LIFE OF DEAN BUCKLAND. 
CHAPTER I. 
EARLY LIFE. 
1784—1808. 
ILLIAM BUCKLAND was the eldest son of the 
V V Rev. Charles Buckland, Rector of Templeton and 
Trusham in the county of Devon. He was born at 
Axminster, on the 12th of March, 1784. His mother, 
whose maiden name was Elizabeth Oke, was the daughter 
of Mr. John Oke, a landed proprietor, living at Combpyne, 
near Axminster, whose family had since the Stuart period 
occupied extensive property in that neighbourhood. 
The birthplace of William Buckland was singularly 
adapted to develope his peculiar genius. Near his 
home, in the picturesque valley of the Axe, are large 
quarries of lias, abounding in fossil organic remains ; in 
this same valley are also found abundant traces of a 
buried forest; here, too, lay embedded among the roots 
of the trees the bones of fossil elephants. His father 
(who for the last twenty-two years of his life was blind 
from an accident) early made his son the companion of 
his walks and tastes. Together they ransacked the 
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