James Nicol (geologist)

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For other people with the same name, see James Nicol (disambiguation).

James Nicol
The grave of Prof James Nicol, Grange Cemetery

James Nicol

FRSE FGS (12 August 1810 – 8 April 1879) was a Scottish geologist.[1]

Life

He was born at

Berlin.[2]

After returning home Nicol worked at local geology and obtained prizes from the Highland Society for essays on the geology of Peeblesshire and Roxburghshire, now areas of the Scottish Borders. He subsequently extended his researches over other parts of Scotland, and in 1844 published Guide to the Geology of Scotland.[2]

In 1847 Nicol was appointed assistant secretary to the Geological Society of London,[2] being appointed a Fellow of the Society in the same year. He was also elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh his proposer being George Wilson.[3]

In 1849 professor of geology in

Queen's College, Cork, and in 1853 professor of natural history in the University of Aberdeen, a post which he retained until a few months before he died.[2] In his later years he lived at 15 Bon Accord Square in Aberdeen.[4]

He was buried with his wife and daughter in the north-west section of

Grange Cemetery in Edinburgh
.

Family

In 1849 he married Alexandrina Anne Macleay Downie.

Works

Nicol carried out researches on the

Torridonian sandstone and Durness limestone, and their relations to the schists and gneisses.[2] Nichol's mature views, although recognising the fallacy in the extant theory of Roderick Murchison, were subsequently superseded by the theory of Charles Lapworth which was corroborated by Benjamin Peach and John Horne. Nicol[5] criticised Thomas Jamieson's explanation of the Parallel Roads of Glen Roy. Jamieson[6]
considered that the features were shorelines of a fresh water lake trapped behind a glacier; Nicol maintained that the 'overflow cols' show no indications of a water torrent; he concluded that they were sea-straits and therefore the 'roads' were of marine origin.

The more important of his papers were:

He contributed the article "Mineralogy" to the ninth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Among his other works were:

Notes

  1. ^ Bonney, Thomas George (1895). "Nicol, James (1810-1879)" . In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 41. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 38–39.
  2. ^ a b c d e f  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Nicol, James". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 19 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 661.
  3. ISBN 0-902-198-84-X. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 1 November 2017.
  4. ^ Aberdeen Post Office Directory 1878
  5. ^ Nicol,J.(1869) On the Origin of the Parallel Roads of Glen Roy. (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. 25), pp. 282–291
  6. ^ Jamieson,T.(1863) On the Parallel Roads of Glen Roy, and their Place in the History of the Glacial Period. (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. 19), pp. 235–259.

External links

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