have been elevated by subterranean forces, of which the numberless craters covering the plateau were but individual and subordinate outlets! Vesuvius, even, and Etna, and all these extinct but at one time blazing Puys, thus shrunk into mere isolated vents, communicating with the seat of some mighty igneous force, far down below the surface of the globe. Our geologist could of course be a Wernerian no longer; but something was still wanting to the solidity and sufficiency of the basis of an edifice like that imagined by the pioneer of the Plutonic school. Volcanoes—even those masses of Auvergne—are, if compared with the regions occupied by the crystalline or granitic rocks, trifling in extent, and poorly representative of energies that could have given birth to our stupendous primitive mountains. Von Buch next looked towards the Scandinavian peninsula. His Neptunism received its deathblow there; and the blow resounded through the scientific world. In the environs of Christiania, and elsewhere in a great number of places, he found mountains of porphyry resting on limestone, and enormous masses of granite leaning on stratified beds full of petrifactions. The system of Werner could be sustained no longer;—Von Buch's early faith was conclusively done for!—But still larger views soon broke on our geologist. What he had seen dimly indicated in the soil of Auvergne, became matter of demonstration in Sweden. For more than half a century previous to Von Buch's visit, the inhabitants of the sea-coast of that country had marked a gradual retirement of the ocean. Satisfying himself that the fact is rigorously true, the inquirer exclaims—"How strange a phenomenon, and to how many problems does it give rise!... We can reach no other result than that a slow and general rising of Sweden is taking place—from Fredericshall to Abo, and probably to St. Petersburg." It was years before Von Buch traced all the consequences of this astonishing result; but he succeeded in the end in laying, through means of it, the sure foundations of the rational dynamics of geology. Farther instructed, and confirmed by his subsequent voyage to the Canaries, of which he has left so pleasing a record, he bequeathed as fixed points of all future science—(1) the doctrine of the elevation alike of mountains and continents; (2) an analysis of the mechanism of the formation of volcanoes; (3) the theory of the shifting of the beds of oceans, in connection with the elevation of mountains; and (4) the determinate and marvellous significance of the unconformity of strata—a phenomenon never before interpreted, but which is nothing else than a key to the periods and comparative ages of the great revolutions of our globe. Truths like these could be reached only by a master-mind. They are, indeed, only inductions: would that many which have succeeded them were as pure! His separate contributions on specific points are numerous and invaluable. His manner of existence was simple and retiring—affected, in a certain degree, by a racy peculiarity. He was the true working geologist; never shrinking from toil, and able to endure it.—His friends were the most distinguished men in Europe. Alexander Humboldt left, in a few words of affection, the confession how much he loved him, and how deeply he felt that science should deplore his loss.
BUCHAN, David, a skilful and accomplished officer belonging to the royal navy of Britain, is entitled to notice mainly from his connection with enterprise in the arctic seas. In 1818 he was intrusted with the charge of the Dorothea and Trent, two vessels fitted out by the British government for the purpose of seeking a passage from the Atlantic ocean into the Pacific, through Behring Strait, by way of the pole. Lieutenant (afterward Sir John) Franklin, in command of the Trent, was Buchan's companion on this enterprise. For a narrative of this remarkable voyage we are indebted to the pen of Captain Beechey, who bore a share in it. (See Beechey, F. W.) Buchan was subsequently employed upon the Newfoundland station, and held for several years the office of high-sheriff of Newfoundland, to which he was appointed in 1825.—W. H.
BUCHAN, David Stewart Erskine, earl of. See Erskine.
