JAMES GEIKIE THE MAN AND THE GEOLOGIST

Transcriber’s Note

The cover image was created by the transcriber, and is placed in the public domain.

Variant spelling is retained.

The illustrations have been moved near to the text they illustrate. The page numbers in the list of illustrations are for the original position of the plates.

Footnotes have been moved to the end of the paragraph to which they relate.

Changes that have been made are listed at the [end] of the book.

Frontispiece

JAMES GEIKIE

THE MAN AND THE GEOLOGIST

[Photo by John Horsburgh.

Prof. James Geikie, LL.D., D.C.L., F.R.S.

James Geikie

JAMES GEIKIE

THE MAN AND THE GEOLOGIST

BY

MARION I. NEWBIGIN, D.Sc. (Lond.)

Editor of the Scottish Geographical Magazine

AND

J. S. FLETT, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S.

Of the Geological Survey of Scotland

EDINBURGH

OLIVER AND BOYD

LONDON: GURNEY & JACKSON, 33 PATERNOSTER ROW

1917

[PREFACE]

This biography of Prof. James Geikie is based upon his own letters, papers, and diaries, and upon information supplied by many of those who were closely associated with him, both during his earlier days on the Geological Survey and the later in Edinburgh. Much of the material was sorted and arranged by Mrs Geikie before it was placed in my hands, and to her I am indebted for many notes, memoranda, and verbal statements which supplemented the documents supplied. Mrs Geikie had herself composed, for the use of the family, a brief account of her husband’s early days, and on this manuscript the first chapter is largely based; without its aid the composition of that chapter would have been very difficult.

For later years I am under great obligations to Prof. Geikie’s many friends and correspondents, at home and abroad. Correspondents across the seas, especially, deserve warm thanks for their willingness to trust valuable original documents to the post, at a time when the phrase “perils of the sea” had taken on a new meaning. It is satisfactory to be able to state that in no case was such material lost as a result of hostile action. Prof. Stevenson of New York and Prof. Chamberlin of Chicago must be specially mentioned as having supplied much material. It should perhaps be added that the circumstances under which the book was written made it impossible to obtain letters or information from many continental geologists, who, in happier times, would doubtless have been glad to render assistance.

A large amount of material was also kindly supplied by geologists and others in this country. Among those who have taken a keen interest in the progress of the work, and have rendered notable assistance, mention may be made of the following friends and correspondents of Prof. Geikie:—Dr John Horne, who supplied many letters and much detailed information—to his kindly and unfailing help this memoir of his old friend owes much; Dr Peach, whose accounts of early days on the Survey were most helpful; Mr Lionel Hinxman, Mr H. M. Cadell, and many others, to whom application was made in regard to matters of detail. Among the last mention may be made of Dr W. B. Blaikie of Messrs T. & A. Constable, Mr T. S. Muir of the Royal High School, and Mr John Grossart. To all who have rendered assistance I desire to offer most cordial thanks, and trust that they and others will feel that the biographical sketch, in however imperfect a fashion, does present a lifelike picture of one who rarely failed to inspire affection and admiration in those who came to close quarters with him.

Marion I. Newbigin.

Edinburgh, October 1917.

CONTENTS

Part I.—LIFE AND LETTERS
By MARION I. NEWBIGIN

Part II.—GEOLOGICAL WORK
By J. S. FLETT

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PART I
LIFE AND LETTERS
CHAPTER I
Boyhood and Youth
1839–1861

James Geikie was born on 23rd August 1839, in a house in Edinburgh which was later pulled down to make room for the University Union. He was the third son and the third child in a family of eight, consisting of five sons and three daughters, and was baptised as James Murdoch Geikie. He abolished—to use his own word—the Murdoch in boyhood.

His father was in business in Edinburgh, but by taste and inclination was a musician, and in later years, after retiring from business, devoted himself entirely to music, and was the author of a number of compositions, sacred and secular. A little anecdote, recalled by his son in later years, suggests that it had always been his ambition to be a professional musician, and that he had been thwarted in youth. The story relates that one day he said to James somewhat sadly:—“If ever you have a son who wants to make music his profession, do not oppose his wish.” In the fulness of time, it is interesting to note, one of James Geikie’s sons did express this desire, and his father scrupulously observed the injunction of the long-dead grandfather. The point is not without importance, from more than one aspect, and is at least a partial refutation of the pessimists who, like Samuel Butler, maintain that each generation repeats the mistakes of the last in dealing with youth.

Another artistic strain in the family was represented in the person of Walter Geikie, an uncle, who was a well-known painter of Scotch scenes and left also some good etchings. Of him James Geikie, in an undated fragment of what was apparently intended to be a history of the family, says:—“Of my Uncle Walter I will say nothing: the Life prefixed to his etchings having already forestalled anything I could tell. He was a capital mimic and possessed of boundless good nature. Had he been longer spared he might well have become famous in his profession, but Death, to whom the genius and the numbskull are one and the same, carried him off in the year 1837—two years before I was born.” James, it may be noted here, had himself considerable skill as a draughtsman, as both his published works and his geological note-books show clearly, which adds interest to this note upon his artist uncle. Another uncle, who was a minister and went out to the United States when James was young, was the father of Cunningham Geikie the divine, author of a widely-read Life of Christ.

The latter lived with the Geikie family in Edinburgh for some time in his student days. The MS. from which the above quotation is made, which is annotated in pencil by its author, is, as stated, a mere fragment and undated. Internal evidence, however, suggests that it may have been written about 1856, the writing and composition recalling some extant letters of this period, and it shows, as further quotations will indicate, that its author, with all his obvious immaturity, was even then feeling after a style.

James Geikie’s mother was a Miss Thom, a daughter of a merchant captain, who was born in Inverness but established himself at Dunbar. Here he married the daughter of a local shipbuilder, whose family was connected by marriage—to quote again the MS. already mentioned—with “that Roderick MacKenzie who suffered his head to be taken from him that he might save that of Prince Charles Stewart”; a fact of which the boy James confesses himself very proud. In his later days Captain Thom often visited his married daughter, and the important part which he played in developing the imagination of the children is suggested in the following sentences (from MS.):—“My Grandfather Thom when I first knew him had not ceased to plough the sea for his living. He was of a middle stature, well-made, and muscular. I can still see his fine head nearly bald—what hair he had was of a beautiful silver white—his Roman nose. I can still at this late period follow him in his walks. I see him sitting with his old cronies—relics of fights by land and sea—on that seat between the two old trees—long since pulled down to make way for those improvements, so-called, which have altered entirely what in my young days went by the name of ‘The Meadows.’ His stories of adventures with the robbers of the sea are rife in my memory. His voyages to places whose very names smack of fairy-land—his hairbreadth escapes—his deeds of daring—the recollection of all these rises vividly before me at the mere mention of his name. I looked upon him as another Sinbad—a second Robinson Crusoe; and my acquaintance with his queer old friends served to heighten the romantic colours in which I viewed him! Alas! all these school-boy dreamings are past; but they will sometimes flit before me as I lie gazing up into the deep blue of a summer sky, recalling the old days which have gone away into dim forgetfulness: and they will sometimes come again as I sit alone musing by the winter fireside. Verily there is a something—call it what you will—about the past which renders it infinitely more endearing to us than all the brightest dreams of the future.”

The only comment which it is necessary to make upon the above is to repeat that it was apparently written when the boy was about seventeen, and thus, as we shall see, at a period when he was engaged in uncongenial work, and when his future was uncertain: these facts help to explain what the James Geikie of a later day would have contemptuously denounced as the “high-falutin” style.

In addition to the visits of Captain Thom to Edinburgh, family intercourse was kept up by return visits of the children to Dunbar, where the ships appealed strongly to the imagination of James. He was fond of saying in later years that he used to watch them dipping below the horizon and longed to follow them to see what lay beyond; and the Wanderlust, so early developed, lasted till the end of life. In a letter to one of his sons, written to Egypt in 1901, he says:—“Old man tho’ I am, I’m just as keen to knock about the world as ever I was. It is like renewing my youth even to think about it!”

In connection with the seafarer’s blood which he inherited from his mother’s side, it is also of interest to note that James was an excellent traveller both by sea and land; the sea had no terrors for him, and his voyages were a source of continuous pleasure, both at the time and in recollection.

As to his immediate intellectual heritage, it seems probable that James took the majority of his qualities from his father’s side. But his mother, of whom he was very fond, was a woman of great ability and much ambition for her clever sons, whom she spurred on in their careers. Her extraordinary skill as a needlewoman, and her capacity for hard work, are enshrined in the family traditions, and it is probable that James took from her his remarkable perseverance and his manual dexterity. The father was full of bonhomie, probably as deeply impregnated as his son with the joie de vivre, and like him more desirous of a full life than given to the narrow concentration which achieves a particular purpose at the expense of so much.

From his father James seems to have inherited his imagination and the touch of constructive genius which enabled him to do such noteworthy work; but one can well believe that the instinct which led the son to interleave his scientific observations in his geological note-books with verses, prevented the father from devoting himself as whole-heartedly to the pursuit of worldly prosperity as his wife may have thought desirable in view of the large and growing family.

It is at least certain that money was not very abundant in the early days, though the house contained many books, and there seems to have been much music and liveliness, the father, like the son, being a capital story-teller. He must also have been a traveller in his day, for James in a letter to his brother William speaks of him as going off to the Continent in 1858, a much rarer adventure for a man of moderate means then than now. The occasion was a musical festival at Bonn, and was apparently taken advantage of to the full, the tour being extended to Paris and elsewhere.

Details in regard to the early life of James Geikie are scanty. These were days long before the time when conscientious parents recorded in neatly kept note-books all details as to the growth and development of their offspring; while with babies following each other at regular intervals throughout a long period of years, the mother had probably little time to put on record any signs of precocity in the elder boys, if such existed. Two little stories, however, emphasise the statements made above as to the effect on the children’s imagination of Captain Thom’s yarns. When very small James, in company with his brother William, who was two years older, set off to walk down to Joppa, some three and a half miles from Edinburgh, to see the world, and incidentally to visit an aunt who lived in the district. The two arrived very tired, only, after a meal and a rest, to be ignominiously taken home again by their aunt. In those days communications between the shore and the city were difficult, and the party had to trudge back on foot, the small James, whose ambition on this occasion had somewhat outrun his strength, having to be carried most of the way.

