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Sir James Hall of Dunglass, 4th Baronet FRS FRSE (January 17, 1761 – June 23, 1832) was a Scottish geologist and geophysicist, born at Dunglass, Haddingtonshire, to Sir John Hall, 3rd Baronet (died 1776), by his spouse, Magdalen (died 1763) daughter of Sir Robert Pringle, 3rd Baronet, of Stichill, Roxburghshire. Sir James was also Member of Parliament for St. Michael's borough (Mitchell, Cornwall) 1807 - 1812.

Hall studied at Christ's College, Cambridge,^[1] and the University of Edinburgh. Early in his career, Hall studied chemistry under Joseph Black and natural history under John Walker (naturalist). During the 1780s he travelled to France and met Lavoisier. He returned to Scotland to promote the new French chemical nomenclature.

He was particularly taken by James Hutton's Theory of the Earth during the 1780s and 1790s, and in the Spring of 1788 was with Hutton and John Playfair on the boat trip east from his home at Dunglass along the coast of the Firth of Forth, which found the famous Hutton's Unconformity at Siccar Point.^[2] He published several papers on the chemical composition of strata. He carried out research on granite that showed that it was possible for molten rock to form conformities. His results were published in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and were well received by those like John Playfair who wanted to use Hutton's theory to promote a more mathematical approach to geology. Hall traveled extensively in Europe to examine geological formations of the Alps and Mount Etna, and noted the similarity of lava flows in Italy to locations in Scotland.

Sir James Hall was President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and author of various works on architecture and the sciences. He married Helen (d. 1837), daughter of Dunbar Hamilton later Douglas (d. 1799), Earl of Selkirk and sister of the 5th Earl of Selkirk. They had issue: three sons and three daughters. Sir James Hall died at Edinburgh, Scotland.

He was succeeded by his son and heir, Sir John Hall, 5th Baronet, F.R.S.

Another son, Basil Hall, was a noted traveller and writer; his daughter Eliza was mother of Houston Stewart Chamberlain.

A daughter Magdalene Hall (1793-1822) married 1stly 1815 Colonel Sir William Howe DeLancey and secondly Captain Henry Harvey; she was author of A Week at Waterloo (first privately published) and died in childbirth with her third child. By DeLancey, her first husband, Magdalene had no issue.^[3]

[edit] See also

• Scottish Enlightenment

[edit] References

• The Royal Families of England, Scotland, and Wales, with their Descendants, etc., by Messrs, John and John Bernard Burke, London, 1848: vol.1, pedigree CXXVI.
• Ten Parishes of the County of Haddington, by John Martine, edited by E.J.Wilson, Haddington, 1894, p.214.
• Leigh Rayment's Baronetage Page