Few men were better placed to produce an authoritative study of Continental geology than Roderick Impey Murchison (1792 1871), President of the Geological Society and the Royal Geographical Society of London. Having conducted extensive fieldwork alongside Adam Sedgwick, in 1847 Murchison set out on a study tour that would change the manner in which geology was understood and debated. Delivered before the Geological Society and published in their Quarterly Journal in 1849, this paper challenged received wisdom as to the age and formation of the most impressive of geological phenomena. Covering...

The Scottish geologist Sir Roderick Impey Murchison (1792 1871) first proposed the Silurian period after studying ancient rocks in Wales in the 1830s. Naming the sequence after the Silures, a Celtic tribe, he believed that the fossils representing the origins of life could be attributed to this period. This assertion sparked a heated dispute with his contemporary Adam Sedgwick, ultimately ruining their friendship. First published in 1854, Siluria is a significant reworking of Murchison's earlier book, The Silurian System, which had appeared in 1839. Thorough in his approach, he combines his...