BUCKLAND, WILLIAM (1784-1856), English divine and geologist, was born at Axminster. Educated at Tiverton grammar school and at Winchester, he was a scholar and then a fellow of Corpus Christi college, Oxford. He devoted himself system atically to an examination of the geological structure of Great Britain. In 1813, on the resignation of Dr. John Kidd, he was appointed reader in mineralogy in Oxford and was the first holder of the readership in geology. In 1818 Dr. Buckland was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1824 and again in 1840 was chosen president of the Geological Society. In 1825 he was pre sented by his college to the living of Stoke Charity, near Whit church, Hants, and in the same year he was appointed by Lord Liverpool to a canonry of the cathedral of Christ Church, Oxford. In 1825, also, he married Mary Morland, who assisted him in his literary work. In 1832 he presided over the second meeting of the British Association held at Oxford. In 1845 he was appointed by Sir Robert Peel to the vacant deanery of Westminster, and was soon after inducted to the living of Islip, near Oxford, a prefer ment attached to the deanery. In 1847 he was appointed a trustee of the British Museum. He died on Aug. 24, 1856. His first great work was Reliquiae Diluvianae, or Observations on the Organic Remains contained in caves, fissures, and diluvial gravel attesting the Action of a Universal Deluge, published in 1823 (2nd ed. 1824). His paper on "Geology and Mineralogy," published as one of the Bridgewater Treatises (see BRIDGEWATER) in 1836, went through three editions, the third of which, issued in 1858, was edited by his son, Francis T. Buckland, and is accompanied by a memoir of the author.