Helping San Diego, California and beyond since 1997.
Do you need
volunteer, community service, work, military or court hours?
|
|
Helping San Diego, California and beyond since 1997.
|
|
Click here and add this page to your favorites!
|
Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: SCY-SHA |
|
|
SEDGWICK, ADAM (1785-1873) , English geologist, was born on the 22nd of March 1785 at Dent in Yorkshire, the second son of Richard Sedgwick, vicar of the parish. He was educated at the Grammar Schools of Dent and Sedbergh, and at Trinity College, Cambridge , where he graduated B.A. as fifth wrangler in 18o8, and two years later was elected a Fellow of his college. For several years he was occupied as private tutor and afterwards as assistant mathematical tutor at Trinity College. In 1818 he was admitted to priests' orders. He had at this time paid no serious attention to geology. As a lad he had collected fossils from the Mountain Limestone near Dent, and in 1813 he had visited the mines near Furness and Coniston. Nevertheless, when the Rev. John Hailstone retired in 1818 from the post of Woodwardian professor of geology, Sedgwick applied for the vacancy, and was so strongly supported by his college as a man of talent that he was elected by a large majority.. He now took up the study of geology with intense zeal, traversed large areas in the south of England, and, becoming acquainted with W. D. Conybeare, regarded him as his master in geology. It is astonishing with what rapidity he grasped the principles of stratigraphical geology and the relationships of rocks in the field. In papers read before the Cambridge Philosophical Society, 182o-1821, on the structure of parts of Devonshire and Cornwall
interest
chief
1I and from opposite sides of the principality. Eventually Sedgwick founded the Cambrian system for the oldest group of fossiliferous strata, and Murchison the Silurian
Silurian
late
Sedgwick was ever actively interested in the work of his university. His famous Discourse on the Studies of the University of Cambridge, delivered in 1832,was published in expanded form in 1833; it reached a fifth edition in 1850. The studies were reviewed under the headings of (I) The laws of nature, (2) Ancient literature and language, and (3) Ethics and metaphysics; and the volume had so grown that it ultimately consisted of 442 pages of preface, or preliminary dissertation on the history of creation, with arguments against the transmutation of species, and an essay on the evidences of Christianity; the discourse occupied 94 pages; and there was an appendix of notes, &c., that filled 228 pages. In 1833 Sedgwick was president of the British Association at the first Cambridge meeting, and in 1834 he was appointed a canon of Norwich. In 1836 with Murchison he made a special
Culm
Lonsdale , that the fossils of the South Devon limestones and those of Ilfracombe and other parts of North Devon were of an intermediate type between those of the Silurian and Carboniferous systems. They therefore introduced the term Devonian for the great group of slates, grits and lime-stones, now known under that name in West Somerset, Devon and Cornwall
The Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society was awarded to Sedgwick in 1851, and the Copley Medal of the Royal Society in 1863. He continued to lecture until 1872, when ill-health rendered necessary the appointment of a deputy (Professor J. Morris). He died at Cambridge on the 27th of January 1873. In 1865 the senate of the university received from A. A. Van Sittart the sum of 500 " for the purpose of encouraging the study of geology among the resident members of the university, and in honour of the Rev. Adam Sedgwick." Thus was founded the Sedgwick prize to be given every third year for the best essay on some geological subject. The first Sedgwick prize was awarded in 1873. On the death of Sedgwick it was decided that his memorial should take the form of a new and larger museum. Hitherto the geological collections had been placed in the Woodwardian Museum In Cockerell's Building. Through the energy of Professor T. McK. Hughes (successor to Sedgwick) the new building termed the Sedgwick Museum was completed and opened in 1903. See the Life and Letters,by John Willis Clark
End of Article: SEDGWICK, ADAM (1785-1873) If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
<a href="http://jcsm.org/StudyCenter/Encyclopedia/SCY_SHA/SEDGWICK_ADAM_1785_1873_.html"> SEDGWICK, ADAM (1785-1873) </a> |
|
|
(Previous) SEDGLEY |
(Next) SEDGWICK, JOHN (18131864) |
|
Sponsored Advertisements