducing the first Geological Map of Europe arranged on the prin- 
ciples of British classification.* 
Long as I have been connected with the pursuits of science, I never 
yet met with any one of its cultivators who had a more ingenuous 
love of truth than Dean Conybeare ; and I can safely affirm that he 
was universally beloved in the Geological Society, in which he bore 
so conspicuous a part. In addition to his scientific acquirements, 
the Dean of Llandaff was one of the best Greek scholars of his 
day, and was as deeply read in classics as in that ancient literature 
of the Church, in the study of which he passed many of the latter 
days of his life — happy in seeing that the true learning, high prin- 
ciples, and right feeling which he had implanted in the minds and 
hearts of his sons (of whom, alas ! he had lost two) were raising 
them in the walks of life they had respectively embraced, to posi- 
tions in which they are doing all honour to the name of Conybeare. 
Bear-Admiral Sir John Boss, k.t., c.b., who was born in 1777 at 
Balsaroch, Wigtonshire, entered the Boyal Navy in 1786, served in 
the Mediterranean until 1789, and afterwards in the Channel. He 
was in the expedition to Holland, and also under Sir James 
Saumarez. In 1808 Lieut. Boss acted as Captain of the Swedish 
fleet, and was made a Commander in 1812. During his war services 
in three different actions he was wounded thirteen times. 
In 1817 the Admiralty having resolved to attempt to solve the 
question of the North-West Passage, Commander Boss was ap- 
pointed to the Alexander , and Lieut. W. E. Parry to the Isabella ; 
they sailed in 1818, and having made the circuit of Baffin Bay, re- 
turned to England the same season, when Boss was promoted to 
the rank of Captain. In 1829, aided by the munificence of Mr. 
Felix Booth, he purchased the Victory , a steam-vessel of 150 tons, 
to follow up the discoveries already made in the direction of Barrow 
Strait. 
The Victory sailed from England in 1829, Commander (now Sir) 
James Clark Boss being second in command. Having visited the 
* As soon as the geological map of Russia was published (1845), embracing 
nearly two-thirds of Europe, and that my colleague de Verneuil had produced 
a map of Spain (the only then remaining terra incognita geologorum of Europe), it 
was evident that a general map might then be constructed chiefly by compilation. 
I delayed so long in profiting by the sound advice of Dean Conybeare, that when 
my map of Europe appeared in 1854, it was soon followed by the large and bril-'" 
liantly coloured map of Dumont of Liege. The cartographer will at once see, by 
comparing them, how vast a portion of the work of my eminent Belgian contem- 
porary has been derived from the map of Russia. 