BUCHAN, Elspith, a crazy Scottish matron, whom, as the leader of a small but enthusiastic sect of fanatics, it would have been proper to call an impostor, if her impositions had only been a little more successful. She was born at Fitney-Can, between Banff and Portroy, in 1738. Shortly after her marriage with Robert Buchan, a potter in Glasgow, she assumed those high but undefined pretensions to an apostolic character, which her name but too ludicrously recalls; and having persuaded a certain Mr. Hugh Whyte, a relief clergyman of Irvine, to undertake the promulgation of her evangel, she soon found herself surrounded by a score or two of adherents, some of whom, strange to say, had neither the excuse of ignorance nor idiocy. Irvine was at first the head-quarters of the Buchanites; but in 1784, having been subjected to some annoyances by their fellow-townsmen, they migrated, to the number of forty-six persons, to a farmhouse two miles south from Thornhill, and thirteen from Dumfries. In 1791 Mrs. Buchan had still a few followers, to whom her last injunctions were communicated with the same confidence as those she had laid on her first apostle. They were to understand that she was in reality the Virgin Mary; that she would only sleep a little as if she were dead, and return to conduct them to the New Jerusalem; and they were to keep all that as an inviolable secret. She died in May, 1791. Her deluded votaries, among whom still figured the unfortunate clergyman, would not bury her, but built up the coffin in a comer of the barn, expecting her speedy resurrection. To conclude this strange tale of imposture, some country people who pitied its victims as much as they abhorred the memory of its heroine, consigned her bones to the dust, also expecting a resurrection, but not in haste.—J. S., G.
BUCHAN, John Stewart, earl of, second son of Robert, duke of Albany, regent of Scotland, and grandson of Robert II. of Scotland; born in 1380; died in 1450. In 1420 Buchan passed over to France at the head of 6000 Scotch troops to the assistance of the dauphin, afterwards Charles VII., then hard pressed by the English; and on the 22nd of March, 1421, gained a signal victory at Beaugé in Anjou over an English army under the duke of Clarence, brother of Henry V., who was slain in a personal encounter with the earl. For this service the dauphin rewarded Buchan with the office of constable of France. He was killed at the battle of Verneuil, 17th August, 1424, which was lost by the imprudence of the count of Narbonne, who disobeyed the orders given by the constable.—J. T.
BUCHAN, William, M.D., author of the popular work named "Domestic Medicine," was born at Ancrum, Roxburghshire, in 1729. His father intended him for the church, but his taste for medical study, which had been very early displayed, thwarted the paternal purpose; for though entered at the university of Edinburgh as a student of divinity he devoted his time to mathematics, botany, and the usual branches of a medical course. Having been nine years at the university, he began practice in Yorkshire, and was soon appointed physician to the Ackworth Foundling hospital, a position in which he learned much that was of service to him in writing his well-known book. Parliament having withdrawn the grant for the support of the Ackworth institution, Dr. Buchan removed to Sheffield, where he practised till about 1766, when he returned to Edinburgh. His practice there was not extensive. He devoted himself mainly to the preparation of the "Domestic Medicine," which was published in 1769. Its nature can be best described by quoting the title in full—"Domestic Medicine; or, the Family Physician—being an attempt to render the medical art more generally useful, by showing people what is in their own power, both with respect to the prevention and cure of diseases: chiefly calculated to recommend a proper attention to regimen and simple medicines." The work was prepared on a plan similar to Tissot's Avis au Peuple, and was received with extraordinary popular favour. It was said, that for nearly forty years, the publisher realized £700 annually for its sale, that being the exact sum which the author had received for the copyright. Dr. Buchan's book was soon translated into almost every language of Europe, and its author received congratulatory letters from all quarters. His great fame induced him to remove to London, where he enjoyed a lucrative practice till his death on the 25th February, 1805. He left a considerable number of medical works, but his fame must rest on the "Domestic Medicine," which is still found in many a family library, especially in rural districts.—J. B.
BUCHANAN, Dr. Claudius, vice-provost of the college of Fort-William, Bengal, the able and scholarly author of the "Christian Researches," was born at Cambuslang, near Glasgow, in 1756. In 1787, having completed his curriculum at the university, he conceived the romantic idea of making the tour of Europe on foot, in the character of a fiddler! but had only reached North Shields, when he abandoned the project as too
