IO 
LIFE OF DEAN BUCKLAND. 
[CH. I. 
Another description of the same rooms—this time in 
prose—is given by Sir Roderick Murchison. 
“On repairing,” he says, “ from the Star Inn to Buck- 
land’s domicile, I never can forget the scene that awaited 
me. Having, by direction of the janitor, climbed up a 
narrow staircase, I entered a long, corridor-like room, which 
was filled with rocks, shells, and bones in dire confusion, 
and in a sort of sanctum at the end was my friend in 
his black gown, looking like a necromancer, sitting on one 
rickety chair covered with some fossils, and clearing out 
a fossil bone from the matrix.” 
It is not, perhaps, surprising, especially if the social and 
intellectual conditions of the University at the beginning 
of the century be taken into consideration, that Buckland’s 
conduct alarmed the older generation of College Fellows. 
Some dreaded lest his example should drive the amcenitates 
academical out of fashion ; others suspected that the new 
studies might prove to be dangerous innovations. His 
goings and comings were therefore watched with an 
interest which was not wholly devoid of fear. When, in 
the early stages of his career, he started on a tour to the 
Alps and Italy—the results of which enabled him to 
produce one of the boldest and most effective of his 
writings—an authoritative elder is said to have exclaimed : 
“ Well, Buckland is gone to Italy ; so, thank God, we 
shall hear no more of this geology 
The prophecy happily proved false, and Oxford dons 
were doomed to hear a good deal more of the obnoxious 
science. 
