Edinburgh, April 5th, 1893.

[LIST OF MAPS.]

PlateI.PHYSICAL FEATURES OF SCOTLAND[Frontispiece]
”II.STRUCTURE OF MOUNTAINS[60]
”III.PAST AND PRESENT GLACIATION OF THE WORLD[193]
”IV.ICE AGE IN NORTHERN EUROPE[324]
”V.THE GEOGRAPHICAL EVOLUTION OF CONTINENTS[348]
”VI.BATHYOROGRAPHICAL MAP, ILLUSTRATING DEVELOPMENT OF COAST-LINES[428]

[CONTENTS.]

CHAP.PAGE
I.GEOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY[1]
II.THE PHYSICAL FEATURES OF SCOTLAND[14]
III.MOUNTAINS: THEIR ORIGIN, GROWTH, AND DECAY[36]
IV.THE CHEVIOT HILLS[62]
V.THE LONG ISLAND, OR OUTER HEBRIDES[125]
VI.THE ICE AGE IN EUROPE AND NORTH AMERICA[160]
VII.THE INTERCROSSING OF ERRATICS IN GLACIAL DEPOSITS[194]
VIII.RECENT RESEARCHES IN THE GLACIAL GEOLOGY OF THE CONTINENT[220]
IX.THE GLACIAL PERIOD AND THE EARTH-MOVEMENT HYPOTHESIS[248]
X.THE GLACIAL SUCCESSION IN EUROPE[288]
XI.THE GEOGRAPHICAL EVOLUTION OF EUROPE[326]
XII.THE EVOLUTION OF CLIMATE[349]
XIII.THE SCIENTIFIC RESULTS OF DR. NANSSEN’S EXPEDITION[382]
XIV.THE GEOGRAPHICAL DEVELOPMENT OF COAST-LINES[393]

[I.]

Geography and Geology.[A]

[A] Portion of a lecture given in 1886 to the Class of Geology in the University of Edinburgh.

The teaching of Geography naturally occupies a prominent place in every school curriculum. It is rightly considered essential that we should from an early age begin to know something of our own and other countries. I am not sure, however, that Geography is always taught in the most interesting and effective manner. Indeed, according to some geographers, who are well qualified to express an opinion, the manner in which their subject is presented in many of our schools leaves much to be desired. But a decided advance has been made in recent years, and with the multiplication of excellent text-books, maps, and other appliances, I have no doubt that this improvement will continue. When I attended school the text-books used by my teachers were about as repellent as they could be. Our most important lesson was to commit to memory a multitude of place-names, and the maps which were supposed to illustrate the text-books were, if possible, less interesting and instructive. Nowadays, however, teachers have a number of more or less excellent manuals at their service, and the educational maps issued by our cartographers show in many cases a very great advance on the bald and misleading caricatures which did duty in my young days as pictures of the earth’s surface.