Roderick Murchison
Encyclopedia
Order of the Bath
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
DCL
DCL
- Organizations :* Detroit College of Law, now known as Michigan State University College of Law* Data Connection Ltd, see Metaswitch* Disney Cruise Line, a cruise line company * Distillers Company Limited, a producer of spirits...
FRS FRSE FLS PRGS PBA MRIA (22 February 1792 – 22 October 1871) was a Scottish
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
geologist
Geologist
A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth as well as the processes and history that has shaped it. Geologists usually engage in studying geology. Geologists, studying more of an applied science than a theoretical one, must approach Geology using...
who first described and investigated the Silurian
Silurian
The Silurian is a geologic period and system that extends from the end of the Ordovician Period, about 443.7 ± 1.5 Mya , to the beginning of the Devonian Period, about 416.0 ± 2.8 Mya . As with other geologic periods, the rock beds that define the period's start and end are well identified, but the...
system.
Early life and work
Muir of Ord
Muir of Ord is a village in Highland, Scotland. It is situated near the western boundary of the Black Isle, about 20 km west of the city of Inverness, and 10 km south of Dingwall...
, Ross-shire
Ross-shire
Ross-shire is an area in the Highland Council Area in Scotland. The name is now used as a geographic or cultural term, equivalent to Ross. Until 1889 the term denoted a county of Scotland, also known as the County of Ross...
, the son of Kenneth Murchison. His wealthy father died in 1796, when Roderick was 4 years old, and he was sent to Durham School
Durham School
Durham School, headmaster Martin George , is an independent British day and boarding school for boys and girls in Durham....
3 years later, and then the military college at Great Marlow
Great Marlow
Great Marlow is a civil parish within Wycombe district in the English county of Buckinghamshire located north of the town of Marlow and south of High Wycombe. The parish includes the hamlets of Bovingdon Green, Burroughs Grove, Chisbridge Cross and Marlow Common, and Danesfield Base, a housing...
to be trained for the army. In 1808 he landed with Wellesley
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS , was an Irish-born British soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the 19th century...
in Galicia, and was present at the actions of Roliça
Battle of Roliça
In the Battle of Roliça an Anglo-Portuguese army under Sir Arthur Wellesley defeated an outnumbered French army under General Henri Delaborde, near the village of Roliça in Portugal. The French retired in good order...
and Vimeiro
Battle of Vimeiro
In the Battle of Vimeiro the British under General Arthur Wellesley defeated the French under Major-General Jean-Andoche Junot near the village of Vimeiro , near Lisbon, Portugal during the Peninsular War...
. Subsequently under Sir John Moore
John Moore (British soldier)
Lieutenant-General Sir John Moore, KB was a British soldier and General. He is best known for his military training reforms and for his death at the Battle of Corunna, in which his force was defeated but gained a tactical advantage over a French army under Marshal Soult during the Peninsular...
, he took part in the retreat to Corunna
A Coruña (province)
The province of A Coruña is the most North-western Atlantic-facing province of Spain, and one of the four provinces which constitute the autonomous community of Galicia...
and the final battle there.
After eight years of service Murchison left the army, and married Charlotte Hugonin (8 April 1788 - 9 February 1869), the only daughter of General Hugonin, of Nursted House, Hampshire. Murchison and his wife spent two years in mainland Europe, particularly in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. They then settled in Barnard Castle
Barnard Castle
Barnard Castle is an historical town in Teesdale, County Durham, England. It is named after the castle around which it grew up. It sits on the north side of the River Tees, opposite Startforth, south southwest of Newcastle upon Tyne, south southwest of Sunderland, west of Middlesbrough and ...
, County Durham, England in 1818 where Murchison made the acquaintance of Sir Humphry Davy
Humphry Davy
Sir Humphry Davy, 1st Baronet FRS MRIA was a British chemist and inventor. He is probably best remembered today for his discoveries of several alkali and alkaline earth metals, as well as contributions to the discoveries of the elemental nature of chlorine and iodine...
