539 
of Edinburghi, Session 1871 - 72 . 
has been a household word in geology for nearly half a century, 
not in Britain only, but also over all the world. While we share 
in the wide regret at the injury which the general cause of science 
sustained by his removal, we add also the sadness which arises from 
the recollection of the relation which he bore to the progress of 
geology in Scotland, and from what he has recently done for the 
advancement of its study in the University of this city. 
“ Born in 1792 at Tavadale, in Ross-shire, he was educated for 
the military profession, and served during part of the Peninsular 
War. But on the arrival of peace in 1815, finding that the army 
no longer opened up the same prospect of activity for which he 
longed, he gave up his commission, married, and settled in 
England. The succeeding part of his life, prior to 1824, he used 
to speak of as his “Fox-hunting period,” when he threw himself 
with all the ardour of his nature into the field sports of a country 
residence. Part of that period, however, he spent abroad, making, 
with his wife, tours in search of picture galleries and old art, and 
keeping an elaborate diary, with criticisms on the character of the 
fine arts in each tour or collection visited. It was by a kind of 
happy accident that his energies were at last directed into the 
channel of science,—the merit of which change was due partly to 
his wife’s taste for natural history, and partly to the friendly 
counsel of Sir Humphrey Davy. He joined the Geological Society 
of London, and soon became one of its most enthusiastic members. 
From that time forward his love for geology, and his activity in 
its pursuit, never waned. He travelled over every part of Britain, 
and year after year he resorted to the Continent, traversing it in 
detail from the Alps to Scandinavia, and from the coasts of France 
to the far bounds of the Ural Mountains. As the result of these 
journeys, there came from his pen more than a hundred memoirs, 
besides two separate and classical works on 1 The Silurian System,’ 
and on ‘ Russia.’ 
“Sir Roderick was essentially a geologist, and he chose one 
special branch as his own domain. Perhaps no man ever had the 
same power,—which seemed sometimes almost an intuition,—of 
seizing the dominant features of the geographical and palaeontolo¬ 
gical details of a district. With a keen eye to detect the characters 
as they rose before him, and a faculty of rapidly appreciating their 