But this inglorious finale did not quench the ardour of the youthful pair, who were probably slow to grasp the attitude of grown-up people towards displays of initiative on the part of the young. Next time they planned to make a voyage on their own account, and to place the water between them and over-zealous family affection. They were so far successful as to reach Leith and find their way on board a ship. But alas! even here they were met by a display of the adult passion for interference, and were taken home by a sailor who, regardless of the soul within, maintained that their diminutive stature debarred them from seeking life and adventure on the high seas. As one of the grandfather’s most popular stories related how he had sunk a pirate boat in the Bay of Naples, by means of a small gun loaded with scrap iron, and how in consequence he had been fêted by the Neapolitans, and had had his portrait painted, one can imagine that the brothers were very bitter at this second check to their own ambitions. James had to wait many years before he faced Italian pirates and brigands, and then it was the milder variety which requires to be treated with another metal rather than iron, and cannot be disposed of by Captain Thom’s summary methods.

Another story of childhood is interesting because it shows how completely the boy was the father of the man. At some unknown but early date he had a serious illness. So desperate seemed his condition that the doctor, speaking in the presence of the apparently unconscious boy, permitted himself to tell the mother that recovery was practically impossible, and was not to be desired, as the child would be feeble-minded. After the doctor had left, the poor mother came back into the room crying, but little Jamie found strength to whisper feebly: “I’ll no dee yet, mother.”

Long years afterwards, in a bad illness some four or five years before his death, somewhat similar incidents happened. One day after he had seen the doctor exchange a grave glance with the nurse, he managed, after the doctor had left the room, to say: “Tell him I have a return ticket.” On another occasion one sick-room attendant volunteered to another the statement that she did not think the professor would last till the morning, and was considerably startled to hear the apparently dying man, who was lying with his eyes closed, say distinctly, if feebly, “The professor will last till the morning, and he’ll last till he sees you out of the house.” Needless to say he did more than this, for he lived to tell the tale with his old glee and vivacity. Perhaps the medical science of a later date will be able to find an explanation of this power of resistance, and of its association with the nervous temperament rather than with strong physique. Meantime it is interesting to have another confirmation of the frequent experience that in a death-struggle, whether with internal or external foes, the “muscular Christian” can often give a less good account of himself than the nervous one. The boy, who if he lived was to be feeble-minded, not only lived but added notably to the world’s stock of knowledge.

Only one early letter has been preserved, and it gives no clue as to its date, beyond the fact that it is printed in childish capitals, which are, however, wonderfully straight, and shows an uncharacteristic uncertainty as to spelling. It reads:—

Dear Father and Mother,—We are very much disappointed, at youre not leaving London on Saturday. We hopet to have the pleasure of seeing you pull down the pears for us but since you have not come, we will have to bigin ourselves and take them down. We are all in good health we wer all up at the castle with Thom to day and saw Mons Meg. Write us soon and let us know when yoo ar really to leave.—Your affectionate son,

James M. Geikie.

James Geikie’s early education was obtained at a private school, where he seems to have been unhappy. The master was brutal in his methods, and ill-suited to have charge of a delicate, nervous boy. The climax came when one day he approached James from behind, and seized his ear roughly between his finger and thumb, giving it a painful wrench. The boy, maddened with pain and fright, sprang up, and seizing the nearest object, which happened to be an inkpot, flung it at his assailant. He then made for the door, his exit closing one educational chapter. Afterwards, in 1850, when he was eleven years of age, he went to Edinburgh High School, then under the rectorship of Dr Schmitz. Here James Geikie seems to have distinguished himself chiefly in classics. The classical master was Dr Boyd, who evidently perceived his abilities, for he told him that he expected to hear of him in later years either as a poet or as a literary man.

Under Dr Boyd James Geikie gained a prize for a translation from Virgil into English verse, and his knack of verse-making seems to have been carefully fostered. A number of his verse translations have been preserved, some written out in his brother William’s extraordinarily neat hand, others printed by James himself at a later date.

On the whole, however, it would seem as though the education of the boys was carried out more outside school than in it. In those days Scottish schools were unaffected by English traditions in the matter of sport. There were no organised games, and the boys obtained exercise in whatever way pleased them best. The Geikie children kept many pets in their garden, and James’s considerable manual dexterity was often called upon in connection with the welfare of these. A family tradition led the children to give those of their pets who died before their time an elaborate funeral, and James’s skill in coffin-making is still lauded by the remaining members of his family.

Of more importance for his future career were the long excursions by which the boys as they grew satisfied their Wanderlust. Edinburgh is, of course, even to-day singularly favoured by Nature in the number and variety of the possible excursions within easy reach of the town, and in those days conditions were still better. In later years, when he took his geological students over Arthur’s Seat, James Geikie used often to lament what he regarded as the spoiling of that park by the construction of roads, which for him took away the feeling of wildness, and part of the impressiveness of the wonderful volcanic scenery. He did not live to see a further stage in which the citizens were shut off by the exigencies of war from the enjoyment of the most attractive part of the park.

A little anecdote that he often also told on his excursions is not without interest. As a boy he was lying on the hill one day reading a book when he was accosted by a party consisting of a tall gentleman, a little lady, and a group of children. The gentleman asked the way to the top of the hill, and James not only volunteered to guide them, but ultimately carried the smallest girl pickaback up part of the climb. The party had a pleasant stroll, and parted the best of friends. As the boy came down the slopes towards Holyrood, however, he found a considerable crowd waiting, and learnt that his help had been asked by the Prince Consort, that the lady was Queen Victoria, and the little girl he had carried the Princess Alice.

One motive for the long holiday rambles seems to have been butterfly-collecting, if one may judge from the enthusiasm with which in later years, when himself the father of growing boys, he entered into the pursuit for their sakes. Some of his letters written to his sons during his travels on the Continent and in America are thoroughly boy-like in their enthusiasm for the beautiful creatures, and in their descriptions of the efforts necessary to obtain perfect specimens. But like many an Edinburgh boy before and since, he was keenly interested in fossils and in the rocks and minerals represented in the neighbourhood of his native town. Fossil-hunting expeditions to the famous limestone quarries of Burdiehouse and Gilmerton, and to the coprolitic shales down on the shore at Wardie, were often undertaken in company with two future colleagues on the Geological Survey—his eldest brother Archibald, later Director of the Geological Survey, and now Sir Archibald Geikie, and the boy who afterwards became Prof. John Young of Glasgow. James was considerably younger than either, and, as he himself indicates in a Memoir prefixed to Dr Young’s Essays and Addresses (1904), was only allowed to accompany his seniors occasionally and as a special favour. Indeed, throughout all this early period it seems clear that “Jamie” was only a little boy, not of great account in a family whose hopes were concentrated on the eldest son. The latter seems to have settled his own career early, for it is recorded that one day while walking up the South Bridge with his little brother, he said:—“Do you see that big building with the iron gates? I am going in there, and one day I shall be a professor there.” The little brother’s feelings at the time are not recorded, but it seems probable that no one in the family contemplated that the great iron gates would open for him also as a professor.

With two older brothers, and two more following after, it is not to be wondered at that James Geikie’s school-days soon ended. In 1853 he left the High School, and at the beginning of 1854 was apprenticed to Mr Thomas Constable, the printer. His life here does not seem to have been happy. The confinement and long hours did not suit his health, the occupation did not appeal to his tastes, and among his chief consolations seem to have been occasional geologising holidays and books. These he read on his way to and from his work, for the family by this time lived on the other side of what, despite the past tense of the MS. quoted on [p. 6], is still called The Meadows, and this open space had to be crossed daily.

In October 1855, however, his brother Archibald joined the Geological Survey, and this, which opened a possible avenue of escape for James, then only sixteen, marked an important turning-point in his career. Of the period as printer it is only necessary to add that, much as he disliked it at the time, he was fond of saying in later years that it was a useful experience, for it gave him a knowledge of the routine of printing work which stood him in good stead in his own constant proof-reading.

He stayed at Constable’s till the summer of 1858, and some letters to his brother William have been preserved which give interesting glimpses of his character in this period of drudgery and development. William had gone out to relatives of the family in the United States, and the letters were written to him there. His death, it may be noted, took place as the result of an accident, shortly after the date of the last of the letters. Some extracts from them may be quoted:—

Hope Park, 31st Dec. 1856.

I have met with very little in my daily routine, since I went to Constable’s, that could entertain you, and will therefore skip over my past years and come to the pint, as Cousin Archie used to say. When you left you’ll remember I was still daidlin’ mong drudgery. I had to do so for a good while after that, till so it chanced I was promoted to a frame. I got on pretty well, considering the long hours, and badly ventilated room, which were playing the very mischief with my health, so I hung on (if you’ll excuse the expression) until summer had come with its usual slackness in trade, and then I got rest. But summer, alas! like everything beneath the sun, is perishable, and so the crows’ nests began to peer through the thinly clad trees once more, and autumn coming sighing and weeping, but bringing with her, as her recompense and consolation, the richly laden field and the clear cloudless moon.... Well I went back to the office, and winter, and spring, and summer and autumn passed away, and “the new year’s coming up” (of which I wish you and all the natives very many happy returns), and here I am at home away from the office again. The late hours (9 to 10) have knocked me up (or, as you are a bit of a Yankee, “down” if you like) and I have got leave for a week or two, which I intend spending with Archie. He, the Professor, delivered a lecture at Penicuik the other day on the “Geology of the District.”

Aug. 1858.

I am home at present on the sick list, and it is not likely I’ll be back to office before the end of autumn. We have glorious weather here at present,—and if I go to the country I have not the slightest doubt but I’ll enjoy myself. B——’s master has failed; but the General is not as yet out of his employment altho’ he expects soon to be so. I wish I were out of mine; I verily believe it will land me in a premature grave. It never has agreed with me.

Mother is anxious to go off to the country with me. We are just looking about for a place. Perhaps Melrose or Lanark, but lodgings in both places are dear. I go at any rate with Archie next month to Fife; to be located probably at Aberdour; where I will be able to prosecute my geological studies, for I hope, if I am spared, to be able to join the Survey.—My dear Willie I will now close. I never forget you nor ever shall. You become all the dearer the further and longer you are away. God grant that we meet again on earth, if not we are always sure of meeting in a far better place.—I am your affect. brother,

Jamie.

The gloomy prognostication that his work at the printer’s office would land him in a premature grave was not fulfilled, but the statement helps to explain why he left the work in the same year as that in which the letter was written, having apparently never returned to the office after writing it. In order to leave he broke his apprenticeship, and this was strongly opposed by his employer, who told him that a man who changed his profession would never succeed, a prophecy—in any case somewhat extreme—which was not fulfilled in this case.