. Davy urged Murchison to turn his energy to science, after hearing that he wasted his time riding to hounds and shooting. Murchison became fascinated by the young science of geology and joined the Geological Society of London
Geological Society of London
The Geological Society of London is a learned society based in the United Kingdom with the aim of "investigating the mineral structure of the Earth"...
, soon becoming one of its most active members. His colleagues there included Adam Sedgwick
Adam Sedgwick
Adam Sedgwick was one of the founders of modern geology. He proposed the Devonian period of the geological timescale...
, William Conybeare, William Buckland
William Buckland
The Very Rev. Dr William Buckland DD FRS was an English geologist, palaeontologist and Dean of Westminster, who wrote the first full account of a fossil dinosaur, which he named Megalosaurus...
, William Fitton
William Henry Fitton
William Henry Fitton was an Irish geologist-Biography:Fitton was born in Dublin and educated at Trinity College in that city. He gained the senior scholarship in 1798, and graduated in the following year. At this time he began to take an interest in geology and to form a collection of fossils...
, Charles Lyell
Charles Lyell
Sir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet, Kt FRS was a British lawyer and the foremost geologist of his day. He is best known as the author of Principles of Geology, which popularised James Hutton's concepts of uniformitarianism – the idea that the earth was shaped by slow-moving forces still in operation...
and Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
.
Exploring with his wife, Murchison studied the geology of the south of England, devoting special attention to the rocks of the north-west of Sussex
Sussex
Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...
and the adjoining parts of Hampshire
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
and Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
, on which, aided by Fitton, he wrote his first scientific paper, read to the Geological Society of London in 1825. Turning his attention to Continental geology, he and Lyell explored the volcanic region of Auvergne
Auvergne (province)
Auvergne was a historic province in south central France. It was originally the feudal domain of the Counts of Auvergne. It is now the geographical and cultural area that corresponds to the former province....
, parts of southern France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, northern Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, Tyrol and Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. A little later, with Sedgwick as his companion, Murchison attacked the difficult problem of the geological structure of the Alps
Alps
The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....
. Their joint paper giving the results of their study is a classic in the literature of Alpine geology.
Silurian system
Greywacke
Greywacke or Graywacke is a variety of sandstone generally characterized by its hardness, dark color, and poorly sorted angular grains of quartz, feldspar, and small rock fragments or lithic fragments set in a compact, clay-fine matrix. It is a texturally immature sedimentary rock generally found...
rocks underlying the Old Red Sandstone
Old Red Sandstone
The Old Red Sandstone is a British rock formation of considerable importance to early paleontology. For convenience the short version of the term, 'ORS' is often used in literature on the subject.-Sedimentology:...
could be grouped into a definite order of succession. The result was the establishment of the Silurian
Silurian
The Silurian is a geologic period and system that extends from the end of the Ordovician Period, about 443.7 ± 1.5 Mya , to the beginning of the Devonian Period, about 416.0 ± 2.8 Mya . As with other geologic periods, the rock beds that define the period's start and end are well identified, but the...
system under which were grouped, for the first time, a remarkable series of formations, each replete with distinctive organic remains other than and very different from those of the other rocks of England. These researches, together with descriptions of the coalfields
South Wales Coalfield
The South Wales Coalfield is a large region of south Wales that is rich with coal deposits, especially the South Wales Valleys.-The coalfield area:...
and overlying formations in South Wales
South Wales
South Wales is an area of Wales bordered by England and the Bristol Channel to the east and south, and Mid Wales and West Wales to the north and west. The most densely populated region in the south-west of the United Kingdom, it is home to around 2.1 million people and includes the capital city of...
and the English border counties
Welsh Marches
The Welsh Marches is a term which, in modern usage, denotes an imprecisely defined area along and around the border between England and Wales in the United Kingdom. The precise meaning of the term has varied at different periods...
, were embodied in The Silurian System (1839).
The establishment of the Silurian system was followed by that of the Devonian
Devonian
The Devonian is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic Era spanning from the end of the Silurian Period, about 416.0 ± 2.8 Mya , to the beginning of the Carboniferous Period, about 359.2 ± 2.5 Mya...
system, an investigation in which Murchison assisted, both in the south-west of England and in the Rhineland
Rhineland
Historically, the Rhinelands refers to a loosely-defined region embracing the land on either bank of the River Rhine in central Europe....
