Maxwell Henry Close

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Maxwell Henry Close (1822 – 12 September 1903) was an Irish geologist born in Dublin. He was educated at Weymouth and at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated in 1846; and two years later he entered holy orders.

For a year he was curate of All Saints, Northampton; from 1849 to 1857 he was rector of Shangton in Leicestershire; and then for four years he was curate of Waitham-on-the-Wolds. On the death of his father in 1861 he returned to Dublin, and while giving his services to various churches in the city, devoted himself almost wholly to literary and scientific pursuits, and especially to the glacial geology of Ireland, on which subject he became an acknowledged authority. His paper, read before the Geological Society of Ireland in 1866, on the General Glaciation of Ireland is a masterly description of the effects of glaciation, and of the evidence in favor of the action of land-ice. Later on he discussed the origin of the elevated shell-bearing gravels near Dublin and expressed the view that they were accumulated by floating ice when the land had undergone submergence. He was for a time treasurer of the Royal Irish Academy, an active member of the Royal Dublin Society, and president in 1878 of the Royal Geological Society of Ireland. Astronomy and physics, as well as the ancient language and antiquities of Ireland, attracted his attention. He died in Dublin.