But after leaving the printing-works there was still another interval of waiting before the boy settled down to his life-work, and found his vocation. He did not finally enter the Survey till October 1861, a few months after his lifelong friend Dr Young. The period of waiting was spent partly at the University, where he attended among other classes Prof. Allman’s natural history course, a subject with which geology was then united. He was also in a lawyer’s office for a time, while waiting for a vacancy on the Geological Survey.

To enter this he had to pass what was called a “Qualifying Examination,” which then included what the profane called Civil Service “tots.” These were long sums in compound addition, which had to be done within a limited time and with great accuracy. Though the operation became more or less mechanical to those who practised it assiduously, it presented considerable difficulties to those who were not accustomed to such work, especially when, like James Geikie, the victim had not what are called “business” instincts. The difficulties were, however, overcome, and in October 1861, as already stated, he entered the Geological Survey, forming a member of the small Scottish staff, which consisted of Messrs H. H. Howell, Archibald Geikie, Dr Young, and himself, with the addition, a few months later, of Mr (now Dr) B. N. Peach. Of this band only Sir Archibald Geikie and Dr Peach now survive.

With this appointment to the Survey the period of uncertainty and waiting ended, and James Geikie, at the age of twenty-two, entered on his life-work, and henceforth found his way clear before him.

CHAPTER II
First Years on the Geological Survey
1862–1864

James Geikie was connected with the Geological Survey for a period of twenty years, for he only gave up the work, with great reluctance, on his appointment to the Murchison Chair of Geology in the University of Edinburgh in the year 1881. It seems only fitting, therefore, that some general account of his life while a member of its staff should precede any detailed description of the occupations of the successive years. The Survey years were singularly happy ones, were perhaps the most fruitful in original work, and definitely determined the whole future course of his life.

From the official standpoint the tale of events is soon told. In 1861 he was appointed Assistant Geologist. Six years later, when for the first time the Scottish Survey was organised as a branch separate from the English one, he was made one of the two geologists of the staff. Two years later, that is in 1869, he was promoted to be District Surveyor, which made him second in position after the Director, who was then his brother Archibald. The post of District Surveyor he held till 1881, when the posts of Director and the Professorship at Edinburgh became simultaneously vacant by the promotion of his brother. It was intimated that the two appointments would not again be combined, and, though as stated with great reluctance, James gave up the Survey to take the Chair.

Of great interest in its effect upon his future work was a change in the policy of the Survey which practically synchronised with his appointment. Previous to this time, the loose superficial deposits in Scotland had been ignored by the surveyors, who confined themselves to mapping the solid geology, i.e., the actual rocks, which in many parts of Scotland are mantled by a thick covering of drift or peat. It was decided, chiefly on economic grounds, especially in connection with agriculture, that not only should these superficial deposits be in future mapped along with the solid geology, but that the areas already surveyed should be re-mapped, with the object of adding the omitted beds. As already stated, Dr Young and James Geikie joined the Survey in 1861, and Mr Peach at the beginning of 1862. All three soon after their appointment were entrusted with this work in Fife and the Lothians, which had already had their solid geology mapped. It was a kind of mapping which could be done with considerable rapidity, and therefore involved frequent changes of quarters. Thus, as Prof. Geikie says in the account already mentioned, which he contributed to the Memoir attached to Prof. Young’s Essays and Addresses, “in a year or so we [Young and himself] had tramped carefully over the major portion of Fife and the Lothians.”

For all three novices this introductory period seems to have left delightful recollections. In the Memoir already quoted, Prof. Geikie says:—“Those were halcyon days, and I am sure Young enjoyed them to the full. Often in subsequent years, after he had finally settled in Glasgow, he would recur to them, recalling with delight old scenes and old faces which he and I had known together. The life of a field-geologist is, from many points of view, an enviable one, and could youth and strength endure, one might well be content to follow it to the end.”

Though spoken but of one member of the trio, one may suspect that the statements had a wider application. In the case of James Geikie, but recently liberated from distasteful drudgery, having changed a life of close confinement for the open air which he loved, with reasonable prospects for the future opening out before him, it would have been strange if the “premature grave” of the letters of a few years’ earlier date had not disappeared into the background, and life become suddenly a great good, for youth and strength were both there, as yet untouched by time.

Though the three new members of the Survey were all engaged on the same kind of work, it must not be supposed that their work was done in common. Each had his particular task assigned to him, and though they often met, sometimes indeed lodged together, as was the case, for example, with Young and Geikie at Peebles in the early part of 1863, and Peach and Geikie in the spring of 1864, it was only their leisure hours which were spent in each other’s company. One may, without incurring the reproach of cynicism, suspect that this greatly increased the joys of companionship. If they had worked together, or even in couples, the inevitable rubs and difficulties of daily work, however congenial, might have checked exuberant intercourse. But meeting as they did when the day’s work was over, or only at intervals, with the tie of common interests, with many experiences to hear and to tell, the companionship became one of the great joys of life.

The brief account in the Memoir of Young is impregnated through and through with the recollection of this gladness of comradeship, and a few more phrases may be quoted to emphasise the point still further:—“Seated by a cosy peat fire, enveloped in clouds of tobacco smoke, confabulating, discussing, speculating, laughing over quaint scenes and droll experiences, life (if we had only known it!) had not much better to give.” We read also of the wine of life, and can feel that the writer of the account, who was then a man of sixty-five, could, despite the forty odd years which lay between, still feel its flavour upon his palate as he wrote. Some of the jokes and quips and tales of those old days have become Survey property, transmitted by word of mouth from generation to generation, forming part of that invisible strand which binds together the members of an organised body, so that while the individuals come and go, are separated by the seven seas, by life and by death, the spirit remains. For each individual in turn youth goes and strength decays, but something remains; and if in their dumb northern fashion the individuals in this case generally passed away without leaving enshrined either in art or in the written word a direct record of all they felt and did, it may yet not be amiss to indicate the enthusiasm, the devotion, and the joy that went to the making and colouring of those maps, and were embodied in those formal records.

But the immediate purpose here is only to suggest that those early days were for James Geikie a conscious escape from prison, a conscious means of self-realisation, and that it was probably the accident that his first official field-work was given to the drifts which determined the trend of his future scientific work. He states, it is true, in a short account of his career which appears in the Geological Magazine for June 1913, that his interest in the superficial formations, especially boulder-clay and the associated gravels and sands, dated from his school-days. One may well believe that, like many another born in a region where the till is abundant, he early succumbed to the fascination of that untidy but delightful occupation of digging stones out of the tenacious clay with nature’s weapons, washing them in the nearest stream, and then following with loving finger-tip those scratches and striations which bear so romantic a message. Like many others he doubtless pressed the cherished pebbles against his cheek, and verified practically, long years before he wrote it down in a printed book, the statement that they are smoothed and polished. Like many another also he probably early got into trouble for transferring in the course of his investigations more of the sticky tenacious deposit to his garments than was good for them, and was often under the sad necessity of discarding a proportion of the much-loved and much-fingered witnesses of an earlier age, because their abundance made the collection grow with unreasonable rapidity. But there is reason to believe that his early interest in the rocks was not confined to glacial phenomena, but was disseminated among a variety of geological subjects; and it seems probable that the concentration of attention, throughout long years, on the Ice Age was largely due to the effect of his first work on the Survey, and to the flood of pleasurable emotion with which that work was accompanied.

But it must not be supposed that his work, even in the early years, was confined to the mapping of the superficial deposits. So early as 1863 he was already doing solid geology, and thereafter went on with the mapping of solid and superficial deposits at the same time. But while he did much good work quite apart from glacial questions, and was interested in many kinds of geological problems, it was the history of the Ice Cap of Europe which especially appealed to him. His holidays—brief in early days—were devoted to the study of glacial phenomena outside his own region. His leisure hours, spent by some of his colleagues in fishing or other forms of sport, or in visiting, were largely devoted to keeping himself abreast of the literature of the subject; and this was also one of the motives which led him to study languages so assiduously, with the result that he was able to make first-hand acquaintance with the papers of all the continental geologists who wrote on his own subject.

If, however, throughout his long life his geological first love commanded his unswerving devotion, it was not because the charms of other paths did not appeal to him. Some of the letters speak of an ardent desire, apparently never gratified, to deal thoroughly with Carboniferous problems, to which his attention was drawn during his prolonged and toilsome mapping of the Lanarkshire coalfield; and in an interesting letter to the writer, which dates from the early part of 1909, he speaks of other questions which had also always attracted him. Some passages from this letter may be quoted:—

Curious how the revision of old charts of the Mediterranean have re-awakened my interest in the structure of that basin or series of basins! At one time I had a notion of writing a detailed memoir on the subject, but I found it would be necessary to visit many parts of the Mediterranean coast-lands which I had not seen and to revisit other parts which I had looked at. I still think there is much interesting work awaiting investigation there—the Italian geologists seem to me to have missed the meaning of some of the evidence which their own maps supply! If I were only twenty years younger I believe I should start off at once—that bothering glacial work quite drew me away from the Mediterranean problems. Now there is no hope for me, unless on the other side of time I may be permitted to resume investigations. In that case I shall be independent of railways, steamboats, and even motor cars, while I presume no hotel accommodation will be required. Perhaps by means of telepathy I may be able to communicate results to you as Editor of the Magazine. Unfortunately, however, it would seem from the records of the Psychical Society, that when one becomes disembodied and is interviewed by his bereaved and sorrowing friends he is invariably found to have become little better than a drivelling idiot, having lost any sense he may at one time have possessed. Instead of enlightening you on the origin of the Mediterranean, I may be anxious rather to get you to inform my wife where she will find the discharged account of some nefarious tradesman who is dunning her for a sum of 2s. 6d. which I had already paid.

The letter shows that he realised what his devotion had cost him; but when we reflect not only upon what he himself accomplished but on the extraordinary stimulus which his conclusions, some of which were at first fiercely criticised, gave to the investigation of glacial problems by others, here, on the Continent, and in America, we can hardly believe that he regretted seriously his own whole-heartedness. The period of his working life, from 1861 onwards till his death, witnessed an extraordinary change in the views of geologists upon problems connected with ice, saw an enormous output of material in the way of papers and articles and books, and the world has to be grateful to James Geikie for both directly and indirectly opening its eyes to much that was previously hidden.

