The identity of the “young lady” will perhaps be apparent without explanation.

In 1901 Prof. Geikie was made an Honorary Member of the New York Academy of Sciences, his name having been brought up by his friend Prof. Stevenson. In writing to thank the latter he speaks of his hope of being again able to visit America, saying that as soon as “my lads clear out from the nest, it will be easier for Mrs Geikie and me to go off on a long holiday.” The future careers of his sons were at this time occupying a large share of his thoughts, for the three elder boys were ready to begin life on their own account.

He had a few years before taken to bicycling, and was full of the pleasure and health he found in the exercise. During this year also his friend, Mr Elson of Boston, paid the family a visit at Beauly during the summer holiday, a visit of which Mr Elson speaks with both enthusiasm and gratitude in later letters.

The next year or two repeat the same tale of work and play, the latter including much bicycling, and a visit to Norway in 1903. In 1903 he writes to his eldest son:—“To-day I am sixty-four, and feel no older than I was twenty years ago. Indeed I am younger than I was four or five years ago.” Of work it need only be said that new editions of two of his books appeared in these years, Earth Sculpture in 1902, and Outlines of Geology (fourth edition) in 1903. Mention of an entirely new book may be reserved for the next chapter. A pleasant little incident of the summer of 1903 was a postcard from the Glacialists’ Excursion of the International Geological Congress, who sent, from Telfs in Tyrol, “Greetings and best wishes to the Nestor of Glacial Geology.” Such greetings were a frequent and always a pleasant experience.

CHAPTER IX
Retirement from the Professorship and Last Days
1904–1915

During 1904 Prof. Geikie began to suffer from an affection of the knee which troubled him for some years, and proved to be a form of rheumatism. In October he writes to his son telling him of the progress of his new book, which was published the next year as Structural and Field Geology for Students, and in a few years’ time ran into a second edition. With his usual optimism he hoped to have it out early in the New Year, if not before, but by the following April he was still busy with proofs, and publication did not occur till June. Writing in April he says:—“The last sheet of my book will be off to the printer to-morrow, and the book itself will, I hope, appear before the end of the month. I shall feel like a fish out of water with no scribbling on hand. Nothing like it for filling up vacant hours.” When writing this letter he was on the eve of starting off for a visit to Ayr, in the hope that a course of bicycling would “supple” the leg. In this, however, he was disappointed, and in summer he and Mrs Geikie went to Wildbad in Würtemberg, where he hoped to find a cure.

The baths, temporarily at least, did him much good, but his fellow-patients, mostly of German nationality, did not please him, and his letters are full of humorous complaints in regard to them. He was keenly interested also in the nature of the water, being convinced that its curative properties were not due to the constituents apparent on analysis but to some of the rarer elements, such as radium, present though undetected. The suggestion has been made and confirmed in regard to other waters since, but his keenness on the problem is of interest as showing that there was no failure of mental power. His letters to his doctor son on the physiological effects of the waters are full of his old verve and clearness of exposition. Characteristically, however, he breaks off the scientific discussion to speak of the “fat Fraus and Herren,” whom he and his wife daily watch “as they slowly waddle and roll to and fro” near the Trinkhalle. His impressions he sums up in the following verses:—

The typical Frau, to my British mind,