After giving a general sketch of the contents of the book he goes on:—
My references to foreign writers will astonish you with their “learned profundity”—what do you think of Italian, Greek, Spanish, Austrian, German, Hungarian, French, Danish, Dutch, Russian, Swedish, Norwegian, and Icelandic references! The time I have spent over these with grammar and dictionary, and the trouble in having others translated for me by learned pundits, are such that I will never, I think, undertake anything of the kind again. Sometimes two or three long nights’ work is summed up in a short line; or even has no mention at all! I only hope the result will justify the time expended. It is all intensely interesting, however.
Perhaps it may be well to repeat in connection with this letter that this laborious work was the occupation of what should have been leisure hours, and that in addition to it James Geikie was putting in some eight or nine hours’ work per day in the field or at office work, was carrying on an extensive correspondence, was lecturing in various parts of Scotland, and was writing scientific papers. Much of his writing had thus to be done by curtailing the hours of sleep, and most of those who came into close contact with him at this time regarded his capacity for work as something almost superhuman. But despite his heavy labours, this year seems to have been a happy one, and perhaps helped him to bear the period of storm and stress which was to come.
The chief incident of the following year, 1880, was the completion and publication of Prehistoric Europe, and the letters are full of allusions to it. Thus towards the end of January he writes to Mr Horne:—“Still grinding away at my tome. Got about a third to write yet. The thing swells out, I am sorry to say; there is so much more to tell than I had any idea of.” The severity of the strain was, however, obviously telling upon him, for only a week or two later he says:—“All at present is at a standstill. My head has given up work, and I must leave it alone a little: been going at it early and late too much!” A little later he says again:—“I am going to rest and do nothing but read. You have no idea what a loathing one takes to paper and pen sometimes! But doubtless you have the same.”
It was nearly the end of July before the MS. was finally completed, and the nature of the effort is indicated by the fact that the concluding sentences of the book were written in his sleep! He was working at it as usual till far into the night, and could not find a fitting sentence to round off the whole. After trying for some time ineffectively, he decided to leave the matter till the morning, and went off to bed, the time being 2 A.M. In his usual orderly fashion he had placed the last sheets on his writing-table, putting two books on top to prevent the papers from being scattered by a chance draught. In the morning he found them scattered over the table, to his great disgust, for it was a stern household regulation that papers were taboo for all hands save their owner’s. The maid when taxed, however, denied indignantly that she had touched them, and when the injured author gathered up his treasures he was astonished to find, written in his own handwriting, though not with his usual neatness, the sentence which now stands as the final one. Evidently he had dropped to sleep and come down to complete the unfinished task in a subconscious condition. The story shows clearly that it was time the book was done with.
But the labour did not cease with the completion of the MS. The holiday, which began early in August, was spent partly in London, looking up final references, and partly in South Wales, with a view to making out some further glacial points. A letter to Mr Horne suggests the mixed feelings which the completion of the task brought. He says:—“I am well pleased now to have the thing off my hands. I will not soon begin another such work. It is too much worry and labour—and yet pleasant withal.” Later he writes:—“Now that my book is off my hands, time in the evenings hangs heavy on my hands”—the Nemesis, a psychologist would say, of overwork, for it was obviously the condition when nothing but work had become possible!
Various pleasant little incidents, however, occurred this autumn. Thus the French geologists, MM. Falsan and Chantre, sent him a copy of their Monograph on the old glaciers of the Rhone basin. In sending the book M. Falsan spoke with gratifying warmth of The Great Ice Age, and of the many new ideas which he and his confrère had obtained from its perusal. “I feel as if I shall get cocky,” says James Geikie in a letter, “and, as pride goes before a fall, am beginning to dread lest Prehistoric Europe should be damned.” M. Falsan also asked permission to translate The Great Ice Age into French, and there were German offers to translate both The Great Ice Age and Prehistoric Europe.
The latter appeared towards the end of November. Copies were sent, among others, to Charles Darwin and to Prof. Ramsay, whose letters in reply were a source of great gratification to James Geikie. Darwin wrote both immediately upon receipt, and later after he had read the book. In the second letter he says:—“Yours is a grand book, and I thank you heartily for the instruction and pleasure it has given me.” That this was not mere flattery is apparent from the keen discussion of certain special points in which he was interested.
The next year, 1881, was one of great stress, though the tale of its external events is soon told. That Prof. Ramsay’s health was failing had long been known, and though his actual resignation did not take place till the end of 1881, the fact that it was impending was obvious long before. It was also known among the Survey men that his retiral would mean extensive changes, likely to affect directly and indirectly most of the members of the staff. As has been already stated, it led to James Geikie’s resignation and his acceptance of the professorship at Edinburgh University. Something must therefore be said in regard to the reasons that induced him to leave highly congenial work for a post which was not, certainly at first, wholly so, and which further, at least in early days, did not materially improve his financial position.
It must be noted first that by this time he was the author of two bulky books (produced, as we have seen, at the cost of great and continuous toil) which had been hailed at home and abroad as “epoch-making.” He had correspondents in most parts of the civilised world; men of mark in their own countries had publicly acknowledged him as a leader of geological thought, a fount of inspiration, an opener up of new paths of research. At the same time, to those immediately above him he was a subordinate, with a very moderate salary, a recipient of orders, with little opportunity for initiating changes or improvements, and was living in a small provincial town, to some extent remote from the main current of public life.