His glacial work and its significance are alike discussed by Dr Flett in the [second part] of this volume, and need not be treated here, but a word or two is necessary to explain the intense interest which glacial problems aroused among all the Survey men during the period we are considering, and in James Geikie in particular. A quotation from a letter of thanks written by Charles Darwin, after receiving a copy of the second edition of The Great Ice Age, will throw some light upon this. The letter is dated 26th October 1876, and Darwin says:—“The subject [i.e., the Ice Age] is one which fascinates me, chiefly owing to a little incident which I will mention as showing the grand progress of geology. When I was a boy an acute old gentleman who had attended to geology and natural history showed me a boulder in Shropshire, and assured me solemnly that the world would pass away before any one could explain how this great stone came from Cumberland or Scotland. This made a deep impression on me, and you may believe how delighted I was some forty years ago when floating ice action was first broached, to be followed some years afterwards by glacier action.”

We see from this letter that the thought of the mystery of the great boulder haunted Darwin for years, but the young geologists of the Survey were confronted not with one boulder, but, day after day, week after week, with an accumulation of only half-explained mysteries. When they started work the view that a large part of the British Islands had been covered by land ice, and that the boulder-clay was the record of its passage, had, after a period of neglect, again come into prominence; but it was very far from being universally accepted (see the historical discussion in [Part II.]). Then, and for many years to come, the view that the boulder-clay, erratics, and so forth had been dropped by floating icebergs still commanded many followers. The suggestion that there was not one Glacial Period only but a series of advances and retreats, with well-marked interglacial periods between, had yet to be born. Thus the subject was a burning one at the moment, and in their meetings, whether in the field or, when the field-work was done for the season, at headquarters, the members of the Survey had much to discuss and to tell, many fragments of evidence to piece together. They seem all to have been greatly interested in the subject; but that James Geikie made it so peculiarly his own was partly due to the constructive imagination which enabled him to visualise, in a series of brilliant flashes, not the country as he saw it, but the former conditions to which it bore testimony. This constructive imagination was aided also, as has been indicated, by constant toil and by ceaseless comparison, by means both of personal visits and through the writings of others, of local conditions with those of other regions and of other lands.

It is also not without significance to note that his own first work, and indeed generally most of his Survey work throughout his period of service, lay in what is described as the peripheral area of the old glaciation. In any area which is or has been glaciated it is possible to distinguish between a central area where erosion is at a maximum, and where the evidence of the existence of former ice-sheets is almost necessarily masked by the work of later glaciers, and a peripheral area where ice work takes the form of deposition. In this latter area it is often possible to unravel the complex evidence to an extent sufficient to determine the question whether more than one Glacial Period existed or not. It was to this problem that James Geikie devoted much of his attention, and this fact must be regarded as largely explained by the other that his geological field-work was done in Lowland rather than in Highland areas.

In so far as the details of the Survey work go, we may note that theoretically the summer was devoted to field-work and the winter to indoor work, at first either in London or at the Industrial Museum in Edinburgh, and later, after the establishment of the Survey Office in Edinburgh, at that office. But this general scheme was modified considerably by circumstances. Summer and winter, notably, had a somewhat different sense from that which the calendar gives. For example, an entry in his official diary for 1863 states, under date 17th February:—“Pack-up in Office for country;” while in the same year field-work seemed to continue, with short interruptions, till December. In the following year, 1864, a start was made even earlier, on 1st February. That somebody was taking too optimistic a view of Scotch weather is, however, obvious from the entries in the diary, where “snow,” “snow,” “snow and rain,” “wet day,” “snow, 8 or 9 inches” follow each other with a steady persistency, which justifies the brief entry on 14th March: “Begin to grow desperate—lock up my razors.” At this time Mr Peach and James Geikie were endeavouring to map the Ochils from Kinross as a centre, and Dr Peach informs the writer that the two made strenuous but mostly ineffectual efforts to get on with their outdoor work at a time when rocks and superficial deposits alike were concealed in a thick mantle of snow. Apparently, however, there were some alleviations, for one of the tantalisingly short entries in the diary mentions a “Pisgah view of Ochils,” obtained apparently from Rumbling Bridge; while Dr Peach states that out of working hours the two toiled hard at their German.

The mode of study took a direction which had some influence on James Geikie’s future, and is of interest on this account. The first impetus to the study of the language came apparently from Dr Young, who was very friendly with Dr Schmitz, the Rector of the High School, whose daughter he married at a later date. Young had apparently a good knowledge of the language, and he, early in their association, urged upon Mr Peach the necessity of acquiring at least a reading acquaintance with it, and recommended the learning of German poetry as a capital means of obtaining a vocabulary. By the spring of 1864 Mr Peach had already a considerable repertory, and his recitals roused in James Geikie his old passion for verse-making. The songs were first put into rough English, with many jokes about their sentimentality, and then James Geikie turned the rough translations into English verse. This was the beginning of a pastime which he carried on during a large part of his life. A selection of the verses was published in 1887 as Songs and Lyrics by Heinrich Heine and other German Poets. In the preface the author says that all the renderings there given were done “for his own amusement in those ‘brave days of youth,’ when difficulties and impossibilities are hardly recognised.” Many of the verses were published practically unaltered after more than twenty years’ interval, for most of them were made in very early days. They occur in letters, in note-books, diaries, and in various other places among his papers of the later sixties, and were evidently a true labour of love.

As frequent mention has been made of the diaries, it may be well to state that these for the most part contain little or nothing save the barest records of mapping done, hours of work, memoranda as to expenses, and so forth. Those of the first year or two, however, not unnaturally, since the work was entirely new, are a little fuller. That for 1862, if it ever existed, does not seem to have been preserved; but 1863 contains one or two interesting entries, which emphasise still further the point already made as to the enthusiasm, plans, and ambitions with which the Survey was entered. On its first leaf the following lines are written:—“Was not so old last year as I am this—fact for the curious biographer who is no doubt destined to reap immortality by the interesting use he will make of the copious entries in this diary.” But as for many weeks afterwards the “curious biographer” finds no written word beyond the statement that drawing pens were bought at an outlay of 1s. 6d., it is to be feared that no superstructure in regard to an expectation of future fame can be built upon the entry. The corresponding page on next year’s diary is more prosaic, for it bears only a series of “Memoranda” which include an injunction to get a wife when income allows, and to have only three children, two boys and one girl. Rather oddly there is a letter extant which announces the birth of his third child, many years later, and bewails the fact that it is another boy, when a girl would have “rounded off the family so nicely.” The much-loved daughter did not appear on the scene till many years afterwards.

From the 1863 diary two short entries may be quoted, for they stand side by side on the same page, and are in many ways very characteristic of the man. The first relates to a day spent in indoor work, though with the careful corollary that this was not due to the weather. Opposite this formal entry is written:—“Mouth filled with cursings and my heart with evil thoughts, all owing to the squalling and girning of an ill-natured, red-headed, unwashed, petted, fractious imp—the son and heir of our landlord, the shepherd.” Some of the epithets have been omitted—the provocation was doubtless extreme!

The following day was spent in the open air, and opposite stands this:—“Meet J. Y. on top of Black Law; walk back to Summerhope by way of the old churchyard. Exquisite moonlight night. Scene inexpressibly sad—feel of course very sentimental; and have a whole troop of depressing thoughts and reminiscences,—some of which cause me to heave sighs like the bellows of the Village Blacksmith. The ingenious biographer will never guess what these sighs were for, nor have I any intention of enlightening him.”

Finally, we may note that the holidays of the years 1863 and 1864 were both spent in Scotland, the first on the shores of the Solway and on the coast of Ayrshire; the second on the Moray Firth, then north to Brora and south-west to Fort William and Oban. Both seem to have been largely devoted to geological work, but were on a less ambitious scale than many of those of later years.

The late spring and summer of 1864 saw James Geikie beginning work in Ayrshire, where he was stationed for some years. With the end of 1864 we may say that his introductory period of life on the Survey closed.

CHAPTER III
“The Great Ice Age”: (1) Years of Preparation
1865–1871

The year 1865 saw James Geikie, as already stated, doing Survey work in Ayrshire, and this, with its continuation, the laborious and sometimes tedious mapping of the Lanarkshire coalfield, kept him in the west till 1872. Of these years of patient toil, diversified by independent research upon the drifts, by geological holidays, and by the making of translations of Heine and other German poets, comparatively little has been preserved. His correspondents in these early days were chiefly the members of his own family, and most of his letters have been destroyed, except where the presence of some cherished verses determined their preservation. From the scanty records in the diaries, from the few letters that remain, and from the published account of his surveys, it is, however, possible to indicate broadly the course of his daily life.

In 1865 he was stationed in South Ayrshire, Girvan and Cumnock being two of his centres there. The most notable event of the year, however, was a visit to Norway in July to August. Unfortunately, only the barest notes of this visit remain, and, except for the descriptions of fiord scenery in Prehistoric Europe and elsewhere, we do not know what impressions were obtained.

It was apparently chiefly a steamboat journey, with short excursions to glaciers and other areas of special interest to the traveller. Boat was taken from Newcastle to Aalesund, then viâ Molde and Christiansund (where a brief note records an exquisite sunset about eleven, with sunrise following at one) to Trondhjem. After a day in this town the journey was continued to Rödö and Melövar. From this point a trip was made in a boat with four men for twenty miles up the fiord to visit the Fondalen ice-field. Several days were spent here, and various glaciers were visited and presumably studied. A return was then made to Melövar, and the steamer journey continued to Tromsö. After a day here James Geikie went on to Skjervö, where he arrived at 2 A.M., as is carefully recorded, and put up at a merchant’s house, no inn being available. Here he was most hospitably received, and enjoyed his brief glimpse of a Norwegian interior. Next day a boat was taken across the fiord to the Jökul-fjeld, and an apparently profitable excursion, which included icebergs and icefalls among the objects seen, ended at a fisherman’s cot at midnight. Next day was spent idling about, because the wind was adverse, which suggests that the boat was a sailing-boat, and the start was not made till evening, so that the whole night was passed on the water, Skjervö not being reached till six in the following morning. Two days were spent here, and then the steamer taken to Loppen, from which an excursion was made to Bergsfiord, where the glacier was visited. Another excursion was made to Öksfjord, and the steamboat rejoined as far as Hammerfest, the furthest point reached. On the return journey the call at Christiansund permitted of an expedition, taken in company with the geologist Dr Dahll, during which a “fierce controversy” took place. Finally, a Dutch steamer brought the traveller from Bergen to England after what must have been a most instructive tour.

