Heroes of science

by P. Martin Duncan

Though the main object of this summer tour was to work out the geological problem which had been assigned to him in Sutherlandshire, he sketched a most circuitous route, partly for the sake of showing Mrs. Murchison something more of the Highlands than she had yet seen, and partly with the view of putting to use his new acquirements in geology; so that after reaching Edinburgh, and having its geology expounded to him by Jameson, instead of striking north at once, he turned westwards to the island of Arran, and spent many weeks among the western islands from the Firth of Clyde to the north of Skye. The hills of his native country had now acquired an interest for him which they never possessed even in the days when they drew him off in eager pursuit of grouse and black cock. At every halt his first anxiety was to know what the rocks of the place might be, and how far he could identify their geological position. In Arran he filled his notebook with observations and queries about granite, red sandstone, limestone, and other puzzling matters, on which his previous experience in fieldwork in the south of England and in Yorkshire could throw no light, and for the elucidation of which he wisely resolved to secure, at some future time, the guidance and co-operation of an older geologist than himself. It was in the fulfilment of this resolution that Sedgwick and he first became fellow-workers in the field.

In the wildest of the western islands he and his wife did excellent work in collecting fossils, and thereby obtaining materials for making more detailed comparison between the secondary rocks of the west of Scotland and those of England than had been attempted by Dr. Macculloch. The actual fossil-hunting was mainly done by Mrs. Murchison, after whom one of the shells (Ammonites Murchisoniæ) was named by Sowerby, while her husband climbed the cliffs and trudged over the moors and crags, to make out the order of succession among the secondary strata. But the tour was not merely geological; many a halt and detour were made to get a good view of some fine scenery, or to make yet another sketch. Friends and highland cousins, too, were plentifully scattered along the route, so that the travellers had ample experience of the hearty hospitality of those regions. An occasional shot at grouse or deer, varied the monotony of the hammering; but even when stalking, Murchison could not keep his eyes from the rocks. Amid the jottings of his sport he had facts to chronicle about the gneiss or porphyry or sandstone through which the sport had led him. This characteristic, traceable even at this early period of his life, remained prominent up to the last autumn of his life in which he was able to wield a gun or hammer.

The summer had in great part passed before he reached that part of the eastern coast of Sutherlandshire where the scene of his special task lay; but that task proved to be eminently easy. From Dunrobin, where he was hospitably entertained, he could follow northwards and southwards a regular succession of strata, and he recognized in them the equivalents of parts of the oolite series of Yorkshire. The Brora coal, therefore, instead of forming part of the true carboniferous system, was simply a local peculiarity in the oolitic series. He made a collection of the fossils, which offered a means of satisfactory comparison with the oolitic rocks of England.

The rapidity with which this piece of work could be done left time for a prolongation of the tour northwards through Caithness, even up into the Orkney Islands, but at length the tourists had to prepare for a southward migration again. Reaching Inverness, they turned eastward to Aberdeen, and thence down the eastern coast by Peterhead, by Buller’s of Buchan, Arbroath, and St. Andrews. The immediate result of this summer’s work was seen in the preparation of a paper for the Geological Society.

Professor Sedgwick had already distinguished himself in the difficult labour of unravelling the structure of some of the older rocks, and Murchison suggested that they should visit Scotland and examine and describe part of the country together. They desired to ascertain if possible the position and general relations of the Old Red sandstone. This journey, intensely amusing in its anecdotes, led to much united work and good fellowship.

Having learned the principles of the science, Murchison went to study geology in the field on the continent. Accompanied by Mrs. Murchison, he visited the extinct volcanoes of Auvergne, the South of France and Italy, and finally Germany. Next year the Alps were explored, and subsequently Austria. At Vienna, Murchison indulged a little in what he always liked, and which did good to science, good society, and then started for Styria, and got much puzzled about the rocks and fossils at Gosau. On his return to England Murchison became secretary to the Geological Society, and held the position for five years, and then he became the president of the society. Subsequently he began seriously to attempt the description of the geology of Wales which ended in the establishment of the Silurian system of rocks. Then the Devonian and old red sandstones were considered, and the merits of the paleontologist, Lonsdale, who really established the great geological division of the Devonian, were fully conceded. About this time Murchison and his wife settled in the well known mansion in Belgrave Square, which was such a home for scientific men, British and foreign, for many a long year to come.

