Home > William Lonsdale

He was educated for the army and in 1810 obtained a commission as ensign in the 4th (King's Own) regiment. He served in the Peninsular War at the battles of Salamanca and Waterloo, for both of which he received medals; and he retired as lieutenant.

Residing afterwards for some years at Batheaston he collected a series of rocks and fossils which he presented to the Literary and Scientific Institution of Bath. He became the first honorary curator of the natural history department of the museum, and worked until 1829 when he was appointed assistant secretary and curator of the Geological Society of London at Somerset House. There he held office until 1842, when illhealth led him to resign.

The ability with which he edited the publications of the society and advised the council on every obscure and difficult point was commented on by Murchison in his presidential address (1843). In 1829Events January 8 Hanging of body-selling murderer William Burke his associate William Hare, who testified against him, is released January 19 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust premieres March 4 Andrew Jackson succeeds John Quincy Adams as the President o Lonsdale read before the society an important paper On the Oolitic District of Bath (Trans. Geol. Soc. ser. 2, vol. iii.), the results of a survey begun ifl 1827; later he was engaged in a survey of the Oolitic strata of Gloucestershire (1832), at the instigation of the Geological Society, and be laid down on the one-inch ordnance maps the boundaries of the various geological formations.

He gave particular attention to the study of coralCorals are gastrovascular marine cnidarians (phylum Cnidaria; class Anthozoa) existing as small anemone-like polyps, typically forming colonies of many individuals. The group includes the important reef builders known as hermatypic corals, found in tropics, becoming the highest authority in England on the subject, and he described fossil forms from the Tertiary and Cretaceous strata of North AmericaNorth America is the third largest continent in area and the fourth ranked in population. It is bounded on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the south by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west by the North Pacific Ocea and from the older strata of Britain and RussiaThe Russian Federation ( Russian: , transliteration: Rossiyskaya Federatsiya or Rossijskaja Federacija , or Russia (Russian: , transliteration: Rossiya or Rossija , is a country that stretches over a vast expanse of eastern Europe and northern Asia. With. In 1837 he suggested from a study of the fossils of the South Devon limestoneshale overlaid by limestone. Cumberland Plateau, Tennessee Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed of mineral calcite (calcium carbonate). The primary source of this calcite is usually marine organisms. These organisms secrete shells that settle out of ts that they would prove to be of an age intermediate between the CarboniferousThe Carboniferous is a major division of the geologic timescale that extends from the end of the Devonian period (about 280 million years before the present (BP)) to the beginning of the Permian period (about 340 million Years BP). As with most older geol and SilurianAlternate use: The Silurians, a reptillian race from the science fiction series " Doctor Who . The Silurian is a major division of the geologic timescale that extends from about 408. 5 million years before the present (BP) with the end of the Ordovician p systems. This suggestion was adopted by Sedgwick and Murchison in 1839, and may be regarded as the basis on which they founded the Devonian system.

Lonsdale's paper, Notes on the Age of the Limestones of South Devonshire (read 1840), was published in the same volume of the Transactions of the Geological Society (ser. 2, vol. v.) with Sedgwick and Murchison's famous paper On the Physical Structure of Devonshire, and these authors observe that the conclusion arrived at by Mr Lonsdale, we now apply without reserve both to the five groups of our North Devon section, and to the fossiliferous slates of Cornwall. The later years of Lonsdale's life were spent in retirement, and he died at Bristol on the 11th of November 1871.

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. 1911 Britannica