The following year, 1866, found him still in Ayrshire. Little record of it is left, beyond the tale of work, and the publication of his first scientific paper. By this time he had moved to the north of Ayrshire, where he was also in the following year. This year, 1867, witnessed the appearance of his first glacial paper, this being “On the Buried Forests and Peat Mosses of Scotland, and the Changes of Climate which they indicate,” a subject which was to engage his attention more or less closely for the remainder of his life. His spare time was still occupied with the translations, many examples of which occur in his letters to his sisters. Occasionally his muse took less serious forms, as may be seen from the lines given on next page, which appear in a letter much of which is taken up with translations from “that lugubrious poet in whose stanzas the word weinen is rarely omitted—it may be sweetly rendered by the English whining.” The lines mentioned follow some criticisms of the habits of the inhabitants of an Ayrshire town, where the society, in James Geikie’s words, was “eminently peeous and drouthie.” The lines are as follows:—

Takin’ toddy a’ the week,

Comes the Sabbath day,

Then to Kirk three times they gang,

And sleep the fumes away.

In the same letter he complains that in this particular town the invariable question put to you by strangers whose acquaintance you make is, “What church do you attend?” He adds that he had not acquired the reputation of a regular church-goer, so that one suspects that something less than the three times a day had to suffice in his case. From this period probably dates an anecdote which he used to tell himself of a somewhat unfortunate visit to a place of worship where, tired out by his week’s work in the open air, and not perhaps greatly interested in the discourse, he fell asleep so soundly as ultimately to fall out of the pew—at the end of which he was sitting—headlong into the aisle. He had the presence of mind to remain there with his eyes closed, and was carried out by sympathetic acquaintances, who thought he had been suddenly overtaken by serious illness. But when the feet of the young men were already at the door, the apparently unconscious patient opened his eyes and winked at one of his friends to indicate that the fate of Eutychus had not overtaken him on this occasion. The bearer opposite, with an innocence which did credit to his piety, had not thought of the obvious explanation of the accident, and in his astonishment nearly dropped his burden. History does not, unfortunately, tell whether his loyalty enabled him to keep the matter to himself and so preserve his friend’s reputation. For these, it must be remembered, were days when a geologist invariably ran the risk of being suspected of “unsoundness,” by the mere fact of his occupation, and was, therefore, one for whom jesting on the threshold of a church was particularly dangerous.

In this year of 1867 Mr (now Dr) John Horne joined the Survey, and very shortly afterwards made James Geikie’s acquaintance. There thus began a friendship which lasted to the end. Almost from the first Mr Horne shared Geikie’s enthusiasm for glacial work, and so early as 2nd April 1868 a letter from the latter to one of his sisters records the fact that “Young Horne has got me a lot of information, and I shall certainly get a lot more.” From this time, indeed, James Geikie constantly asked his colleagues for notes about the glacial phenomena in the areas they were respectively surveying, and for friendship’s sake was freely supplied with these. Thus in the course of time he acquired a large amount of detailed information about the different parts of Scotland, with answers to many questions which cropped up in the course of his own investigations. It was not till his early papers, and especially the publication of The Great Ice Age, had attracted the attention of a wider circle of geologists, that this correspondence was enlarged to include most parts of the civilised world. As we shall see later, his early foreign letters gave him great pleasure, even though, until he realised the value of a feeling for languages and a good stock of dictionaries, he had often to ask for help in their translation.

A few lines from a letter to Mr Horne, written from Eaglesham on 8th May 1868, may help to show the kind of work he was doing, and reveal also those characteristics which made his colleagues willing to give him all the help they could:—

Dear Young Man,—I hope you are still in the land of the living and the place of hope wherever that may be. These lines I write unto you not that your joy may be full but that you may know that I take (I won’t say a fatherly) interest in your welfare, but any other kind of interest you like but self-interest. What are you about, and how do you like the work? Is the Drift blinding your eyes and do you yet see as through a glass darkly? I suppose your Boulder-clay in the high grounds will give you no bother. If you get any gravel will you be so good as let me know whether it occurs in valleys whose watershed is over or under 1000 feet?

Mr Horne was then working in the Nith valley, being stationed at Thornhill. James Geikie by this time had moved from Ayrshire into Renfrewshire and Lanarkshire.

But the great event of 1868, apart from the publication of two more glacial papers, was a trip up the Rhine and on to Switzerland, of which one of the note-books contains a very full and jovial record, which has been supplemented by the recollections of some of the surviving members of the party, who were all Survey men. The record is too long to quote in full, but certain passages may be given. The opening gives so lively a picture of the party, and of the rollicking spirits with which they started, that it cannot be omitted. In connection with the informality of tone, it must be remembered that the diary was only a private record of a gay holiday. It is interspersed, quite characteristically, by very neat diagrams and sketches, and details of the geological observations, which were no doubt worked up afterwards.

Wednesday, 29th July 1868.

Edinburgh to London—Peach, Skae, Horne, and Archie in company. Arrive infernally hungry and dirty at St Catherine’s dock. Have to swear at a cabman, etc. This of course was Thursday, 30th. Friday, 31st—Start in the Orion for Antwerp—ship none of the best, but passable. Of course a number of English on board. None of them I know. Have a kind of luncheon and satisfy hunger pangs. Brisk breeze gets up towards the afternoon, and puts to flight notions of dinner in the respective buzzums of Skae, Horne, and Archie. Peach and I wait so long that our hunger vanishes. Ladies laid out in corpse-like fashion all over the deck, and a good deal of basin work performed. Two very pretty English girls on board—as pretty I think as I ever saw before. Both hold up for a while, but after a time they give in and close up their eyes like daisies. Skae off to bed—Horne having meanwhile mysteriously disappeared. Archie follows suit. I smoke, and Peach in despair hovers about the door of the feeding saloon in hopes of being able to see something like preparations for tea. Tea at last! Only 5 out of nearly 150 passengers sit down—one of them a lady. Peach and I make a furious onslaught to make up for loss of dinner. Horne, to our surprise, enters, tastes a cup of tea and beats a hasty retreat. The place is close and stifling, and the sounds issuing from the surrounding berths make appeals which cannot be resisted. Peach and I make for the deck, where the fresh air revives us, and I finish off my meal with a pipe.

There follow, by one of the sudden transitions in which the diary abounds, notes on the colour of the water, and on the jellyfish seen.

A night’s sleep seems to have restored the party, for they landed at Antwerp the following morning apparently all in good spirits, and after a stroll round the town took train for Cologne, passing Liège, “which lies beautifully in a lovely wooded valley,” en route. After a short visit to Cologne—“here I was pleased to find Heine’s good Christopher in the Dom”—the party went on by boat to Königswinter. “Sail up the Rhine not very interesting, but the evening is exquisite and the flat country looks well.” At Königswinter they spent some days—very hot ones—climbing the Siebengebirge and geologising, with lighter intervals. One of the interludes may be mentioned:—“Peach swam across the Rhine in twelve minutes (before breakfast).”

After a day or two at Königswinter the party went down the Rhine to Bonn, to see Prof. Zirkel there and to visit the museum. Bonn is somewhat briefly dismissed:—“This is a lost day. I hate Bonn ... hooked it back to Königswinter—and loafed about.” At Bonn the party met Sir Roderick Murchison, then Director-General of the Geological Survey, profanely called “the Duke” in the diary, for his mannerisms made a strong appeal to the sense of humour of the more lively members of the party. The veteran geologist—or at least so the juniors asserted—graduated his greetings in careful accordance with the official position of each. But the old chief’s genuine interest in geology was shown by his eager questions about the recent results of the Survey work in the Southern Uplands.

Finally Königswinter was left, “with regret,” for the Laacher See, a detailed visit to the Eifel country being one of the great objects of the tour. James Geikie’s early work in the Ochils had aroused his interest in volcanic phenomena, and his geological notes in regard to the next section of the tour are singularly full.

The party took steamer to Brohl, and then drove to the lake, being, as is carefully recorded, cheated both by the boatman who took them off the steamer and by the driver. Perhaps the fact accounts for the next entry:—“I have seen prettier places than the Laacher See.” The party had an introduction, obtained presumably through Prof. Zirkel, to one of the fathers at Laach Abbey, and he and a companion accompanied them on a tour round the lake, in order to point out the objects of geological interest. A trip to the Bausenberg was also made. Next day the members of the party walked to Niedermendig to see the famous quarries there. Here they tasted the beer stored in the caverns, and characteristically—for James Geikie did not have to wait for Mr Chesterton to sing the merits of beer—the diary devotes nearly equal space to the geology and the beverage. “It was deliciously cold and I like the flavour. I had heard much of the coldness of this beer, viz., that no one could drink more than a small glassful at a time. But I found no difficulty in taking down a good pint, and if I had not had the mine to get out of, I could easily have stowed away double the quantum.”

Some other interesting excursions were made in the neighbourhood of the Laacher See, in company with the friendly monks, and then finally the party set off in a farm wagon for a thirty-mile drive to Daun, in the heart of the Eifel country, over very rough roads. The vehicle was cheap, but this seems to have been its only merit, and the driver, a prosperous peasant with money in the bank, as he explained to them, had the disadvantage of not knowing the way. The journey took over twelve hours, and when the tired party reached the village it was to find that it was market-day there, and rooms were difficult to obtain, so that the weary scientists had to seek lodgings where they could, some in an inn, where they were “nearly eaten up with fleas,” and others in a private house. After a day here, another long drive was taken to Bertrich, where the better hotels, an indirect result of the local medicinal springs, revived the drooping spirits of the diarist. Unfortunately the bill next morning proved that the presence of the visitors had another effect also, and the tone of the diary again becomes subdued, till, after a long drive, the Moselle was reached, and its scenery had a restorative effect.

At Cochem the geologists engaged a boat and two men to row them forty miles down the Moselle to Coblentz. The first twenty miles, it is carefully explained, were delightful; but darkness came on long before the destination was reached, and it was midnight before an unwilling dockkeeper allowed the boat to enter Coblentz. But in spite of the fatigue and tedium of the long journey, the diarist expresses himself as highly delighted with the trip.

Coblentz did not make a favourable impression on the travellers, and the diary contains some caustic remarks on the Prussian soldiers, with whom the town was full, and on the Prussian officers whose manners at table in the hotel were a trial to persons accustomed to place reliance upon a fork rather than a knife as an implement for conveying food into the mouth. The subject is one which recurs more than once, for James Geikie, who was singularly susceptible to feminine charm, seemed to resent strongly the general lack of it among the German ladies met with, and could not reconcile himself to the sight of a Fräulein disposing of peas by a method whose only advantage was its rapidity. If the sound reflection that a lady who habitually uses a broad-bladed knife for this purpose is rarely so clumsy as to slit her mouth completely from ear to ear in the process occurred to him, it evidently afforded no consolation, and he found it difficult to sit out a meal in a German hotel if peas entered into the menu. He himself attempted no missionary work, however, though he records meeting two “Yankees,” one of whom “had induced one or two German ladies to use their forks instead of their knives for pitching in the victuals. They were surprised, they told him, that the fork could do the work so nicely!”

