Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 35.djvu/24

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Macculloch
18
Macculloch

quaintances, he married a Miss White, but not many weeks afterwards, while travelling with her in Cornwall, he was thrown from his carriage and sustained a compound fracture of the leg. It was amputated, and he sank after the operation, dying on 20 Aug. at the house of a friend, Captain Giddy, R.N., of Poltair, near Penzance. He was buried at Gulval, near that town.

Macculloch was a man of unwearied industry, and his knowledge included geology, mineralogy and chemistry, physics and mathematics, botany and zoology, even mechanics and architecture, besides, of course, medicine. He was something of a musician and of an artist. His writings are numerous. His minor scientific papers are seventy-nine in number, the majority being geological, but they also deal with such subjects as malaria, an indelible ink, the naturalisation of plants and animals—for instance, of marine fishes in fresh water—how crabs part with their claws, Greek fire, and the use of lights or fires in fisheries. They appeared chiefly in the ‘Quarterly Journal of Science,’ the ‘Edinburgh Journal of Science,’ the ‘Edinburgh Philosophical Journal,’ and the ‘Transactions of the Geological Society of London.’ To the last he contributed nineteen papers, some of them of considerable length; the majority dealt with the geology of Scotland, and that on the ‘Parallel Roads of Glenroy’ is the first careful account of these remarkable terraces. Macculloch regarded them as lacustrine, not marine; but as a dam of glacier ice had not been then devised, he was obviously puzzled to account for the absence of any traces of a barrier at the end of the supposed lake.

The following are the more important of his larger works: 1. ‘A Description of the Western Isles of Scotland, including the Isle of Man,’ 3 vols. 8vo, with an atlas in 4to, 1819. 2. ‘A Geological Classification of Rocks,’ 1821. 3. ‘On the Art of Making Wine,’ 1821; 4th ed. 1829. 4. ‘Highlands and Western Isles of Scotland,’ a general account of the country, in the form of a series of letters to Sir Walter Scott, 4 vols. 1824. 5. ‘Malaria, an Essay on the Production and Propagation of this Poison,’ &c., 1827. 6. ‘Essay on the Intermittent and Remittent Diseases,’ 2 vols. 1828; Philadelphia, 1830. 7. ‘A System of Geology, with a Theory of the Earth, and an Explanation of its Connection with the Sacred Records,’ 2 vols. 1831. 8. ‘Geological Map of Scotland, with a Memoir to H.M. Treasury,’ 1836. 9. ‘Proofs and Illustrations of the Attributes of God from the Facts and Laws of the Physical Universe,’ &c., 3 vols. 1837. The last was a posthumous work, published in accordance with directions left by him, for it had been completed in 1830, but held back because of the appearance of the ‘Bridgewater Treatises.’ The ‘Geological Map of Scotland’ was also published a few months after his death.

Some pungent remarks in the first and fourth of these works on the procrastination, slovenly habits, and other defects of the sea-coast Celts excited vehement indignation, which was expressed in print by Dr. John Brown in a vituperative book (cf. Gent. Mag. 20 Aug. 1835). Sir Charles Lyell, who first met Macculloch about 1825, speaking from the chair of the Geological Society, bears a less grudging testimony to Macculloch's talents. ‘The influence exerted by them [his writings] on the progress of our science has been powerful and lasting, yet they have been less generally admired and studied than they deserve. Their popularity has been impaired by a want of condensation and clearness in the style, which none could more easily have remedied than the author, had he been willing to submit to the necessary labour.’ Lyell also complains that ‘a want of enthusiasm for his subject is perceptible, especially in his “System of Geology,” and a disposition to neglect or speak slightingly of the labours of others, and even to treat in a tone bordering on ridicule some entire departments of science connected with geology, such as the study of fossil conchology.’ Lyell attributed these imperfections to habitual ill-health acting on a sensitive mind, and to a fixed impression that his services in the cause of geology were underrated.

Macculloch's writings give the impression that he was a man of solitary habits, making but few friends, and somewhat trying (as is reported) those few: of a critical nature, keen at detecting an unsound argument or a vulnerable point in a position. Diffuse his style may be, but it is smooth and balanced, and not seldom Macculloch enlivens a narrative of plain facts or the course of a scientific argument by some touch of caustic humour or some sound philosophic maxim; he was also a skilful and adroit controversialist. Undoubtedly he did not fully appreciate the importance of palæontology. It was then a novel branch of investigation, and he was one of the old school of geologists who could not forget that ‘their father was a mineralogist.’ Of the solid value of his work there can be no question. He made mistakes, but in his days geology was almost in its infancy; and the generation which succeeded him, while professing to correct and improve his work, not once only went wrong where he had been right—chiefly owing to the want of his sound knowledge of mineralogy and his inductive