William Buckland (12 March 1784 - 24 August 1856) was a prominent English geologist and palaeontologist who wrote the first full account of a fossil dinosaur, a proponent of Old Earth creationism and Flood geology who later became convinced by the glaciation theory of Louis Agassiz. March 12 is the 71st day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (72nd in Leap years). ... 1784 was a leap year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... August 24 is the 236th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (237th in leap years), with 129 days remaining. ... 1856 was a leap year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... Royal motto: Dieu et mon droit (French: God and my right) Englands location within the UK Official language English de facto Capital London de facto Largest city London Area  - Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population  - Total (2001)  - Density Ranked 1st UK 49,138,831 377/km² Religion... Geology (from Greek γη- (ge-, the earth) and λογος (logos, word, reason)) is the science and study of the Earth, its composition, structure, physical properties, history, and the processes that shape it. ... A paleontologist carefully chips rock from a column of dinosaur vertebrae. ... Old Earth creationism is a variant of the creationist view of the origin of the universe and life on Earth. ... Flood geology is an effort to explain the worlds geological features with reference to the Flood in the Biblical account of Genesis. ... Louis Agassiz Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz (May 28, 1807-December 14, 1873) was a Swiss-American zoologist and geologist, the husband of educator Elizabeth Cabot Cary Agassiz, and one of the first world-class American scientists. ...

Early life and university

Buckland was born at Axminster in Devon, and as a child would accompany his father, the Rector of Templeton and Trusham, on his walks where interest in road improvements led to collecting fossil shells, including ammonites, from the Jurassic lias rocks exposed in local quarries. Arms of Axminster Town Council Axminster is a small market town on the eastern border of Devon, England. ... Devon is a county in South West England, bordering on Cornwall to the west, Dorset and Somerset to the east. ... This article is about the marine animal. ... The Jurassic period is a major unit of the geologic timescale that extends from about 195 million years BP at the end of the Triassic to 135 million years BP at the beginning of the Cretaceous. ... Lias may refer to: Lias, the lower Jurassic period which saw much deposition of clay followed by limestone. ...

He won a scholarship in 1801 to study for the ministry at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, also attending the lectures of John Kidd on mineralogy and chemistry, as well as developing an interest in geology and carrying out field research on strata during vacations. Having taken his BA in 1804 he went on to obtain his MA degree in 1808. He then became a Fellow of his college and was ordained as a priest, and continued to make frequent geological excursions on horseback to various parts of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. In 1813 he was appointed reader in mineralogy in succession to John Kidd, giving lively and popular lectures with increasing emphasis on geology and palaeontology. As (unofficial) curator of the Ashmolean Museum he built up collections, touring Europe and coming into contact with scientists including Georges Cuvier. 1801 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... Corpus Christi College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. ... John Kidd (September 10, 1775 - September 7, 1851) was an English physician, chemist and geologist. ... 1804 was a leap year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... 1808 was a leap year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... Scotland (Scottish Gaelic: Alba) is a country in northwest Europe, occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain. ... National motto: Cymru am byth (Welsh: Wales for ever) Waless location within the UK Official languages English(100%), Welsh(20. ... 1813 is a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England is the worlds first university museum. ... Georges Cuvier Baron Georges Leopold Chretien Frédéric Dagobert Cuvier (August 23, 1769 - May 13, 1832) was a French naturalist, He was born at Montbéliard (then Mömpelgard in Württemberg) under the name of Johann Leopold Nicolaus Friedrich Kuefer, and was the son of a retired officer...