At Coblentz two of the party, Messrs Horne and Skae, turned back, while the rest went on to Goarshausen, where they passed a delightful couple of days. “It is one of the prettiest spots in all the Rhine country.” The next stop was at Heidelberg, where the customary sights were visited, and the scarred countenances of the students commented on with true British disgust; the journey was then continued viâ Basle, Berne, Thun, and Interlaken to Grindelwald. Here the famous guide Peter Michel was engaged, and the party spent “a most interesting day” on the glaciers. “The ice phenomena were well seen, but best on the lower glacier.” So successful was the excursion that it was resolved, though all were inexperienced, to make the crossing of the Strahlegg to the Grimsel. Bad weather made it necessary to stop two nights at the Bäregg hut, and of these and the day’s imprisonment an amusing description is given. On the second day the weather cleared and the chalet was left at five, and, after a tiring day, the party reached the Grimsel at six in the evening, some of the members being much fatigued. Some interesting observations were made en route. From the Grimsel the party made their way down the Rhone valley to Lake Geneva, and at this point the diary ends abruptly. The excursion, it is clear, was one of great interest, and coupled with the previous visit to Norway, must have played an important part in helping James Geikie to visualise the Europe of the Ice Age.

The next three years, 1869, 1870, and 1871, were spent for the most part in hard and continuous work on the coalfields, though in all three years the published papers, no less than the letters, show that all the energy which could be spared from the daily routine was being given to glacial work.

In the spring of 1869 James Geikie started work at Carluke, and an entertaining letter to his mother has been preserved, dated from here on 4th April. It is long and largely about family affairs, but a few quotations may be made, for the tone throws light upon the character both of mother and son. The letter begins abruptly as follows:—

This being a day of rest not only for the beasts that do the work of men, but also for the men that do the work of beasts, it behoveth me thy son to throw aside the cares of the world and the many humbugs that do so easily beset me, and to refresh my soul and peradventure thine also by inditing these few words, to the intent that thou, O my maternal parent! may know of a surety that I thy son am well, and that thy two daughters who sojourn with me here in the wilderness are even as I am....

Write unto me, O my maternal parent! and tell me how it fareth with thy trees which yield fruit of their kind, and with the flowers which thou dost tend in the house that is heated with pipes and hot water in the pipes. And say unto my paternal parent that he hath forgotten me—that I am even as one of the dead—that I long to see the writing of his hand.

Here many friends visit me not—but I am not grieved—and my waistcoats grow tight about me....

Thy daughters salute thee and the paternal—so I salute ye all in like manner. My blessing abide with ye—and in the bonds of love I subscribe myself.—Yours affectionately.

Other family letters in the same year are written from Hamilton, one, dated 19th July, containing the information in regard to his translations that “I have so many now that I think if I go on for a month or so longer I shall have enough to make a small volume.”

The allusion to fruit-trees, in the letter quoted above, it is interesting to note, was especially to a pear-tree which grew in the garden of the house in Duncan Street where the family lived at this time. The house is one of two which a few years ago were converted by the Edinburgh School Board into a special school, and in the course of the alterations the jargonelle pear-tree, which figures in many of the family letters, was cut down. It seems to have been a prolific bearer in its prime, and in one of his letters James Geikie alludes to receiving a basket of the fruit, and at the same time to the prolonged silence of the members of the family, which he explains as the result of the “pear-disease,” i.e., the absorption of his sisters in the task of consuming the fruit. He himself sends some rhymes in return for his share.

The year 1870 finds him still busy on the coalfield, his diary for that year being full of notes of appointments with people connected with the pits, while he seems to have been constantly moving from place to place in Lanarkshire.

Two letters from Prof. Ramsay in July of this year have an historical interest. The first suggests a joint tour on the Rhine to solve a geological problem, and is followed almost at once by another, saying, “Now I fear my Rhine journey is blown to the winds.... This most wicked and accursed war will upset half the Continent of Europe, and it is by no means impossible that we may be dragged into it”—upon which one feels disposed to make the comment that if we had been it is possible that infinite suffering might have been saved forty-four years later! A letter from James Geikie to Mr Horne, written later in the same year, says:—“My holidays, I think I told you, were all botched. I could not get abroad, and I had nowhere particular to go at home.”

At this time he was stationed at Salsburgh by Holytown, where he made several friends, notably Dr Grossart, with whom afterwards he kept up a correspondence for many years.

In the letter to Mr Horne quoted above he says:—“I have been doing a little at those German translations, and have now finished the volume, and am on the outlook for a publisher who won’t cheat me. I wish to have the thing published this winter”—a wish which was not, however, fulfilled for many winters. In the same letter he adds:—“I am still among coal ... but Xmas is coming, and then one will have an opportunity of washing the dirt away. I like this place very well. The house is clean, and the district is moory—just on the outskirts of the great coalfield. I mean to work out as much as I can from here so as to shorten my stay in Glasgow, of which (I) got tired. After all there is nothing like the free fresh air of the country.”

The next year, 1871, saw the finishing up of the coalfield work, and simultaneously the beginnings of a gathering together of the accumulated mass of glacial material which was a year or two later to take shape in The Great Ice Age. Letters in the early part of the summer to Mr Horne contain detailed plans for a tour in the Hebrides “for the purpose of ascertaining the direction of ice-striæ, and quizzing the drifts.” It proved impossible for his friend to join him, and the tour was made in company with Mr William Galloway, one of many friends made in the west.

Mr Galloway has kindly supplied a few notes on the tour. The two sailed from Glasgow to Stornoway by the Crinan Canal, and walked to the north point of the island, carrying their belongings with them. Both had a special purpose in view, James Geikie being engaged, of course, in studying glacial action, while his friend had been commissioned to investigate the possibility of establishing a meteorological station at the lighthouse on the Butt of Lewis. On their way back to Barvas they came across an old highland woman who made cups and saucers of unbaked clay. James Geikie was much interested in her work, and ordered a set. It was despatched to Lady (then Mrs) Ramsay, the wife of Prof. Ramsay, then Senior Director of the Geological Survey (cf. [Part II.)], as a sample of prehistoric ware from the Outer Hebrides. The joke was explained later, but not before, or so it is asserted, some high archæological authorities in London had been taken in by the “primitive” appearance of the work.

The travellers, presumably on the homeward journey, began a joint composition in heroic verse describing their adventures; but this masterpiece seems never to have been committed to paper, and perhaps never progressed very far.

The tour was apparently short, for James Geikie writes from Bathgate, under date 28th November:—“This last year has been a year of close work and some anxiety, and not having had any holiday to speak of I feel jaded and down in the mouth.”

In all his letters of this year he speaks of his laborious work among the collieries, and his note-books are filled with the usual details of appointments made and notes of information received from different quarters. The following spring saw him in more congenial surroundings in the Border counties, and this chapter may fitly end with the completion of his coalfield work. It may be added, however, that letters from Ramsay, received at the close of the year, and dealing with the problems raised by James Geikie’s paper on “Changes of Climate during the Glacial Epoch,” a paper of which Ramsay thought highly, show clearly what the years of preparation had done for him, despite their almost ceaseless toil.

It must not be supposed, however, that life was made up of nothing but toil, alleviated by occasional holidays. For many years a considerable amount of the Survey work was done in London, and parts of many winters were spent there. In addition to the Survey men, James Geikie had a considerable number of friends and acquaintances in London, his father’s musical connections opening various musical and artistic circles to him. Both in scientific and artistic circles his social gifts were much appreciated, and he himself must have found the winter glimpses into a wider social life than he could find either in the country districts or in the smaller towns of Scotland a most welcome change.

CHAPTER IV
“The Great Ice Age”: (2) Publication
1872–1874

In the year 1872 James Geikie was somewhat late in beginning field-work, but the end of April saw him established at Kelso. An interesting letter to his friend Dr Grossart at Holytown, dated 4th May, may be quoted as showing his feelings in regard to his new sphere:—

I found I could not make out a flying visit to Salsburgh before leaving the west country for good. But I hope to see you some time before the year is very old. I have been knocking about a good deal since I saw you, but, praise be thankit! I have at last got back into the country. And what a lovely country it is! Coming so soon after Airdrie and Coatbridge it looks quite like another world. I can hardly believe that I am in the same planet where coal and iron are being worked. Here is nothing but the sandstones below the limestones and the Old Red with its trap rocks. The people too are as sleepy and old-fashioned and “respectable” as the rocks they live upon or rather above. This is the kind of land that would be after your own heart. Here are old abbeys and tumble-down castles, and every field and stream has some old-world story connected with it. At first I hardly could thole the quiet of Kelso. I have lived so much of late amongst smoke and din that for a week or so I felt like a fish out of water. The big market-place here, with nobody in it, was depressing to look at. I didn’t like the way either that the shopkeepers rushed upon me when I ventured into their shops—it looked for all the world as if they never had had any customer but me since the New Year. And yet they tell me that Kelso is a thriving country town. It may be so—very likely it is so—but it seems to one newly come from the stirring “west” like a dead-alive place.

What are you about? How does the great “work”[1] progress? I have been compelled to drop scribbling for a little, having rather overdone it this winter in Bathgate and Edinburgh. But the smell of the spring woods and hedges has set me up again, and I meditate an early assault on pen and ink.

[1] A book on The History of the Shotts upon which Dr Grossart was engaged. It appeared in 1880.

A letter to Mr Horne, from Kelso, in the same month of May, strikes a somewhat similar note:—

Here I am, in the midst of green trees, purling brooks, whistling mavises and love-sick young ladies. I feel quite a new man now that I am released from the presence of coal smoke and pits; up to any amount of fun as of yore.

In the same letter he speaks of the reception met with by his glacial papers:—

I have had some very gratifying letters from Sweden and Switzerland from geologists there—saying how much they are pleased with my results, and giving me more notes which help out my conclusions. It seems they have interglacial periods in Sweden also. Of all places in the world I had also a letter from a Prof. Szabó of Pest in Hungary. So that you see a prophet is not without honour save in his own country.

Another letter, also written from Kelso, on 15th June, says:—

Man—I feel awfully tempted to go to Sweden, where I have the promise of meeting with a warm welcome from some of the geologists. But I can’t go, and have reluctantly had to delay a visit till next year. I continue now and again to get a gratifying letter about my papers which cheers me up amazingly. Woodward the editor[2] writes to-night congratulating me on the wind-up, and saying that everyone speaks highly of my lucubrations. After trying my hands at many things I think I have at last got into the right groove. The noble hammer-bearing fraternity have not heard the last of my “theories.” ... What a fertile source of amusement this blessed Glacial Epoch has been!

