William Lonsdale
Excerpt
from: History
of Geology (1910)
[p.90]
Another geologist who rendered distinguished service,
WILLIAM LONSDALE (1794-1871), was born in Bath, became an ensign in the
King's Own Regiment in 1810, served in the Peninsular War, and was
present at the battle of Waterloo. He retired as Lieutenant, and,
according to his own statement, he became a geologist through hearing
the conversation of two ladies about a fossil in the library at the
Literary Institution at Bath. He determined to investigate the
neighbourhood; and it is recorded by Sir A. Geikie that in 1825
Murchison accidentally met [p.91] him
in a quarry, "a tall, grave man, with a huge hammer on his shoulder,"
who proved to be so full of information that Murchison spent some days
in Bath under his guidance. This introduction, no doubt, led to the
appointment, in 1829, of Lonsdale as Curator and Librarian of the
Geological Society of London at Somerset House, whee he remained until
1842. In 1829 he read before the Society a paper on the Oolitic
district near Bath, illustrated by sheets of the Ordnance one-inch map,
which had been previously exhibited at the anniversary meeting in 1828.
Then Fitton had remarked that "the maps thus coloured are probably as
complete specimens of geological illustration as ever have been
produced." The paper itself was a model of careful and accurate
observation. Lonsdale subsequently extended his researches among the
oolites northwards to the Cotteswold Hills, and showed that the
stone-tiles of "Slates" of Sevenhampton, in Gloucestershire, were
equivalent to the Stonefield Slate at the base of the Great Oolite, and
were not on the horizon of the Forest Marble, as had been supposed.
The age of the Stonesfield Slate, near Oxford, which
had been worked since the time of Roman occupation for its stone-tiles,
had become a matter of considerable interest a few years previously, on
account of the reported discovery in it of mammalian remains...
[p.141] In 1836
Sedgwick and Murchison commenced a detailed examination of the older
strata of Devonshire, with the view, at first, of determining the age
of the Culm-measures which had been included in the Greywacke group.
Their field-observations enabled them to decide that the Culm-bearing
strata were of Carboniferous age, and included representatives of the
true Coal-measures. The subject, however, grew in interest, and they
devoted attention during the three following years to the elucidation
of the age and succession of the older strata. Aided by the local
knowledge and collections of fossils made by Godwin-Austen and by S. R.
Pattison, they determined the broad general sequence of the rocks.
Sedgwick, indeed, in 1820 had noted that the fossils of the Plymouth
limestone were distinct from those of the Mountain limestone; and
William Lonsdale, in December, 1837, expressed his opinion, from an
examination of the South Devon fossils collected by [p.142]
Godwin-Austen, that they belonged in a period between the Carboniferous
and Silurian systems, and were, consequently, of the age of the Old Red
Sandstone. This view was communicated to Sedgwick and Murchison, who in
1839 proposed that the name DEVONIAN be given to the
great system of strata below the Carboniferous in the south-west of
England. Thus the Cornish killas (in great part), the Plymouth and
Torquay limestones, and other strata of slate and grit came to be
grouped as Devonian. Fish-remains of Old Red Sandstone type (Cephalaspis, Pteraspis, etc.) were subsequently found by C. W. Peach, Pengelly and others, in the older Devonian rocks near Looe and Fowey.
Nevertheless, while the system, as a whole, was
well-founded, the precise palaeontological relations of the Devonian
and carboniferous were not established, and no definite base to the
Devonian was discovered. Subsequent research has shown how much more
complex is the structure in Cornwall and South Devon, and even in North
Devon and West Somerset, than was at first supposed.
The establishment of the Devonian system in England
stimulated research on the equivalent strata on the Continent, and
especially on the borders of France, Belgium, and Germany, in the
Ardennes, and country eastward to the Eifel and Coblenz. To the
geologists in those [p.143] areas we are mainly indebted for the determination of the sequence of the subdivisions and their fossils...
Two extracts from History of Geology, by Horace B. Woodward (1911) pages 90-91 and pages 141-143. p.90.
Retyped from the book as Digitized by Google. (source)
See also:
Today in Science History, birthdate entry for William Lonsdale on 9 Sep 1794.
