Prof. Geikie in 1888.
The notes on Winnipeg and on the journey thence to Toronto are interesting as showing how little future developments were expected at this date. Of Winnipeg, described as being “in the far west,” Prof. Geikie says:—“Winnipeg is a surprising place for so far distant a region. Here are some 25,000 inhabitants: it is quite a considerable town—with churches, theatres, etc., etc., and a Scientific Society.” Speaking of his journey eastwards he says:—
We left Winnipeg on Wednesday (20th) and travelled all day through rough rolling ground, very rocky and sprinkled with my friends—boulder-clay, morainic gravel and sand, and large erratics. The country was upon the whole rather dreary, dense thickets of spruce fir covering the rocky knolls, and swamps and morasses lying in the hollows. Here and there where the ground was more open the prairie flowers flourished, and butterflies and dragon-flies fluttered and darted about in the sunshine. Night overtook us while we were still in the same monotonous country. A number of British Ass. folk had joined us at Winnipeg, among them Prof. Ramsay,[4] a nephew of my Prof. R. The night we passed in the sleeping-car, and next morning found us still sweeping along through the same kind of forest land. Very fine evidence of ice-work was seen all the way—just like what I know in Wester Ross and Sutherland. We breakfasted at a rough station in those dreary backwoods. Houses are few and far apart in such a desolate region, and I can’t see how the railway can ever pay. We passed over 1000 miles of land, most of which seemed to me as barren and hopeless as the poorest tracts of the Outer Hebrides. The trees are small miserable sticks, and everywhere one sees rising above these small trees tall ragged and naked trunks, marked with fire, showing that much forest land must have been destroyed by fire in earlier days. We stopped at last at Port Arthur, at the upper end of Lake Superior, where we spent the day and night. This is a small backwoods town of some 2000 or 3000 inhabitants. The view over Thunder Bay is fine, and I enjoyed a walk into the country.
[4] Later Sir William Ramsay.
Next day the party sailed down the lakes to Owen Sound and took train for Toronto. From here Niagara was visited, and after that the journey continued to Montreal.
From Montreal Prof. Geikie went south to Philadelphia, where he found the heat very trying, and then back to New York and on to Boston. The latter town attracted him greatly. “I feel more at home in Boston than I have felt since leaving Auld Reekie. The people are more like our own people too.” Here he met and made many friends, and tells an amusing experience with a German lady doctor, who made wine from grapes grown in her own vineries. She and Prof. Geikie got on very well together, and the latter was invited to visit the vineries and taste the wine. Having received a private warning, the professor resolved to display extreme abstemiousness when confronted with the fluid, but the lady ceremoniously proposed the health of her guest from across the seas, who felt constrained to return the compliment with a brimming goblet. Fortunately the proceedings came to a close soon afterwards, and Prof. Geikie and his friend were able to hurry home to the latter’s house in order to correct the influence of the concoction with a modest “dram.” They took a long drive afterwards, and no results followed, apparently, beyond the acquisition of a conviction that the climate of Boston was unsuited to the juice of the grape.
Shortly afterwards Prof. Geikie returned home, and in December he writes to Mr Horne bemoaning the amount of work which he found waiting for him. He says:—“But know one thing, O Horne, that here in Auld Reekie I am pestered to death with correspondence. People scribble on all sorts of subjects, and expect answers, and I begin to hate the sight of notepaper. And so the letters that I ought to write and like to write remain unwritten, while those I detest to write take up more time than I like to waste. You should have seen the piles waiting for me on my return from Yankee land—some of the rubbish is not answered yet.” He goes on in the same letter to say:—“I find living in town more expensive than the country, there are so many calls upon one, and the class does not pay as well as I had hoped. But that is mending and I have good hopes.” He also speaks of a “pot-boiler” he was busy with, to wit, his Outlines of Geology, which though far advanced at this time did not appear till more than a year afterwards.
The same note occurs in other letters of the following year, and a projected visit to the Hebrides in the summer of 1885 had to be given up owing to “circumstances over which I have no control (i.e., empty purse).” “Living here is not so easy as in the country,” he adds again. But he also says:—“I have got into the ways of my new sphere and jog along very comfortably.”
More interesting than the “pot-boiling” of which he speaks frequently, was his work in connection with the Scottish Geographical Society, in which he took an active part in the autumn of 1884. Thus in the letter already quoted he says:—“I have been sair taigled with that Geographical Society, but I think it will do; and I mean to work it to some purpose. We are going to bring out the first number of a Geographical Magazine in January, for which I have promised to write a short article on the Physical Features of Scotland.”
At the first meeting of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, it may be noted, which was held on 28th October 1884, Prof. Geikie moved—“That this meeting, recognising the scientific and general utility of a national society for the promotion of geography, resolves that a Geographical Society for Scotland be now formed.” He was associated with the Society till his death, and took a very active part in its management, as Hon. Editor from 1888 onward, as a Vice-President, and for the period 1904–1910 as President. Beginning with the first number also he made frequent contributions to the Scottish Geographical Magazine, contributions of great scientific importance, and in addition was always ready to put his knowledge and experience at the disposal of the Acting Editor. During a long period of years his work for the Society must have made large inroads upon his time and energy, and thus geography in Scotland, no less than geology, owes him a great debt of gratitude.