Buckland

“ With the air of a man who is thoroughly acquainted with the place, Redward Buckland followed an almost invisible path—termed throughout uncountable ages a Hard—that led across the mud flats to the edge of the water, Raymond treading carefully at his heels. At the end of the Hard lay a large, bluff-bowed boat, and, pulling the craft ashore by a length of rope, the archer tossed the oars into it and beckoned to his son to jump on board. ”

“ Buckland lit a cigarette.
“I had to wait while a new despatch was ciphered,” he said. “There’s no doubt that I’m being shadowed, George. The Count and his secretary got in at Sunbury; their car’s outside; and I’ve just seen two of their men in Whitehall.” ”

“ Genial, sagacious, enthusiastic, always prone to look at the humorous side of a subject, Buckland aimed rather at enlisting the sympathies of others in his favourite studies than at acquiring the name of a profound writer on science. ”

“ When in 1823 William Buckland, 63 a teacher of geology who was to become Dean of Westminster, dug out of a cave near Paviland a female skeleton which was painted with red ocher—a peculiar habit of early man and of man not so early—and which lay beside some ivory rods and bracelets and the skull of a mammoth, Protestant prejudice got the better of science. ”

“ Sometimes--not often--the same man unites the capacities of a patient and accurate investigator and of an accomplished narrator. To such men the field of enjoyment is boundless, as is the opportunity to promote the enjoyment of others.
One of these two-sided men was Francis Trevelyan Buckland, popularly known as "Frank" Buckland, and so called in some of his books. His father, William Buckland,--at the time of the son's birth canon of Christ College, Oxford, and subsequently Dean of Westminster,--was the well-known geologist. ”

“ This work was seized upon with eagerness by all who were desirous of having the records of revelation supported by the interpretations of scientific investigations, and it fully established the author's reputation as a geologist and a philosopher. In 1824 Buckland became president of the Geological Society, and in 1825 he resigned his fellowship, and was presented by his college with the living of Stoke Charity, near Whitchurch, Hampshire. In the same year Lord Liverpool gave him a canonry of the cathedral of Christ Church, Oxford. ”

“ In August, 1856, Dean Buckland died, and in November, 1857, Mrs. Buckland. On December 17, her son wrote in his journal: "Thirty-one years ago, at 6 A. M., I came into the world, at the old house in Christ Church, Quadrangle. I am now about half-way across the stage of life, and thank God I am just beginning to feel my feet. But, oh! what I have lost since last birthday, the best friend a man can have in the world,—his mother."
He did not know that he was very much more than "half-way across the stage of life already." It is well that we walk by faith rather than sight. ”

“ Two or three years after entering the Life-Guards, it occurred to Buckland that he was "getting too much in the natural history line," and must give more attention to medical subjects. He did not, however, but went deeper and deeper, and with more and more interest, into natural history; and his life in this period was full of his observations and experiments and collecting, and the writing of those charming articles for the periodicals. ”

“ Frank Buckland occupied so exceptional a position, and held it so long, that common justice requires that his memory should be preserved; and a short article on his doings, on his character, and even on the eccentricities which formed part of his character, may be welcome to hundreds of persons who knew and loved the man, and to thousands of other persons who did not know the man but loved his writings. ”

“ Disappointed by this action, and encouraged by the growing success of his literary and scientific career, Buckland resigned his commission in 1863, and devoted himself with ardor to what was to be his life-work in natural history and literature. "Fish-culture was henceforward his chief pursuit, and his life became one of incessant activity, bodily and mental"; but every fact connected with nature was interesting to him, and was held worthy to be communicated to others. ”

“ This series was especially directed to prove, by the aids of science, ‘The Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God as manifested in the Creation.’ This work may be regarded as a compendium of geological and palæontological science up to the date of its publication, enriched by numerous reflections of a highly philosophic character. At this period a brother geologist of eminence described Buckland as ‘cheery, humorous, bustling, full of eloquence, with which he too blended much true wit ”

“ He has been known to wade up to his neck in water, and change his clothes driving away from the river on the box of a fly. This was an exceptional case; but it was a common thing for him to sit for hours in wet boots. He rarely wore a great-coat; he never owned a railway-rug; he took a delight in cold, and frequently compared himself to a polar bear, which languished in the heat and revived in the frost. The pleasure which Mr. Buckland derived from cold accounted for many of his eccentricities. Even in winter he wore the smallest amount of clothing ”

“ But here it must be added that the man who has done more than all the Societies together to insure the passage of a Plumage Bill is Mr. James Buckland. Nothing in the humanitarian movement has been finer than the way in which Mr. ”

“ Layout 2BUCKLAND.—On April 8, 1942, at a Norwich nursing home, Canon Augustus Robert Buckland, of Sunnyside, Scole, Diss, Norfolk, aged 84 years. Funeral service, Norwich Cathedral, 12 noon, to-morrow (Saturday) . ”

“ It marked the advent of the last reprieve, that release that can never be recalled. The clouds have passed away for ever, and in the sunshine came the solace of all cares, the finality of pain, and the soothing and the solution of all sorrow. ”

“ Not a track remains of a single foot, or a single hoof; of all the countless millions of men and beasts whose progress spread desolation over the earth. But the Reptiles, that crawled upon the half-finished surface of our infant planet, have left memorials of their passage, enduring and indelible. No history has recorded their creation or destruction; their very bones are found no more among the fossil relics of a former world. ”

“ Mark where it is that a Newton finally reposes after piercing the thickest veil that envelopes nature—grasping and arresting in their course the most subtle of her elements and the swiftest—traversing the regions of boundless space—exploring worlds beyond the solar way—giving out the law which binds the universe in eternal order! ”

