At first he conducted all the classes himself, but after a time the University granted him an assistant, and he started a regular practical or laboratory course. His relations with his assistants were of the most sympathetic character. Always ready to take more than his fair share of the drudgery of elementary teaching, he showed the most kindly interest in the progress of his assistants, and encouraged them to carry out original research on their own account. His fine library and wide knowledge of the literature of geology were always at their service, and as the University in those days was by no means liberally endowed with funds for the purchase of scientific apparatus, he often provided at his own expense the instruments necessary for special researches. The rooms assigned to the geological department were miserably inadequate—dark, half-furnished attics, draughty, cold, and uncomfortable—but much good work was done there.
James Geikie lived to see the conditions of university teaching in Edinburgh greatly altered for the better. The courses qualifying for degrees were made much less restricted, and geology became a subject in the curriculum for the Arts as well as the Science degree. The number of students increased, and the status of the Chair was improved. Better-paid assistants were provided, increased grants for the purchase of apparatus, and a higher stipend for the professor. A very important addition to the department was the provision of a library of geological books, the gift of Sir Archibald Geikie and James Geikie in the first place, subsequently taken over and maintained by the University Library authorities. The prestige of geology in the University and the condition of the department in 1914 when he resigned were incomparably superior to those which existed in 1882 when he was appointed to the Chair.
In 1894 he became Dean of the Faculty of Science in the University, and continued to hold this responsible appointment till a year before his retiral. Although he did not by any means suffer fools gladly, he had much sympathy with students and with his colleagues, the professors, lecturers, and assistants, in the difficulties which they encountered in their work, and he had good business faculties, being careful, prompt, and industrious. The great esteem in which he was held by all who came in contact with him was clearly proved by his long tenure of this exacting post, and his success in smoothing the difficulties inevitable in university life where so many interests have to be considered. The time required for this work he gave ungrudgingly; but as he was at the same time Honorary Editor of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society’s Magazine, and eventually President of that Society, and served on the Council of the Royal Society of Edinburgh for many years, he felt that his time for research and literary work was very seriously curtailed.
If we consult the list of Prof. Geikie’s contributions to scientific literature which appears as an [appendix] to this volume, it becomes evident that with his appointment to the Edinburgh professorship he began to write on several topics which previously had not specially engaged his attention. The voluminous notes from which his lectures were delivered were abridged, rearranged, and ultimately published as his Outlines of Geology. This work was expressly meant for the use of his own students, and served to relieve them of a large part of the tedious note-taking which was in those days a heavy burden on members of the University classes. It found acceptance, however, in a wider circle, and in time three large editions of the book were sold. Its most distinctive feature is the ample space devoted to physical geology, especially the processes at work to-day which throw light on the structures and origin of rocks. The more technical portions of the subject, such as petrology and palæontology, he considers in much less detail. In fact, the book is quite as suitable for the general reader as for the university student. This book appeared in 1888, and seventeen years later his second and most successful text-book was published, the Structural and Field Geology for Students. His natural abilities as an observer, and his thorough training as a field-geologist, made him especially competent to handle this subject effectively, and he made judicious use of photographs taken by the Geological Survey to illustrate the volume. The success of the book was also in large measure due to his long experience as a teacher and his clear and easy style; in fact, the foundations of the text-book were laid in the courses of lectures on structural geology which he used to deliver in the summer sessions. Something also, no doubt, was due to there being no really good work on this subject for English and American students. He was much gratified by its success, for he felt that he had done something to stimulate accurate field surveying by students of geology, and field work he always considered the most educative part of geological training.
Here we may mention also his contributions to Chambers’s Encyclopædia, for which he wrote many of the geological articles. In 1875 he had prepared a small Elementary Manual for the well-known Edinburgh firm of publishers, and as successive editions of the Encyclopædia were printed he continued to revise his geological articles, so that he had a continuous connection with Messrs Chambers lasting over forty years.
His work as a geographer next claims our attention. The fields of geological research which he especially cultivated have a very close connection with geographical science. In the Scottish Geographical Society, as already stated, he took a deep interest from the start. For many years his face was a familiar one on the platform at the lectures delivered by eminent geographers and distinguished travellers in Edinburgh, and as these lectures are always very well attended, probably his connection with the Society made him better known to the general public than any other of his numerous activities. These functions also brought him into contact with many explorers and scientists who came to Edinburgh to lecture, and were the source of many friendships which he valued highly. During the latter years of his life the Geographical Society claimed almost as much of his attention as his academic duties, and as he was fortunately assisted by very competent lecturers in the University, he could spare the time required to fulfil both functions.
His studies in geography were always in those fields which form the border-land between geology and geography. The history of the development of scenery and of earth-forms in general, and the relation between geological structure and geographical configuration, were favourite subjects for his pen. In this he was a true follower of Playfair. He delighted also to prepare short notices for the Society’s magazine, describing the results of recent work on prehistoric man, on changes of climate in recent geological periods, and the action of ice in the production of surface features. The magazine proved a useful vehicle for conveying to the public the results of his wide reading on topics such as these. Many of the articles which first appeared in its pages were subsequently issued in book form, or were used in the preparation of the third edition of The Great Ice Age, and the other scientific treatises which he produced.
In 1893 he collected the most important and interesting of his scientific lectures and addresses into a volume to which he gave the title Fragments of Earth Lore. The book was published by his friend Dr Bartholomew of the Edinburgh Geographical Institute, and served to introduce the results of some of his researches to a wider circle of readers than they would otherwise have reached, as they had originally appeared in publications as widely different in purpose as Good Words and the Transactions of the Geological Society of Edinburgh. Most of the papers, as was to be expected, treat of the progress of glacial geology, and one of these is of special importance. It is entitled “The Glacial Succession in Europe,” and was reprinted from the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. It shows considerable progress along the lines which his work on glacial and interglacial periods had previously followed, and was the precursor of the third edition of The Great Ice Age, in which the new developments of this branch of science were to be more fully expounded. Among the other papers are several which are excellent popular scientific articles, such as the sketch of the “Geology of the Cheviot Hills,” originally issued in Good Words in 1876. These essays show him at his best as an exponent of the simpler and more attractive themes of geological literature. He had an easy, fluent style, and had he chosen to do so, might have attained great popularity as an exponent of science for the million. The fine illustrations of this book deserve special mention, especially the maps, which owe much to the skill and artistic taste of Dr Bartholomew, who in this matter had the cordial support and co-operation of Prof. Geikie. Ever since his days on the Geological Survey he had set a very high standard in the preparation of maps, and paid the greatest attention to their artistic qualities as well as to their excellence as scientific documents.
His book on Earth Sculpture followed in 1898, and in this particular field soon came to be recognised as a standard work. It was published as one of a series, and the limitations of space probably did not allow very complete discussion of so large a subject: in fact, it is only a sketch of the relations between geology and surface features; but the subject was one for which he had a great liking, and he dwelt on it lovingly in the lectures which he delivered each winter to the University students. In this, of course, he followed the Scottish tradition, which since the days of Hutton and Playfair had assigned to this branch of geology a special importance. The writing of this little book accordingly was a real pleasure to him, and he drew nearly all the illustrations for it with his own hand, feeling that the only difficulty was to keep himself within the limits which necessity imposed. His immense knowledge of geographical literature supplied him with abundant material to illustrate the operation of natural agents in giving rise to modifications of topographical form, and the change of subject-matter from the always more or less controversial questions of the glacial history of the northern hemisphere afforded stimulus to his pen.