. Soon afterwards Murchison projected an important geological campaign in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
with the view of extending to that part of the Continent the classification he had succeeded in elaborating for the older rocks of western Europe. He was accompanied by Edouard de Verneuil
Edouard de Verneuil
Phillippe Edouard Poulletier de Verneuil was a French paleontologist.He was born in Paris and educated in law, but being of independent means he was free to follow his own inclinations, and having attended lectures on geology by Jean-Baptiste Elie de Beaumont he was so attracted to the subject...
(1805–1873) and Count Alexander von Keyserling (1815–1891), in conjunction with whom he produced a work on Russia and the Ural Mountains
Ural Mountains
The Ural Mountains , or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through western Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the Ural River and northwestern Kazakhstan. Their eastern side is usually considered the natural boundary between Europe and Asia...
. The publication of this monograph in 1845 completes the first and most active half of Murchison’s scientific career.
In 1846 he was knighted, and in the same year he presided over the meeting of the British Association
British Association for the Advancement of Science
frame|right|"The BA" logoThe British Association for the Advancement of Science or the British Science Association, formerly known as the BA, is a learned society with the object of promoting science, directing general attention to scientific matters, and facilitating interaction between...
at Southampton
Southampton
Southampton is the largest city in the county of Hampshire on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest...
. During the later years of his life a large part of his time was devoted to the affairs of the Royal Geographical Society
Royal Geographical Society
The Royal Geographical Society is a British learned society founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical sciences...
, of which he was in 1830 one of the founders, and he was president 1843-1845, 1851–1853, 1856–1859 and 1862-1871. He served on the Royal Commission on the British Museum
Royal Commission on the British Museum
The Royal Commission on the British Museum was set up to review the activities of the British Museum particularly in relation to its Library....
(1847–49).
Scotland
The chief geological investigation of the last decade of his life was devoted to the HighlandsScottish Highlands
The Highlands is an historic region of Scotland. The area is sometimes referred to as the "Scottish Highlands". It was culturally distinguishable from the Lowlands from the later Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands...
of Scotland, where he wrongly believed he had succeeded in showing that the vast masses of crystalline schist
Schist
The schists constitute a group of medium-grade metamorphic rocks, chiefly notable for the preponderance of lamellar minerals such as micas, chlorite, talc, hornblende, graphite, and others. Quartz often occurs in drawn-out grains to such an extent that a particular form called quartz schist is...
s, previously supposed to be part of what used to be termed the Primitive formations, were really not older than the Silurian period, for that underneath them lay beds of limestone
Limestone
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....
and quartzite
Quartzite
Quartzite is a hard metamorphic rock which was originally sandstone. Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tectonic compression within orogenic belts. Pure quartzite is usually white to gray, though quartzites often occur in various shades of pink...
containing Lower Silurian (Cambrian
Cambrian
The Cambrian is the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, lasting from Mya ; it is succeeded by the Ordovician. Its subdivisions, and indeed its base, are somewhat in flux. The period was established by Adam Sedgwick, who named it after Cambria, the Latin name for Wales, where Britain's...
) fossils. James Nicol
James Nicol
James Nicol , Scottish geologist, was born at Traquair, near Innerleithen, in Peeblesshire.His father, the Rev. James Nicol , was minister of Traquair, and acquired some celebrity as a poet. Educated at Edinburgh University , James Nicol attended the lectures of Robert Jameson, gaining a keen...
recognised the fallacy in the Murchison's extant theory and propounded his own ideas, in the 1880s these were superseded by the correct theory of Charles Lapworth
Charles Lapworth
Charles Lapworth was an English geologist.-Biography:He was born at Faringdon in Berkshire and educated as a teacher at the Culham Diocesan Training College near Abingdon, Oxfordshire. He moved to the Scottish border region, where he investigated the previously little-known fossil fauna of the area...