“ Why should we pronounce it impossible that there should be bodies formed to endure the burning sun, to whom fire maybe the natural element, whose bones and muscles are composed of fixed earth, their blood and juices of molten metals? ”

“ The jolly troop of huntsmen retired from the inhospitable gate of Wolf’s Crag, execrating, as they descended the steep pathway, the niggard and unworthy disposition of the proprietor, and damning, with more than silvan license, both the castle and its inhabitants. Bucklaw, with many qualities which would have made him a man of worth and judgment in more favourable circumstances, had been so utterly neglected in point of education, that he was apt to think and feel according to the ideas of the companions of his pleasures. ”

“ We conceive it undeniable, that we see, in the transition from an Earth peopled by one set of animals to the same Earth swarming with entirely new forms of organic life, a distinct manifestation of creative power transcending the operation of known laws of nature: and it appears to us, that Geology has thus lighted a new lamp along the path of Natural Theology. ”

“ Let us cast our eyes here and there, let us ransack all the Globe, let us with the greatest accuracy inspect every part thereof, search out the inmost secrets of any of the creatures, let us examine them with all our gauges, measure them with our nicest rules, pry into them with our microscopes and most exquisite instruments, still we find them to bear testimony to their infinite Workman. ”

“ The effect is heightened by the contrast of the coal-black colour of these vegetables, with the light ground-work of the rock to which they are attached. The spectator feels himself transported, as if by enchantment, into the forests of another world ”

“ We should see the same Concatenation and Subserviency, the same Necessity and Usefulness, the same Beauty and Harmony in all and every of its Parts, as what we discover in the Body of every single Animal. ”

“ Shall it any longer then be said, that a science, which unfolds such abundant evidence of the Being and Attributes of God, can reasonably be viewed in any other light than as the efficient Auxiliary and Handmaid of Religion? ”

“ Few facts are more remarkable in the history of the progress of human discovery, than that it should have been reserved almost entirely for the researches of the present generation, to arrive at any certain knowledge of the existence of the numerous extinct races of animals, which occupied the surface of our planet, in ages preceding the creation of man. ”

“ Even the folk of this old New England village, who had in their stern doctrines no value for a fair face, turned for a second, as if by some compelling gleam of light under their eyelids, when this little Buckley maid entered the meeting-house; and her mother and sisters, although they saw her every day, would stop sometimes their work or speech when her face came suddenly before their eyes.
Persis had her little looking-glass. She looked in it when she had washed her face to see if it were clean, and when she braided her hair to see if it were smooth. ”

“ But some things are of such a kind as not, to admit of being applied to the benefit of man, and others too noble for us to claim the sole use of them. Man has no farther concern with this earth than a few fathoms under his feet: was then the whole solid globe made only for a foundation to support the slender shell he treads upon? ”

“ As the study of both these branches forms the subject of the science of Geology, it is no less important to examine the nature and action of the physical forces, that have affected unorganized mineral bodies, than to investigate the laws of life, and varied conditions of organization, that prevailed while the crust of our globe, was in process of formation. ”

“ Thus enlarged in its views, and provided with fit means of pursuing them, Geology extends its researches into regions more vast and remote, than come within the scope of any other physical science except Astronomy. It not only comprehends the entire range of the mineral kingdom, but includes also the history of innumerable extinct races of animals and vegetables ”

“ The secrets of Nature, that are revealed to us, by the history of fossil Organic Remains, form perhaps the most striking results at which we arrive from the study of Geology. It must appear almost incredible to those who have not minutely attended to natural phenomena, that the microscopic examination of a mass of rude and lifeless limestone should often disclose the curious fact, that large proportions of its substance have once formed parts of living bodies. ”

“ Oliver Goldsmith was the most pure and suasive spirit of his age. To this day his gentle touch and soothing spell, by that magnetic power that flows through purity of sympathy, still sway the heart. His charming radiance and pure, divine delight move and master those who admire and honour this all-loving soul and most graceful writer. In reading his works, there is for all, and there must ever be, that sense of compassion and that absolving perception which must have moved the finer feelings of those who lived in his own time, and actually knew the man himself. ”

“ Having then this broad line marked out before us, and with a clear and perfect understanding, as to what we ought, and what we ought not to expect from the discoveries of Natural Philosophy, we may strenuously pursue our labours in the fruitful fields of Science, under the full assurance that we shall gather a rich and abundant harvest, fraught with endless evidences of the existence, and wisdom, and power, and goodness of the Creator. ”

“ Here, therefore, we enter on a new and no less curious than important field of inquiry, and commence our examination of the relics of a former world, with a view to ascertain how far the fossil members of the animal and vegetable kingdoms may, or may not, be related to existing genera and species, as parts of one great system of creation, all bearing marks of derivation from a common author. ”

“ We now approach the study of the natural history of the globe, aided not only by the higher branches of Physics, but by still more essential recent discoveries, in Mineralogy, and Chemistry, in Botany, Zoology, and comparative Anatomy. ”

“ No doubt, the testimony of natural reason, on whatever exercised, must of necessity stop short of those truths which it is the object of revelation to make known; but while it places the existence and principal attributes of a Deity on such grounds as to render doubt absurd and atheism ridiculous, it unquestionably opposes no natural or necessary obstacle to further progress ”

“ The myriads of petrified Remains which are disclosed by the researches of Geology all tend to prove, that our Planet has been occupied in times preceding the Creation of the Human Race, by extinct species of Animals and Vegetables, made up, like living Organic Bodies, of “Clusters of Contrivances,” which demonstrate the exercise of stupendous Intelligence and Power. ”