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 378 BUCHAN nic activity, and the results produced by fire, which he published in his Physilcaliche Be- schreibung der Ganarischen Inseln (1825). He next visited the basaltic group of the Hebrides and the coasts of Ireland and Scotland. He continued his geological excursions and inves- tigations until almost the last day of his life. Eight months before he died he made another visit to the extinct volcanic region of Auvergne. His life was one continued round of observa- tion, travel, and investigation. His journeys and explorations were made mostly on foot; with a change of linen and a geological hammer, he was equipped for any journey. Alexander von Humboldt styled him " the greatest geolo- gist of the age." A catalogue of his numerous writings is given by Bone in the almanac of the Vienna academy of sciences for 1853. Ml 111 V David, a British explorer, born in 1T80, lost at sea about 1837. He obtained a lieutenant's commission in the navy in 1806, and in 1810 commanded a schooner on the Newfoundland station. His admiral, Sir John Duckworth, despatched him to the river Ex- ploit, for the purpose of exploring the interior and opening a communication with the natives. He reached the mouth of the river in January, 1811, and with 34 men and three guides pen- etrated with the greatest difficulty 130 miles into the country. In 1816 Buchan was pro- moted to the rank of commander, and in 1818 was appointed to the command of an arctic ex- pedition. The Greenland whalers having re- ported the sea to be remarkably clear of ice, the admiralty fitted out two expeditions that year, one to discover the northwest passage, the other to reach the north pole. The first, intrusted to Capt. Ross and Lieut. Parry, proved unsuccessful. The Dorothea and Trent were selected for the other expedition, under Capt. Buchan and Lieut. Franklin. Among the offi- cers were several who have since distinguished themselves in arctic voyages. The two vessels sailed in April and reached the place of rendez- vous, Magdalena bay, Spitzbergen, about June 1, where they found immense glaciers, and that gigantic barrier of ice which has hitherto frustrated every effort to reach the north pole. Twice they attempted to penetrate it in vain. On June 7 they put to sea, and after several efforts to force a passage were shut up for 13 days in a floe of ice within three miles of land, and with the water so shoal that they could see the bottom. At length the field separated and bore to the south at the rate of three miles an hour. They reached the open sea and took shelter in Fair Haven. On July 6, finding that the ice was again driving northward, they sail- ed in that direction until the barrier of ice closed upon them, reaching lat. 80 34' N., which was the most northerly point gained. They at- tempted in vain to drag the vessels on by ropes and ice anchors, for the current carried them three miles an hour to the southward. The only result of the effort was the loss of several lives. Capt. Buchan then stood over toward BUCHANAN the coast of Greenland, but both vessels en- countered a heavy gale of wind, which, with the constant shock from floating ice, so disabled the Dorothea that she was in a foundering con- dition. They therefore put about, and reached Deptford Oct. 22. In 1823 Buchan was pro- moted to the rank of captain, and commanded for some time on the Newfoundland station. In 1825 he became high sheriff of that colony, which post he held for several years. He then went on a new expedition into the northern seas, from which he never returned. His ship is supposed to have been burned at sea, but nothing is known with certainty of the fact. In 1839 the admiralty struck his name from the list of living captains. He wrote no account of his voyages, but Capt. Beechey, who served on board the Trent, has supplied the omis- sion. Science is indebted to Buchan for im- portant observations upon marine undercur- rents, the variations of the magnetic needle, the temperature of the deep sea as compared with that of the surface, and the compression of the globe at the poles. l!l <im, Elizabeth (Simpson), the founder of a Scotch sect, now extinct, born near Banff in 1738, died in 1791. She was educated in the Scottish Episcopal church, but on her mar- riage to Robert Buchan, in Glasgow, became like him a Burgher seceder. About 1779 she broached dogmas of her own, and soon desert- ed her husband and moved to Irvine, where she made a number of converts. These, 46 persons in all, set up a community at a farm- house 13 miles from Dumfries, waiting for the millennium or the day of judgment, and fasting for weeks in the expectation that they would be miraculously fed. A few left, accusing Mrs. Buchan of tyranny and dishonesty, but the majority of her votaries were faithful to her to the last. She called her disciples around her deathbed and communicated to them, as a secret, that she was the Virgin Mary, who had been wandering through the world since the Saviour's death, and that she was only going to sleep now, and would soon conduct them to the New Jerusalem. Her disciples, in the ex- pectation of her reappearance, refused to bury her until ordered to do so by a magistrate. BUCHAN, William, a Scottish physician, born at Ancrum, Roxburgh, in 1729, died in Lon- don, Feb. 25, 1805. After practising for a short time in the north of England, where he distinguished himself by his successful treat- ment of the diseases of children, he removed to Edinburgh, where he took the degree of M. D. There, in 1770, he published his "Domestic Medicine," of which during his lifetime 19 large editions were published. It was trans- lated into all modern languages, and obtained for the author a complimentary letter and gold medal from Catharine II. of Russia. BUCHANAN. I. A S. W. county of Virginia, bounded N. E. by West Virginia, and separated from Kentucky on the N. W. by the Cumber- land mountains ; area, 500 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870,