, which was corroborated by Benjamin Peach
Ben Peach
Benjamin Neeve Peach, FRS was a British geologist.He was born at Gorran Haven in Cornwall to Charles William Peach, an amateur British naturalist and geologist. Ben was educated at the Royal School of Mines in London and then joined the Geological Survey in 1862 as a geologist, moving to the...
and John Horne
John Horne
John Horne was a Scottish geologist. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1900. He was a pupil of Ben Peach....
. Their subsequent research showed that the infraposition of the fossiliferous rocks is not their original place, but had been brought about by a gigantic system of dislocations, whereby successive masses of the oldest gneiss
Gneiss
Gneiss is a common and widely distributed type of rock formed by high-grade regional metamorphic processes from pre-existing formations that were originally either igneous or sedimentary rocks.-Etymology:...
es, have been torn up from below and thrust bodily over the younger formations.
In 1855 Murchison was appointed director-general of the British Geological Survey
British Geological Survey
The British Geological Survey is a partly publicly funded body which aims to advance geoscientific knowledge of the United Kingdom landmass and its continental shelf by means of systematic surveying, monitoring and research. The BGS headquarters are in Keyworth, Nottinghamshire, but other centres...
and director of the Royal School of Mines
Royal School of Mines
Royal School of Mines comprises the departments of Earth Science and Engineering, and Materials at Imperial College London.- History :The Royal School of Mines was established in 1851, as the Government School of Mines and Science Applied to the Arts...
and the Museum of Practical Geology in Jermyn Street, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, in succession to Sir Henry De la Beche
Henry De la Beche
Sir Henry Thomas De la Beche FRS was an English geologist and palaeontologist who helped pioneer early geological survey methods.-Biography:...
, who had been the first to hold these offices. Official routine now occupied much of his time, but he found opportunity for the Highland researches just alluded to, and also for preparing successive editions of his work Siluria (1854, ed. 5, 1872), which was meant to present the main features of the original Silurian System together with a digest of subsequent discoveries, particularly of those that showed the extension of the Silurian classification into other countries.
Later life
Baronet
A baronet or the rare female equivalent, a baronetess , is the holder of a hereditary baronetcy awarded by the British Crown...
. The learned societies of his own country bestowed their highest rewards upon him: the Royal Society
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
gave him the Copley medal
Copley Medal
The Copley Medal is an award given by the Royal Society of London for "outstanding achievements in research in any branch of science, and alternates between the physical sciences and the biological sciences"...
, the Geological Society its Wollaston medal
Wollaston Medal
The Wollaston Medal is a scientific award for geology, the highest award granted by the Geological Society of London.The medal is named after William Hyde Wollaston, and was first awarded in 1831...
, and the Royal Society of Edinburgh
Royal Society of Edinburgh
The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity, operating on a wholly independent and non-party-political basis and providing public benefit throughout Scotland...
its Brisbane Medal. There was hardly a foreign scientific society of note without his name among its honorary members. The French Academy of Sciences
French Academy of Sciences
The French Academy of Sciences is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research...
awarded him the prix Cuvier, and elected him one of its eight foreign members in succession to Michael Faraday
Michael Faraday
Michael Faraday, FRS was an English chemist and physicist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry....
. In 1855, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences or Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden. The Academy is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization which acts to promote the sciences, primarily the natural sciences and mathematics.The Academy was founded on 2...
.
One of the closing public acts of Murchison’s life was the founding of a chair of geology and mineralogy at the University of Edinburgh
University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...
. Under his will there was established the Murchison Medal
Murchison Medal
An award established by Roderick Murchison, who died in 1871. One of the closing public acts of Murchison’s life was the founding of a chair of geology and mineralogy in the University of Edinburgh. Under his will there was established the Murchison Medal and geological fund to be awarded annually...
and a geological fund (The Murchison Fund
The Murchison Fund
The Murchison Fund is an award given by the Geological Society of London to researchers under the age of 40 who have contributed substantially to the study of hard rock and tectonic geology. It is named in honour of Prof. Roderick Impey Murchison.-Recipients:...
) to be awarded annually by the council of the Geological Society in London.