[2] Of the Geological Magazine, in which the glacial papers had appeared.

The summer holiday this year was spent in Lewis, but the chief record which remains is that contained in papers contributed to the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society and the Geological Magazine. In September he writes from Norham an affectionate letter to Dr Grossart, expressing longing for a “haver,” and giving news of his glacial work. The letter goes on:—

How does the magnum opus progress? I am still working away at mine—nearly finished—both me and my book. I got some very startling facts this summer in the island of Lewis which I shall send to the London Geolog. Society—the facts, not the island.

A month later he writes from Duns to Mr Horne in regard to some specimens which he wants for a course of lectures to be given to working-men at the Museum of Science and Art during the winter. In this letter he speaks of being attacked by a form of nervous prostration which renders him incapable of continued work, so that the magnum opus is at a standstill. The task was evidently proving more severe than he anticipated, and the illness was prolonged, for in a letter to Dr Grossart, written from Edinburgh on 4th January 1873, he says:—

This winter things have gone back with me. I was laid up most of November and December, but am now all right again. But this enforced idleness has kept back my book, which the longer I stick at it seems to grow and grow till I begin to get frightened at its dimensions. This summer, however, I hope to send it to the printer.

In the same letter he speaks of his lectures at the Museum of Science and Art, and also of another on the “Antiquity of Man in Britain,” which he was to give at Birkenhead at the beginning of February. The lecture, which was duly delivered and also published, dealt with a subject to which he had been led by his glacial work. It was one in which his interest increased as time went on, and in later years “Man during the Ice Age” occupied a good deal of his leisure, up to the very end.

At Duns James Geikie made a number of friends, and indeed throughout his work in the Border counties he seems to have met with much hospitality, and this even before his sojourn in Jedburgh led to his acquaintanceship with the family in which he found his wife, and to the region becoming a second homeland for him. During his stay at Duns the book was progressing steadily, despite his hard work in the field. In June he was writing to Mr Horne and Prof. Ramsay for information in regard to certain special points, and the latter was very anxious for James Geikie to accompany him on a geologising holiday to the Rhine, to investigate some disputed questions. This proposal was not accepted, however, apparently because James Geikie was dissatisfied with the only information he could obtain about glacial deposits on the south side of the Alps, and made up his mind to seek satisfaction by a personal tour to the district. This trip is mentioned in a letter written to Dr Grossart from Kelso on 20th July, in which he says:—

My summer has been spent in a ram-sham desultory sort of way. I have hammered out the geological structure of the Cheviots, which is something interesting and new, and I have also got some interesting glacial results. I have had a hard time of it with the lawyers though, having been summoned twice to London to give evidence before Committees of Parliament about that confounded Edinburgh water of which every honest man in Edinburgh is heartily sick. I know I am. But that is over now. In a fortnight I start for Italy, and am going to make a long tour of it: Paris, Geneva, Martigny, Aosta, Turin, Bologna, Verona, Venice, Trieste, and Vienna, then back through the Tyrol and down the Rhine to Rotterdam, Amsterdam, etc., and home. I shall be a fortnight or three weeks scouring along the foot of the Piedmontese Alps looking at the glacial things.

My book is finished and off to the printers at last. But I fear that it will be delayed by the engraver, who does not get on with the illustrations as fast as I could wish. Anyhow I hope I shall be able to send you a copy this winter.

No detailed account of the Italian trip has been preserved, but various letters make allusions to it. Thus writing to Mr Horne from Jedburgh on 17th September, he speaks of his visit to Lake Como, ending up:—“Alas! all the sunshine is over, and here I am in dull Scotch autumn, thinking sadly that the world and one’s destinies are not more amenable to one’s wishes. But Scotland is not so bad after all.” His next visit to the lake was made in company with his wife and her sister, and during the trip he told how on his first visit he had lost himself in the Alps at dark, and after some difficulty and various adventures reached a little hamlet. Here there was no inn, but the priest of the village kindly put him up for the night, the two conversing in Latin in default of any other means of communication.

He speaks also of his Italian tour in a letter to Dr Grossart, dated from Jedburgh on 11th October, in which he says:—

Did I write you giving an account of my Italian trip? I know that I meant to do so. I enjoyed myself amazingly, and picked up a lot of wrinkles which will stand me in good stead. Ods man! but it was hot spielin’ the hills with the thermometer 94° in the shade. God knows but I thought it not far short of 500° in the sun.... I’m going to take it easy this winter—if I can. I have now got my magnum opus off my hands, and hope to send you a copy next month. It makes some 500 pages of demy 8vo!—a wiselike size!... The illustrations will please you, I hope. They have been beautifully engraved.... The country here is looking beautiful—woods having all their autumn colours on. I don’t wonder that emigrants who were born on the Jed, the Teviot, and the Tweed should aye have such intense longings to get back again to their native howffs. It makes one young as a boy to wander up the sweet glens and ravines in this lovely district. If I were in love I’m afraid I should use up whole reams of paper in the composing of passionate songs and sonnets. But not being so I can only croon as I trot along the half-forgotten words of some old Border ditty.

Some other passages in this and other letters suggest that with the finishing of the great book, and the lifting of the strain, the young man felt désœuvré, was beginning to think that youth was slipping away and he was perhaps not getting the best out of life, and was liable to alternate fits of depression and of a cynicism which was probably largely a pose intended to hide his true feelings. In brief, he was becoming aware that it is not good for man to dwell alone, and the Glacial Epoch, whatever its charms, proved a chilly substitute for the kind of companionship which his affectionate spirit craved. A few extracts from a letter, undated, but written from Jedburgh, apparently about the same time as the foregoing, may help to make the position clear. The letter may be entitled—anything more specific being avoided—“To a Young Man contemplating Matrimony,” and the quotations must necessarily be disjointed:—

You know your own affairs best. But if I were in your place, and the girl were a really good girl and suitable, hang it I would propose and get her.... Something like fate whispers in my ear, “Jim, my boy, you’ll never have a wife, altho’ you should live to the age of Methusaleh.” ... With the uncertainty of temper and feeling that I have, I seriously doubt whether I would be other than miserable if I were to marry. So lest you should get into the same state, O young man! either flee temptation or be bold and seize the tempter. What more can I say. Perhaps you were only laughing when you wrote me, and are now laughing at me and my soft-heartedness. All right, laugh away. I have had my day, and some time you shall have had yours also.

Perhaps it may be added that when this letter was written its author was thirty-four. His marriage took place some eighteen months later, after an engagement which had lasted more than six months. He was destined to experience nearly forty years of happy married life, to see his children grow up, to welcome the advent of his grandchildren—either it was not fate who did the whispering, or she displayed a more than feminine contrariness.

Other letters during the autumn months give merely notes on the progress of the book, which was unexpectedly delayed, and information as to his prospective plans for the winter in Edinburgh. One to Dr Grossart, dated from Jedburgh on 22nd November, may be quoted as summing up what is said in various other letters which have been preserved:—

With this I send you a short lucubration of mine on the Island of Lewis, the chief point in which is the proof given that the Outer Hebrides were overflowed by land ice from the mainland!

I am happy to say that I am nearly out of the hands of the printer. My book has swelled out beyond what I intended, making close on 600 pages. The illustrations, which have kept back the printing, are now finished, and I expect to have a bound copy in my hands in ten days or so. It won’t be published, however, much before Xmas, as we have made arrangements with an American firm to publish it at the same time in Yankee land. This is a great stroke of good luck, as it will lessen the cost of production and make the book payable. Some of the maps I believe you will find very interesting. In fact, I have so written the book that whether geologists accept all my general conclusions or not, they will at least know a good deal that they did not know before, after they have perused it.... I am booked for a series of lectures this winter at the Museum of Science and Art, my subject being the Carboniferous Epoch. I am going to treat it in a pictorial way, trying to reproduce for them the kind of scenery and climate then enjoyed in Britain. I have also a lot more literary work in hand—A Manual on Coal-Mining—in which I do the geology and an engineering celebrity does the practical part. This and other matters keep my hands full. Nevertheless I have still an occasional dig at my German Songs. (Strange mixture! you will say. But then man is a queer mixture altogether.) Some time or other the Songs will see the light—but as I look on that matter as pleasure, and the scientific work as business, the Songs must stand aside till their betters are served. Write and give me your news. You see, like an old bachelor I have nothing to write about but myself. So you must under the circumstances excuse the egotism.

The book appeared early in the New Year, and the fact that the author was then in Edinburgh and must have presented copies to his nearest friends in person, no doubt accounts for the absence of many letters acknowledging receipt among his papers. Two notes from Prof. Ramsay, to whom, as his “dear friend and teacher,” the book was dedicated, may, however, be quoted. Both are dated from Jermyn Street, and are written on successive days, 20th and 21st January 1874. The letters are as follows:—

My Dear Geikie,—I have got your beautiful vol. quite late in the day and am now engaged in physically cutting it up. Your dedication makes me so proud that since reading it I have held my head quite like the Duke of Argyll, and I only hope it will not fall off behind. I must close, and will take the book home with me to read the dedication aloud in an impressive way after dinner.—Ever sincerely,

Andrw. Ramsay.

My Dear Geikie,—I will read all your book, mair by token that I read 4 chapters of it last night after dinner and liked them all. The plan is good and it is admirably written, as indeed it was sure to be.... As for your converting every reader to all your views, that is not likely as long as the Duke of Argyll remains alive. When a man does anything really in advance he may be well pleased if in 10 or 14 years he gets a fair proportion of the best men on his side. So no more this bout. From yours consumedly,

Andrw. Ramsay.

In May of the same year Ramsay writes again, saying:—“I am delighted to hear of the success of your book, which indeed I never doubted, for I always considered it a first-rate production, though I have only read it by snatches.”

But though James Geikie had lingered long in the company of the Ice Maiden, he had not given her that embrace which is fatal to the earth-born, and the summer of this year brought him other thoughts than those of glaciers and moraines, brought him to a new phase in his life which demands another chapter.

CHAPTER V
Marriage and Life at Perth
1875–1877

In the spring of 1874 James Geikie returned from Edinburgh to the Cheviot region. Before starting his field-work he made a brief visit to the Continent, in regard to which his diary only contains records of dates and places. The motive of the visit is of interest as throwing light on his strong family feeling. At his instigation his youngest sister had gone to Germany to improve herself in the language. On arriving in the place arranged, however, she found herself very uncomfortable and unhappy, and informed her brother of the fact. With characteristic energy he set off at once, met his sister, arranged for her transference to more congenial surroundings, and in a little more than a week was back to work again.