Flood geology

In 1818 Buckland was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. That year he persuaded the Prince Regent to endow an additional Readership, this time in Geology, and he became the first holder of the new appointment, delivering his inaugural address on 15 May 1819. This was published in 1820 as Vindiciae Geologiae; or the Connexion of Geology with Religion explained, both justifying the new science of geology and reconciling geological evidence with the biblical accounts of Creation and Noah's Flood. At a time when others were coming under the opposing influence of James Hutton's theory of uniformitarianism, Buckland developed his Flood geology introducing the new hypothesis that the word "beginning" in Genesis meant an undefined period between the origin of the earth and the creation of its current inhabitants, during which a long series of extinctions and successive creations of new kinds of plants and animals had occurred. Thus his catastrophism theory incorporated a version of Old Earth creationism or Gap creationism. 1818 is a common year starting on Thursday. ... The Royal Society of London is claimed to be the oldest learned society still in existence. ... Prince Regent (or Prince Regnant, as a direct borrowing from French language) is a prince who rules a country instead of a sovereign, e. ... May 15 is the 135th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (136th in leap years). ... 1819 was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... 1820 was a leap year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... A Bible handwritten in Latin, on display in Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, England. ... In its widest sense, creationism (from the Latin creatio) refers to the theological doctrine that all material in the universe was created by a divine agency, such as God, out of nothingness (ex nihilo). ... In the Hebrew Bibles account (Gen. ... James Hutton, painted by Abner Lowe. ... Uniformitarianism has had two separate meanings, both more prevalent in 19th-century discourse: Within religious philosophy, Uniformitarianism (with a capital U) is the belief that the Universe has existed as it is now for an infinite time and will continue to exist for ever. ... Flood geology is an effort to explain the worlds geological features with reference to the Flood in the Biblical account of Genesis. ... Genesis (Greek: Γένεσις, having the meanings of birth, creation, cause, beginning, source and origin) is the first book of the Torah (five books of Moses) and hence the first book of the Tanakh, part of the Hebrew Bible; it is also the first book of the Christian Old Testament. ... Catastrophism is the theory that Earth has been affected by sudden, short-lived, violent events that were sometimes worldwide in scope. ... Old Earth creationism is a variant of the creationist view of the origin of the universe and life on Earth. ... Gap Creationism, also called Restitution creationism, is a term used to describe a particular set of Christian fundamentalist beliefs about the creation of the Universe and the origin of man. ...

From his investigations of fossil bones at Kirkdale Cave in Yorkshire he concluded that the cave had actually been inhabited by hyaenas in antediluvian times rather than the fossils being remains of animals that had perished in the Flood and then carried from the tropics by the surging waters as was then thought. He developed these ideas into his great scientific work Reliquiae Diluvianae, or, Observations on the Organic Remains attesting the Action of a Universal Deluge which was published in 1823 and became a best seller. Kirkdale Cave is a cave in the vale of Pickering, Yorkshire, discovered by William Buckland to contain the remains of a number of extinct species of mammals. ... Yorkshire as a traditional county. ... 1823 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ...

Megalosaurus and marriage

He continued to live in Corpus Christi College and in 1824 he became president of the Geological Society of London. Here he announced the discovery at Stonesfield of fossil bones of a giant reptile which he named Megalosaurus (great lizard) and wrote the first full account of what would later be called a dinosaur. 1824 was a leap year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... The Geological Society of London is a learned society based in the United Kingdom with the aim of investigating the mineral structure of the Earth. It is the oldest geological society in the world. ... Megalosaurus was a large meat-eating dinosaur of the Jurassic period. ... Orders Saurischia    Sauropodomorpha    Theropoda Ornithischia Dinosaurs are animals that dominated the terrestrial ecosystem for over 100-million years. ...

In 1825 he resigned his college fellowship to take up the living (post as a clergyman) of Stoke Charity in Hampshire, but before he could take up the appointment he was made a Canon of Christ Church, a rich reward for academic distinction without serious administrative responsibilities. In December of that year he married Mary Morland of Abingdon, Oxfordshire, an accomplished illustrator and collector of fossils. Their honeymoon was a year touring Europe with visits to famous geologists and geological sites. She continued to assist him in his work as well as having nine children, five of whom survived to adulthood. On one occasion she helped him decipher footmarks found in a slab of sandstone by covering the kitchen table with paste while he fetched their pet tortoise and confirmed his intuition that tortoise footprints matched the fossil marks. 1825 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... Hampshire (abbr. ... Missing image Map sources for Abingdon at grid reference SU4997 Abingdon is a market town in Oxfordshire, England and is one of several places which claim to be Britains oldest continuously occupied town. ... Oxfordshire (abbreviated Oxon, from Latin Oxonia) is a county in South East England, bordering on Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and Warwickshire. ...

In 1832 he presided over the second meeting of the British Association, which was then held at Oxford. 1832 was a leap year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... The British Association or the British Association for the Advancement of Science or the BA is a learned society with the object of promoting science, directing general attention to scientific matters, and facilitating intercourse between scientific workers. ...

