Murchison, SIR RODERICK IMPEY

Murchison, SIR RODERICK IMPEY, geologist and geographer, was born at Tarradale, Ross-shire, 19th February 1792. He was educated at the grammar-school of Durham and the Military College, Great Marlow. He entered the army at an early age, served as an officer in Spain and Portugal, and was present at Vimiero and the retreat at Corunna. Quitting the army in 1816, he devoted himself to science, especially geology, and travelled 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 America. The result of his investigations was the discovery and establishment of the Silurian 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 confirmed his reputation. He explored several parts of Germany, Poland, and the Carpathians; and in 1840-45, with De Verneuil and others, carried out a geological survey of the Russian empire. Struck with the resemblance in geological structure between the Ural Mountains and the Australian chain, Murchison in 1844 first predicted the discovery of gold in Australia. He was president of the British Association in 1846, and of the Royal Geographical Society in 1844-45, was re-elected in 1857, and continued to hold that post till 1870, when he was compelled to resign it by paralysis. Perhaps no contemporary did more to promote geographical science at home, and kindle the spirit of adventure among those engaged in Arctic exploration on the one hand and African discovery on the other. In 1855 he was made director-general of the Geological Survey and director of the Royal School of Mines. His investigations into the crystalline schists of the Highlands established a striking instance of regional metamorphism on a large scale. He was a vice-president of the Royal Society, and a foreign member of the French Academy, was knighted in 1846, and made a baronet in 1863. In 1870 he founded the chair of Geology in Edinburgh University. He died 22d October 1871. Most of his contributions to science appeared in the Transactions of the Geological and other Societies. His principal works were The Silurian System (1839); The Geology of Russia in Europe and the Ural Mountains (1845; 2d ed. 1853). See Life by Professor Arch. Geikie (1875).