COUNCIL roR 1871. 
17 
Soon after leaving the University (in 1811) Mr. Harconrt 
began his duties as clergyman at Bishopthorpe, close to his 
father’s residence, and speedily manifested the good effects of 
his Oxford career by associating himself with the movement 
then beginning in Yorkshire in favour of institutions for the 
cultivation of science. He constructed a laboratory and 
became greatly occupied in chemical analysis, not a little aided 
and encouraged in this pursuit by his early friends Davy and 
Wollaston. The latter explained to him some of the methods 
of qualitative analysis on a small scale, in which he was unri¬ 
valled. The great ideas of the former he kept steadily in view. 
From Buckland and the brothers Conybeare he acquired a 
settled partiality for the then rapidly advancing science of 
Greology. 
In 1821, the famous cavern of Kirkdale was opened in York¬ 
shire, and zealously explored by Buckland. Some of the 
treasures of this rich repository of pre-historio life forms were 
divided among several explorers in Yorkshire, and three of 
these, viz., Mr. Atkinson, Mr. Salmond, and Mr. Thorpe con¬ 
curred in a resolution to reunite them in one collection as a 
basis for a Yorkshire Museum of Natural History and Anti¬ 
quities. Of the institution which was established in conse¬ 
quence of this arrangement, the “ Yorkshu’e Philosophical 
Society,” Mr. Harconrt was chosen President, and by all the 
means at his disposal extended its influence, and animated and 
directed its energies. 
The geology of Yorkshire had begun to attract attention; 
and one of the earliest engagements for public lectoes was 
contracted in 1824, with Mr. Smith, the author of the first 
geological map of the county, as well as of the flrst map of the 
strata of England and Wales. In 1826, Mr. Phillips was 
appointed to be the Keeper of the Yorkshire Museum, then con¬ 
tained in a small house; but from this time it grew so rapidly 
as to require the erection of a spacious building, with library, 
lecture room and laboratory at a cost of £9,000. During many 
years Mr. Harconrt and his younger friend just named might 
be often met engaged in geological explorations. The labora¬ 
tory, now removed to Wheldrake, was never unemployed; the 
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