Russia was the next country to be explored, and Murchison spent a long and very pleasant time there; and his description of the Ural Mountains was of great importance. He was the first to sketch out broadly the geological construction of that very monotonous country, and to point out the existence there of a formation which covers the coal-bearing rocks of England, and which he called the Permian. Returning to England, after receiving the thanks of the Emperor Nicholas, Murchison again became President of the Geological Society, and with increased experience endeavoured to work out more fully than before, the old rocks of Wales, which he and Sedgwick had laboured over in common. Murchison and Sedgwick, however, began at this time to misunderstand one another, and those admirable men, the one having recognized the higher strata, and the other the lower, began to differ regarding the line of separation of their work. It is an unsettled point even at the present day, notwithstanding all the knowledge that these great men have left to us, and all that has come to science since their time. Ever enthusiastic in the cause of science as he had been in war and in the field, Murchison allowed himself no rest, but started for Germany via France to examine the red sands and clays in those countries which, overlying the carboniferous formation, resemble in position the Permian of Russia. The geologist was treated like a prince by kings, emperors, and a host of titled people who were glad to welcome the perfect gentleman so full of good genial temper and amiability.

At the same time Murchison did not forget the British Association for the Advancement of Science, with which he was officially connected. In 1843 he began to interest himself in the then little Geographical Society, which had been founded in 1830, chiefly by members of the Rayleigh Travellers’ club. Murchison was chosen its president, and he read an address to the fellows in 1844. This society, now of great utility to science and civilization, was fostered mainly by Murchison, and passed through years of steady progress under his management. In the same year, our geologist visited Scandinavia, where he found science more honoured than anywhere else on earth, and went on to St. Petersburg. Returning to England, Murchison and his fellow labourers, Von Keyserling and De Verneuil, published the great work on “Russia, and the Ural Mountains,” and our hero became a recognized pillar in geological science.

Knowing the geology of the Ural Mountains thoroughly, and having paid much attention to those parts of them where gold is found, Murchison was impressed, when he read of the nature of the Australian Alps, that they ought to be auriferous. In 1845, and 1846, Murchison spoke and wrote on this subject, and kept on directing the attention of the colonists to the necessity of searching for the precious mineral. In 1846 Murchison advised the unemployed tin miners of Cornwall to emigrate and dig for gold in Australia. In 1847 a Mr. W. T. Smith, of Sydney, acquainted Murchison that he had discovered gold, and a Mr. Phillips, of Adelaide, wrote announcing the same fact. Finally, in 1848, Murchison impressed on Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for the colonies the necessity of having Australia surveyed, for the purpose of gold finding. Three years afterwards a Mr. Hargraves came forward as the real Simon pure, and was acknowledged by the ignorant legislature of New South Wales as the discoverer of gold in Australia. Count Strzelecki, a geologist, sent Murchison specimens of rocks from Australia, and positively found gold, not by inference, as in Murchison’s case, but in reality. But at the request of the colonial authorities it was kept a secret!!! The Rev. W. B. Clarke, F.R.S., a capital geologist, found gold in places, and settled what rocks it was in. This was in 1841. So that Murchison, although not the first discoverer, or the first who inferred the existence of gold in the Australian rocks, must have great credit given to him.

Twenty years had passed away since Murchison sold his horses and gave up fox hunting, and he had done more than any man to establish the grand features of the outside structure of the earth, and to prove the succession everywhere of the same great formations. He was knighted in 1846, an honour which was appreciated in those days, but which is not compatible with the proper simplicity and nobility of science at the present time. Everybody was glad of the honour being given, and received by Murchison, and “Sir Roderick,” for the future came as aptly to the thoughts of his friends as “Mr. Murchison” had done of old. There is no doubt that at this time this experienced geologist believed that great lapses of time had occurred, involving great distinctions and new creations between the successive geological formations, that great changes had happened, universally, in the physical geography of the land and sea before a new formation was produced, and that the vast majority of fossils found in one were not recognized in a succeeding formation. He believed much in grand and sudden catastrophic changes in nature. The presidency of the British Association was given to the new scientific knight, and he worthily occupied the chair at the meeting at Southampton in 1846.