He was a prominent exponent of zoophagy.

Bridgewater Treatise

He was commissioned to contribute a section to the set of eight Bridgewater Treatises "On the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation". This took him almost five years work and was published in 1836 with the title Geology and Mineralogy considered with reference to Natural Theology. His section was a detailed compendium of his theories of day-age, gap theory, and theistic evolution. In response computing pioneer Charles Babbage produced his "Ninth Bridgewater Treatise". Francis Henry Egerton, 8th Earl of Bridgewater (1756 - February 12, 1829) was a noted British eccentric. ... 1836 was a leap year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... Charles Babbage Charles Babbage (December 26, 1791 – October 18, 1871) was an English mathematician, analytical philosopher and (proto-) computer scientist who was the first person to come up with the idea of a programmable computer. ...

Glaciation theory

By this time Buckland was a prominent and influential scientific celebrity, and a friend of the Tory prime minister Sir Robert Peel. In co-operation with Adam Sedgwick and Charles Lyell he prepared the report leading to establishment of the Geological Survey of Great Britain. The term Tory derives from the Tory Party, the ancestor of the modern UK Conservative Party. ... This is about the British Prime Minister. ... Adam Sedgwick (March 22nd, 1785–January 27, 1873) was one of the founders of modern geology. ... Charles Lyell Sir Charles Lyell (November 14, 1797 – February 22, 1875), British lawyer, geologist, and popularizer of uniformitarianism. ...

Having become interested in the theory of Louis Agassiz that polished and striated rocks as well as transported material had been caused by ancient glaciers, he travelled to Switzerland in 1838 to meet Agassiz and see for himself. He was convinced, and reminded of what he had seen in Scotland, Wales and northern England but had previously attributed to the Flood. When Agassiz came to Britain for the Glasgow meeting of the British Association in 1840 they went on an extended tour of Scotland and found evidence there of former glaciation. In that year Buckland had become president of the Geological Society again, and despite their hostile reaction to his presentation of the theory he was now satisfied that glaciation had been the origin of much of the surface deposits covering Britain. Louis Agassiz Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz (May 28, 1807-December 14, 1873) was a Swiss-American zoologist and geologist, the husband of educator Elizabeth Cabot Cary Agassiz, and one of the first world-class American scientists. ... 1838 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... Glasgows location in Scotland Glasgow or Glaschù is Scotlands largest city, on the River Clyde in west central Scotland. ... 1840 is a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ...

In 1845 he was appointed by Sir Robert Peel to the vacant deanery of Westminster, and was soon after inducted to the living of Islip, near Oxford, a preferment attached to the deanery. Buckland became involved in repair and maintenance of Westminster Abbey and in preaching suitable sermons to the rural population of Islip while continuing to lecture on geology at Oxford. In 1847 he was appointed a trustee in the British Museum; and in 1848 he was awarded the Wollaston Medal by the Geological Society of London. Around the end of 1849 he contracted a debilitating illness which increasingly invalided him until his death in 1856. The plot for his grave had been reserved, but when the gravedigger set to work it was found that an outcrop of solid Jurassic limestone lay just below ground level and explosives had to be used for excavation. This may have been a last jest by the noted geologist, reminiscent of Richard Whatley’s Elegy intended for Professor Buckland written in 1820: 1845 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... Westminster is the name of a city that covers much of central London, located to the west of the ancient City of London, and which has been the principal seat of government in England for more than nine hundred years. ... The Abbey at night, from Deans Yard. ... 1847 was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... The main entrance to the British Museum The British Museum is one of the worlds largest and most important museums of ancient history. ... 1848 is a leap year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Wollaston Medal is a scientific award for geology, the highest award granted by the Geological Society of London. ... 1849 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... 1856 was a leap year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... The Jurassic period is a major unit of the geologic timescale that extends from about 195 million years BP at the end of the Triassic to 135 million years BP at the beginning of the Cretaceous. ...

Where shall we our great Professor inter

That in peace may rest his bones?

If we hew him a rocky sepulchre

He’ll rise and break the stones

And examine each stratum that lies around

For he’s quite in his element underground

External link

Buckland at the Oxford University Musem of Natural History (http://www.oum.ox.ac.uk/geocolls/buckland/bio1.htm)