Paper No. 9
Presentation Time: 3:45 PM
RODERICK I. MURCHISON (UK) AND LUDWIK ZEJSZNER (POLAND): PRIME EXAMPLE OF GEOLOGICAL COLLABORATION IN THE MID-19TH CENTURY
A Scottish geologist, Sir Roderick I. Murchison (1792 – 1871), was one of the most eminent scientists of the 19th century. His major scientific achievements include defining the Silurian, Devonian (together with Adam Sedgwick) and Permian Systems, compilation of geologic maps of Wales, Scotland, Russia and Europe, publication of more than 180 scientific papers and three major books. In 1840 – 1841, Murchison was invited by the Russian tsar Nicholas I to organize two scientific expeditions to Russia. After these two geological expeditions, Murchison, aware that geological boundaries are not in line with state borders, decided to continue his investigations in Poland. In June 1843, Murchison, via Berlin and Poznań, reached Warszawa, where he was met by Ludwik Zejszner (1805-1871), an outstanding Polish geologist, paleontologist and geological cartographer. His scientific output includes over 300 treatises and articles published in Polish, German, Austrian, French, Russian, Czech and Hungarian periodicals. Both geologists travelled to the Holy Cross Mts. where they studied Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic rocks. Then, they moved to Kraków and further to the South, to reach the highest peaks of the Carpathians, the Tatra Mts. They also visited world-famous Wieliczka salt mine located near Kraków. Part of Murchison’s Polish work was published in “The Geology of Russia”, “Siluria” and in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society. Details of this fruitful geological field trip are known from Murchison’s field notebook (kept in the archives of the Geological Society of London), letters sent to his wife Charlotte, and from Zejszner’s field notebooks. After their field trip, Murchison and Zejszner have maintained their scientific contacts long after their field trip in Poland as in the fifth edition of Murchison’s “Siluria”, published in 1872, Murchison mentioned paper on the Devonian fossils sent to him by Zejszner while this edition was in print. Cooperation of these two eminent geologists, Roderick Murchison and Ludwik Zejszner, is a prime example of international scientific collaboration, with significant impact on geological recognition of the Polish territories and important consequences for understanding of geology of Europe.