Accession No
5911
Brief Description
vanity fair print of Roderick Murchison, November 26th, 1870
Origin
England
Maker
published by Vanity Fair
Class
prints
Earliest Date
1870
Latest Date
1870
Inscription Date
1870
Material
paper
Dimensions
width 245mm; length 368mm
Special Collection
Provenance
Purchased on or before 13/05/2003.
Inscription
VANITY FAIR
MEN OF THE DAY No. 14
“A Faithful Friend, an eminent Savant, and the best of possible Presidents..”
Description Notes
colour print from vanity fair of Roderick Impey Murchison (1792 - 1871), a Scottish geologist.
References
Events
Description
Roderick Impey Murchison (1792 - 1871), was a Scottish geologist. Born in Ross-shire, Murchison entered the army at age 15 and served under the Duke of Wellington in the Napoleonic wars.
In 1839, following research in Wales and England, he published The Silurian System , in which he named the Silurian period (about 443 to 417 million years ago). Murchison made numerous field expeditions, and his trips to Russia (1840 - 1844/5), at the personal request of Czar Nicholas, led to his definition of another world system: the Permian. He was often accompanied on these trips by notable geologists such as Adam Sedgewick and Charles Lyell. It was in collaboration with Sedgewick that he named the Devonian period.
He was knighted in 1846, and in 1855 he became director-general of the UK Geological Survey. For many years he was the president of the Royal Geographical Society. He was a prodigious author, publishing over 120 papers and books. The Murchison Falls (Uganda) and the Murchison River (Australia) are named after him.
13/05/2003
Created by: Boris Jardine on 13/05/2003
FM:46369
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