of Edinburgh, Session 1871 - 72 . 
541 
chosen with such skill that it has been found applicable, with 
minor modifications, even in the most distant quarters of the globe. 
“ Round this early work all his after-labours seemed to range 
themselves by a natural sequence. His choice had led him into 
the most ancient fossiliferous rocks, and to that first love he re¬ 
mained true. Whether in the glades of Shropshire, or the glens 
of his own Highlands, among the fjelds and fjords of Norway, or 
in the wilds of the Urals, it was with the Palaeozoic formations 
that he mainly busied himself. They were to him a kind of patri¬ 
mony which had claims on his constant supervision. With his 
friend Sedgwick he unravelled the structure of the middle Palae¬ 
ozoic rocks of Devonshire, and with Key sealing and De Yerneuil 
he showed the true relations of the upper Palaeozoic rocks of 
Russia. The Silurian, Devonian, and Permian systems, represent¬ 
ing each a vast cycle in the history of our earth as a habitable 
globe, received in this way from him their first clear elucidation, 
and the very names by which they are now universally known. 
“But if we seek to measure the influence which Sir Roderick 
Murchison exercised on the progress of the science of the time 
merely by the original work which he himself accomplished, we 
should fail duly to appreciate the measure and the power of that 
influence, and the extent of the loss which his death has caused. 
Fortunate in the possession of wealth and high social position, he 
was enabled to act as a constant friend and guardian to the cause 
of science. He moved about as one of the representative scientific 
men of his da}^. To no man more than to him do w r e owe the public 
recognition of the claims of scientific culture in this country. For 
he not only stood out as the acknowledged chief in his own domain, 
but had also the faculty of gathering round him men of all sciences, 
among whom his kindliness of nature, his courteous dignity of 
manners, his tact and knowledge of the world, and his wide range 
of social connections marked him out as spokesman and leader. 
Nowhere were these features of his character and influence more 
conspicuous than in his conduct of the affairs of the Geographical 
Society, of which he was for many years the very life and soul, 
and which owes in large measure to him the stimulus it has given 
to geographical science. 
“ Here in his own native country, and more especially here in 
