Murchison, SIR

RODERICK IMPEY, F.R.S., D.C.L., 17921871. Scottish geologist, knighted 1846, Baronet 1863. From 1824 he made valuable observations in England and Scotland, and with Sedgwick on the structure of the Alps. In 1831 he began the study of the rocks underlying the Old Red Sandstone on the border of Wales, and in 1839 brought to notice for the first time a remarkable series of formations, each replete with distinctive organic remains, older than and very different from those of other rocks of England, now traced in almost all parts of the world and known as the Silurian System. With Sedgwick he established the Devonian System, and, in 1840-45, with De Verneuil and Keyserling, made explorations of the rocks of Ru ia. Silurian System, 1839-54; Ural Mountains, 1845.