Murchison died in 1871, and is buried in Brompton Cemetery
Brompton Cemetery
Brompton Cemetery is located near Earl's Court in South West London, England . It is managed by The Royal Parks and is one of the Magnificent Seven...
, London.
Legacy
The crater MurchisonMurchison (crater)
Murchison is a lunar crater on the north edge of the Sinus Medii, named in honour of the geologist Sir Roderick Murchison. It shares a section of rim with the crater Pallas. To the southeast on the mare is the circular crater Chladni, and to the northeast is Ukert. Farther to the east is the...
on the Moon
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
and at least fifteen geographical locations on Earth are named after him.
These include: Mount Murchison in the Mountaineer Range
Mountaineer Range
Mountaineer Range is the range of mountains lying between the Mariner and Aviator Glaciers in Victoria Land, Antarctica. The seaward parts of the range were first viewed by Ross in 1841, and subsequently by several British and later American expeditions. The precise mapping of its overall features...
, Antarctica; Mount Murchison, just west of Squamish, British Columbia
Squamish, British Columbia
Squamish is a community and a district municipality in the Canadian province of British Columbia, located at the north end of Howe Sound on the Sea to Sky Highway...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
; tiny Murchison Island in the Queen Charlotte Islands
Queen Charlotte Islands
Haida Gwaii , formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands, is an archipelago on the North Coast of British Columbia, Canada. Haida Gwaii consists of two main islands: Graham Island in the north, and Moresby Island in the south, along with approximately 150 smaller islands with a total landmass of...
in the same province; Murchison Falls (Uganda)
Murchison Falls National Park
Murchison Falls National Park is a national park in Uganda. The park lies in north western Uganda, spreading inland from the shore of Lake Albert around the Victoria Nile. It is named for the Murchison Falls waterfall, itself named for a president of the Royal Geographical Society...
; and the Murchison River
Murchison River (Western Australia)
The Murchison River is the second longest river in Western Australia. It flows for about from the southern edge of the Robinson Ranges to the Indian Ocean at Kalbarri. It has a mean annual flow of about 200 million cubic metres.-Course:...
in Western Australia. Unusually, Murchison has two other rivers named after him in Western Australia: the Roderick River and the Impey River
Impey River
The Impey River is a river in the Mid West of Western Australia.The headwaters of the Impey rise south of Mount Murchison and flows East North East until it merges with the Murchison River of which it is a tributary....
, both tributaries of the Murchison.
Memorials
Perm
Perm is a city and the administrative center of Perm Krai, Russia, located on the banks of the Kama River, in the European part of Russia near the Ural Mountains. From 1940 to 1957 it was named Molotov ....
. It consists of a stone base, irregular in form, about 2 meters long and bearing a dark stone plate with the inscription:
The decision to perpetuate the explorer's name was accepted by the school administration and pupils in connection with a discussion to establish in Perm a pillar or an arch devoted to Roderick Murchison.
In 2009, the Ural-Scottish Society erected a memorial to Murchison on the banks of the Chusovaya River.
There is a commemorative 'blue plaque' on his residence in Barnard Castle (County Durham) at 21 Galgate.
Further reading
- Morton, John L., King of Siluria — How Roderick Murchison Changed the Face of Geology (Brocken Spectre Publishing, 2004, ISBN 0-9546829-0-4)
- Rudwick, Martin J. S.Martin J. S. RudwickMartin John Spencer Rudwick is an emeritus professor of History at the University of California, San Diego and an affiliated research scholar at Cambridge University's Department of History and Philosophy of Science. His principal field of study is the history of the earth sciences, for which he...
, The Great Devonian Controversy: The Shaping of Scientific Knowledge among Gentlemanly Specialists (University of Chicago Press, 1985) — the rise of Murchison to power - Secord, James A., Controversy in Victorian Geology: The Cambrian-Silurian Dispute (Princeton University Press, 1986) — documents the battle between Murchison and Adam SedgwickAdam SedgwickAdam Sedgwick was one of the founders of modern geology. He proposed the Devonian period of the geological timescale...