1808-1822.] 
PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY. 
23 
office Buckland was appointed—a position which Sir 
Joseph Banks said “ No one in England is so competent 
to fill.” Writing in anticipation of this appointment to 
his friend Lady Mary Cole, in December 1818, he 
says :— 
“ Dear Lady Mary, —I have just received a large 
importation from North America, and expect daily my 
stalactitic head and bones of Niobc from Venice. I hope 
soon to have a proper room prepared for their reception 
in Oxford, which is the least thing the University can do 
to meet the grant which you will be glad to hear I have 
obtained from the Crown for the establishment of a 
Professorship of Geology which I am to hold with my 
former office of Reader in Mineralogy. Nothing can 
exceed the strong exertions and flattering civilities I have 
received from Lord Grenville and Mr. Peel during the 
progress of this business, or the powerful representations 
which have been made to Lord Liverpool on my behalf 
Sir Joseph Banks, too, on hearing of my Memorial to the 
Crown voluntarily requested Sir Everard Horne to express 
to H.R.H. the Prince Regent that he felt great pleasure 
in the prospect of an establishment for Geology in Oxford, 
and considered no man in the country so proper to fill 
the situation as Mr. Buckland. Sir W. Scott and Lord 
Eldon have also given their assistance. 
“ I assure you I feel quite proud of the high considera¬ 
tion which is given to the noble subterranean science 
by such exalted personages, more especially by Lord 
Grenville, whom I am going to visit next week at 
Dropmore on my return to Oxford. During the last 
week I have been down to see Lord Tankerville’s splendid 
collection at Walton, containing the finest shells and 
corals in the country, and extremely rich in fossil organic 
remains. He has a drawer full of Tortoises and Encrinites 
from the Sussex chalk, also of Pentacrinites from chalk, 
and lovely starfish. The plants in his hot-houses exceed 
in health and luxuriance any I have ever seen.” 
