In the summer Prof. Geikie had a visit from his friend Prof. Stevenson of New York. In an undated letter to the latter, apparently written in early summer, arranging details about the visit, he says:—
I am sorry to hear about the nervousness. Having had it myself—for three years—I know what it means. But, courage! mon ami, with care you can stave off the enemy. The beast has been threatening me again for some months past. But the work which caused him to look in upon me, with his infernal grin, is now all but finished. In a fortnight I shall be a free man! Then geology may go hang till winter. I wish I had a long sail across the briny again, to Fiji or anywhere out of the busy haunts of man.
The summer holiday was spent at Traquair on the Tweed, and in a letter to Sir George Douglas written from there on 10th August, Prof. Geikie says:—
I had thought at one time of going to the Continent, but here it is more restful and that is what I wish. I have no news of any kind, but am happy to say that I have at last escaped from the printer’s devil. My Penelope’s Web is out of my hands at last: and I shall do nothing for the next month or two save loaf about the hills.
But as always there were delays at the last, and a month later he writes to thank Prof. Chamberlin for some additional notes, saying:—
The notes were quite in time to be inserted in the proofs. The book will not be “out” before October. The engravers have kept us back a little; but it is no joke revising the proofs of 850 pages.... You may be sure that an early copy of my book will be sent to you as soon as I can get it out of the publisher’s hands. I am sorry, however, that it is so big. I did what I could in the way of compression; but there is so much new to tell.
In the autumn a very pleasant incident occurred, and as it is recorded in letters sent to Prof. Chamberlin, they may be permitted to tell the tale:—
19th Oct 1894.
A short time ago I had a most gratifying letter from the Glacialists’ Excursion-party of the Geological Congress. The party (thirty in number) embraced some of the best known European glacialists, and was under the guidance of Penck, Brückner, and Du Pasquier. They went over the sections showing the glacial succession in the Alpine Lands, and were convinced that Penck’s interpretation of the facts were correct. In short, they admit that there have been at least three separate glacial epochs, and each separated from the other by long-continued valley-erosion during interglacial times. The letter sent to me was signed by all the excursionists. The evidence, indeed, is so striking that one wonders that Alpine geologists should have been so tardy in recognising it!
29th Nov. 1894.
I do not think there would be any impropriety in publishing the letter I received from the glacialists, and you are welcome to use it for the Journal if you think it worth while. The import of the letter appeared in some German newspapers at the time; but I never thought of publishing it here. Yet I see no reason why it should not appear in your Journal[5]—only, I may be accused of personal vanity in sending it to you. But there is really no vain-glory in the matter, all that the writers say is simply that I would be pleased to see that they had studied the evidence adduced by Penck, Brückner, and Du Pasquier, and were convinced that the Alps had been glaciated three times. I therefore enclose a copy of the letter, the signatures being copied exactly as they are given. You will see the list includes some of the best known glacialists of Europe.
[5] The Journal of Geology, of which Prof. Chamberlin is joint editor.