40 | Great Geologists
claimed the Lower Silurian as Cambrian.
Sedgwick also recognised that there was
an unconformity between the “Lower”
and “Upper” Silurian and that the term
Silurian could be not used beneath this
break. Murchison insisted there was no
unconformity. A flavour of the acrimonious
debate is given in this description by
Andrew Ramsay of the presentation of a
polemic paper by Sedgwick in February
1852 to The Geological Society of London.
“Good scrimmage between Sedgwick
and Murchison on the Lower Silurian
and Cambrian question. It was not an
enlivening spectacle. Sedgwick used
very hard words”. Matters were not truly
resolved until a few years after the deaths
of Murchison and Sedgwick, when Charles
Lapworth placed the problematic strata
within his new Ordovician System based
on their graptolite faunas.
He was committed to defining an ordered
and mappable stratigraphy (in 1855 he was
made Director General of the Geological
Survey) and indeed controversy persists
even today on where the precise limits of
geological periods should be drawn. That
he tried to resolve these issues through
field work, biostratigraphy and structural
relationships is to his credit. That he tried to
browbeat those who opposed him is not.
Murchison was perhaps the ultimate
“gentleman geologist”. His position in
society allowed him to converse with
governments and nobility and there is little
doubt that he saw the advancement of
geological and geographical knowledge
as advancing the British Empire (he was
a founder of the Royal Geographical
Society and served as its President on
multiple occasions). For his efforts he was
knighted in 1846 and made a Baronet in
A final controversy engaged Murchison in
1866. The list of honours he received from
his later years, when, failing to recognise
both British and international scientific
their position above the Moine Thrust, he
societies are numerous. Nineteen stars,
argued that a series of ancient gneiss, now crosses and other emblems of distinction
known to be Precambrian, could not be
were awarded to him by sovereigns of
older than Silurian.
many nations. Before his death in 1871 he
endowed a Chair in Geology at Edinburgh
It would be unfair to characterise
University and a medal and research fund
Murchison as the villain in these
at The Geological Society. His legacy
controversies and that he was always on
lives on too in many fossils that bear his
the wrong side of the scientific arguments.
name (e.g. Didymograptus murchisoni,
Fossiliferous Wenlock Limestone (Silurian) from Wren’s Nest,
Dudley.
the “tuning-fork” graptolite, a favourite of
paleontology students everywhere) and in
the name of geographical features such as
the Murchison River in Western Australia.
He was truly the King of Siluria.
REFERENCES
This essay has drawn upon information
from the following sources:
Gohau, G. 1990. A History of Geology.
Rutgers University Press. 259pp.
Hallam, A. 1983. Great Geological
Controversies. Oxford University Press,
244pp.
Morton, J.L. 2004. King of Siluria. Brocken
Spectre Publishing 280pp.
Oldroyd, D.R. 1990. The Highlands
Controversy. The University of Chicago
Press. 438pp.
Rider, M. 2005. Hutton’s Arse. Rider-French
Consulting Ltd. 214pp.
Rudwick, M.J.S. 1972. The Meaning of
Fossils. The University of Chicago Press,
287pp.
Secord, J.A. 1986. Controversy in Victorian
Geology: The Cambrian-Silurian Dispute.
Princeton University Press, 363pp.
Stafford, R.A. 1989. Scientist of Empire.
Cambridge University Press.
Silurian Trilobite (Calymene blumenbachi) from Wenlock Limestone,
at Wren’s Nest. Known colloquially as the ‘Dudley Bug’, this fossil
features in the Coat of Arms of the town of Dudley.