MURCHISON, Sir RonEnicii 1.31PEY, geologist and geographer, was born at Tarradale, Ross-shire, in 1792. He was educated at the grammar-school, Durham, and having a bias for military life, next studied at the military college, Marlow. He entered the army at an early age, and served as an officer in the 86th regiment in Spain and Portugal. Ile was placed on the staff of his uncle, gen. sir Alexander Mackenzie, and then obtained a captaincy in the 6th dragoons. Quitting the army in 181G, he devoted himself to science—more especially to geology. He afterwards traveled in various parts of the globe. He found the same sedimentary strata lying in the earth's crust beneath the old red sandstone in the mountainous regions of Norway and Sweden, in the vast and distant provinces of the Russian empire; and also in Amer ica. The result of his investigations was the discovery and establishment of the Silu rian system, which won for him the Copley medal of the royal society. and European reputation as a geologist. His subsequent exposition of the Devonian, permian, and Laurentian systems increased and contirmed his reputation. He explored several parts of Germany, Poland, and the Carpathians; and in 1840 he commenced a geological sur veyof the Russian empire, under the countenance of the imperial government. M. de Verneuil was associated with hint in this great work, completed in 1S45. Struck with the resemblance in geological structure between the Ural mountains and the Australian chain, :Murchison, in his anniversary address in 1844, first predicted the discovery of gold in Australia. In 1846, six years before that metal was practically worked, he addressed it letter to the president of the royal geological society of Cornwall. inciting the unem
ployed Cornish tin-miners to emigrate and dig for gold in Australia. he was elected president of the British association for the advancement of science in 1846; president of the royal geograRhical society in 1844 and 1815; was re-elected in 1857, and continued to hold that post till 1870, when he was compelled to resign it by paralysis. His anni versary addresses to the geographers were of great interest and value. Perhaps no man of the present century has done more to promote geographical science at home, and kindle the spirit of adventure among those engaged in Arctic explorations on the one hand, and African discovery on the other. In 1855 he succeeded sir II. de la Bette in the office of director of time museum of practical geology. He was a D C.L of Oxford, LL.D, of Cambridge, and a vice-president of the royal society. He was knighted in in 1846, made u.c.n. in 1853, and a baronet in 1863. From Hie emperor of Russia he received the grand cross of St. Anne, and also that of St. Slanislans. He died Oct. 22, 1871. The greater portion of his contributions to science were published in the Transactions of the geological and other societies. His principal works were The (1836); The Geology of in Europe and the Ural Mountains, in 1845 (2d ed. 1853). He also published volumes on the Tertiary Deposit- f Lomer Styria, etc. (1830), the Geology of Cheltenham (1834), etc.—See Life of Sir Roderick Murchison, by Archbishop Geikic, LL.D. (1875), and obituary notice by sir Henry Rawlinson in Proceedings of the Roya! Geographical Society, vol..xvi. No. 4.