28 
LIFE OF DEAN BUCK LAND. 
[CH. II. 
large assemblies till he has once made them laugh, and 
then he is entirely at his ease.” He always liked to have 
a picture to show his audience, where specimens were 
not available, and in a letter to Sir Henry de la Beche, 
he says: “With respect to a block (engraving), it was 
ready to go to the printer to-morrow if you approved ; 
though bad, it is better than nothing, and I like always 
to tell my story by a picture if possible.” 
Buckland, whilst staying with Miss Fox, one wet day 
gave a lecture in the drawing-room. “We listened,” Miss 
Fox says, “ with great and gaping interest to a description 
of his geological map, the frontispiece to his forthcoming 
Bridgewater Treatise. He gave very clear details of the 
gradual formation of our earth, which he is thoroughly 
convinced took its rise ages before the Mosaic record. He 
says that Luther must have taken a similar view, as in the 
translation of the Bible he puts f ist J at the third verse of 
the first chapter of Genesis, which showed his belief that 
the two first verses relate to something anterior. He ex¬ 
plains the hills with valleys between them by eruptions 
underground. He compared the world to an apple-dumpling, 
the fiery froth of which fills the interior, and we have just 
a crust to stand upon ; the hot stuff in the centre often 
generates gas, and its necessary explosions are called on 
earth volcanoes. He gave descriptions of antediluvian 
animals, plants, and skulls. They have even discovered a 
large fossil-fish with its food only partially digested.” 
A characteristic story is related of Buckland, to the effect 
that he and a friend, riding towards London on a very dark 
night, lost their way. Buckland therefore dismounted, 