Shortly afterwards he went off to Jedburgh to take up again his survey in the Cheviots. Here he made many friends, and during his stay in the region acquired an intense love for the scenery of the hills, whose long gentle slopes and soft melancholy always appealed to him more than the stern grandeur of the Highlands. This feeling was perhaps not wholly æsthetic, however, for the district soon acquired associations for him which are briefly hinted at in the diary for the year. This—of somewhat unusual form—is adorned, oddly enough, with a portrait of John Stuart Mill as frontispiece. The philosopher’s serious, intellectual countenance has, it is to be feared in derision, been decorated by the owner of the diary with a long pipe. It would indeed be difficult to imagine two men of more different type; for James Geikie, the utilitarian’s long years of waiting and longing would have been as intolerable as the brief fever of the last days.

The entries in the diary are as usual short in the extreme, but under 12th August, which it is carefully noted was a wet day, the diarist was at a picnic in the Cheviots. He adds the word “lost”? to the laconic entry. Later entries record calls made to Crailing Hall with brief comments. About this time James Geikie was writing to his friend Mr Horne, saying:—“John Horne—come to the Cheviots.... I’ll do what I can in the way of introductions.” Much of the letter is occupied with geological matters, and the writer goes on to express a hope that he won’t be asked to give a course of lectures to working-men during the coming winter:—“I want all my time for literary work this winter, seeing that I have agreed to write two books—one for a London house, the other for an Edinburgh one. Besides, I have at last made up my mind to go and get married, and as soon as I come across a likely girl, will lose no time in taking the grand header. I hope never to see another autumn as a bachelor. So what with hunting libraries for notes, and hunting up families for a nice wife, I have my winter’s work laid out before me.”

It will appear from this letter that James Geikie did not keep his heart on his sleeve. The letter is not perhaps wholly candid, but candour was doubtless not to be expected at such a time.

A few details may be added to make the story clear. None of the towns or hamlets at the foot of the Cheviots was near enough to form a good centre of work, and the region being given up to large sheep farms, habitations of any kind among the hills are few and scattered. Among James Geikie’s acquaintances in the Jedburgh district was Mr Simson, Oxnam Row, to whose farm on the lower slopes were added the hill grazings higher up the Kale Water. Here, right among the hills, was the old farmhouse of Buchtrig, in the occupation of a shepherd and his wife, but with some rooms so furnished as to permit of the family making occasional visits to the region. Through Mr Simson James Geikie was able to arrange for accommodation here in the early spring of 1874 to facilitate his work. A few notes of his visit are left in his own handwriting, in what he styles a “Copy of a Fragment of some very ancient Manuscript.” This opens as follows:—

It happened once upon a time that a certain youth, who dreamed strange dreams and wandered about the hill-tops and sojourned in lonely places, came unto a lonely dwelling among the mountains and there abode for many days. And an old woman ministered unto his wants with fear and trembling, for she looked upon him as one that was beside himself. “Verily,” said she unto herself, “he looketh for some hidden treasure, and is a magician who smiteth the rocks with a hammer and writeth strange incantations and evil words in a book.” And she looked, and behold he brought with him from the mountains pieces of stone which he treasured and laid in safe places.... Now after many days the old woman, who was called Katie, put away her fear, for the young man seemed not to hold communication with the Evil One, neither was the smell of brimstone perceived in the place. And so she showed him much kindness, and baked cakes of flour upon the girdle and brought these to him, and eggs, yea, and much fine butter.

In the early summer of the same year James Geikie went for his holiday to Skye and Lewis. Not long after his return he was invited to the picnic already mentioned, which, owing to the weather, was adjourned to Buchtrig farmhouse. The picnic was given by Mr Simson, and included his sister, Mrs Johnston, Crailing Hall, and her three daughters, with two of whom James Geikie was already acquainted. The MS. may be allowed to take up the story at this point:—

And so the days passed away, and the young man went into a far country, yea unto the furthermost isles of the sea. But in the fullness of time he returned, and found the place which had been a desert now filled with the hum of voices and laughter of damsels. And he looked, and behold there were chariots and a wagon filled with good things. And he entered into the house where he had sojourned aforetime, and lo! a fair damsel met him and bade him welcome. And she said unto him, “Enter now, and embrace my sisters and my mother, yea and my mother’s brother’s wife and her daughter.” And it was so. And when the young man entered into an upper room, behold a maiden stood near the window.... And his eyes followed her whithersoever she went—and he spoke unto her presently as one speaketh unto an old friend. And the sound of her voice was like the music of the birds in spring, and the heart of the young man began to sing a new song. Listen and ye shall hear what the young man sang: Here ends the Manuscript.

This happened in August, and before Christmas James Geikie was engaged to Mary, youngest daughter of Mr Johnston, Crailing Hall, to whom he was married on 8th July 1875.

But in addition to what we may call the major associations with the Cheviot region due to these incidents, he had many minor ones of a pleasurable nature. He came into contact with all sorts of people in the course of his wanderings, and in that sparsely peopled district it was easy to make acquaintances. Among his temporary dwelling-places in the hills was the little inn, called Carter Bar, which then stood on the slopes of Carter Fell, and was but little more than a rest-house for drovers going over the border into England with their sheep. On one stormy day in spring James Geikie was returning to this poor shelter over the moor, when he encountered an old lady, somewhat oddly dressed, drenched with rain, and struggling against the wind. He went to her assistance, and she was glad to accept the offer of his arm to help her back to the inn. Here she borrowed dry garments from the hostess, and sat and talked over the fire with her new-found friend, who found her full of Border lore, while he no doubt contributed his full share to the conversation. Eventually, her own garments being dry, and she herself refreshed, the old lady drove off in a waiting carriage, urging James Geikie to come to see her. She proved to be Lady John Scott, a well-known Border personage, famous for her antiquarian tastes, her Scotch songs, and her great individuality of character.

Another similar meeting which led to a long friendship, though it took place several years later, may fitly find a place here. This was with Sir George Douglas, of Springwood Park, Kelso, the author of The New Border Tales, Poems, and a number of other works, many referring to the Border region. Sir George has kindly supplied the following notes upon the subject:—

I owed my acquaintance with the late Prof. Geikie to a chance meeting. Starting on a solitary walking-tour, in the summer vacation of the year 1878, I called at the Collingwood Arms, Cornhill, for tea, and found him there. He was not yet professor at that date, but was a member of H.M. Geological Survey, the work of which had brought him to Cornhill, where he was waiting for a train to Tweedmouth. He was then in the early prime of manhood, and his work being of a more active nature and taking him more into the open air, the cheery vigour which at all times characterised him was more pleasantly noticeable than ever. I remember that his beard, which he afterwards wore close-cropped, at that time descended over his chest and was of a golden colour. I believe that we began by talking of inns, for I remember that he poked some good-natured fun at the commercial travellers of those days (“bagmen,” as he perversely preferred to call them), and told me two or three amusing stories of experiences with them. But, ere long, we were talking of literature, and especially of poetry—the poetry of the day. Here was a delight for me! I was at the poetry-reading age, and had just left Cambridge, where I had primed myself with Swinburne, William Morris, the Rossettis—that is, with such of their works as had at that date appeared; and not only with these, but with such poems as the “Angel in the House,” “White Rose and Red,” “The Human Tragedy”: the works of lesser masters, then on their probation, and now, it may be, seldom heard of. Well, here in a wayside inn at the extremity of Northumberland, I had chanced upon an unknown traveller who had all these authors and books, so to speak, at his fingers’ ends. One would have liked, at that age, to pose him, to make some pedantical allusion, as to a matter of common knowledge, to something of which he had not happened to hear. But it was vain to hope to go beyond him. And, if we were fairly evenly matched in our discussion, it must be borne in mind that I was, as it were, staking my all in it, whilst he was merely gambling with his small change. For of course he never professed literature, but merely turned to it for a change of idea in hours that were not occupied by science. What was really remarkable in this conversation, I should say, was the readiness and whole-heartedness with which he threw himself into it, the stimulus given by his never-failing interest and occasional enthusiasm, the fine good-nature with which he unquestioningly put himself on equal terms with one who was many years younger than himself, and whose opinions, however confidently expressed, must often have been crude and immature. Neither then, nor at any subsequent time, was there anything whatever that was pedantic or academic about Geikie. When I met him next, I was approaching the middle term of life, but the recollection of that single conversation suffices to make quite clear to me the power which he wielded over his students and the popularity which he enjoyed among them. I doubt if the very best that was in him really made itself felt upon the lecture-platform. It was in the give-and-take of life—in his Saturday geological tramps and other more informal relations with his students, if I may hazard a guess—that the man really stood revealed. He could impart life and glow to his subject, as perhaps few can. But he did so best, if I may pretend to judge, when he was talking rather than lecturing.

I had evidence of this later. On parting after our two or three hours’ talk at Cornhill, we had exchanged cards, and when I heard that, in order to be near Mrs Geikie’s relations, he was renting Kalemouth on Teviot, four or five miles from my house, during one summer vacation, I hastened to renew acquaintance with him. Since our former meeting ten or twelve years had passed, and though it had remained delightfully memorable to me, I did not presume to suppose that he would remember it, nor was any allusion made to it. Being such near neighbours throughout that summer we met often, and it was then that I really got to know the character and qualities which had been merely suggested at Cornhill. From the geological point of view, Prof. Geikie knew the Borderland as no one else knew it; but he had also a remarkable knowledge, not only of its scenery, history, and tradition, but also of its people, collectively and individually; and this gave us a strong interest in common.

Some other moorland experiences were of a more humorous nature. Thus one Sunday night he was walking back from Crailing Hall to his lodgings at Morebattle, and came in the dusk past the hamlet of Cessford. He was carrying a small handbag, and as he passed the cottages a woman ran out and called out in a loud whisper:—“Man, man, can ye gie me half a pound o’ tea?” She had mistaken him for a pedlar, perhaps not unwilling to earn an ungodly penny. The situation appealed strongly to his sense of humour, and he rated the woman severely for tempting an honest man on the “Sawbath” day, and told her to go home and make porridge. For him the jest was doubtless seasoned by the fact that rigid “Sabbath-keeping” did not appeal to his tastes, and that he was an inveterate tea-drinker—making up for enforced abstinence while out on the hills by copious draughts at night. Thus to bring down, as it were, two birds with one stone—the rigid Sabbatarians, and those who trace the degeneracy of the Scottish people to the substitution of tea for the ancestral porridge—must have been a real joy to him. The occasion perhaps permits of the comment that though a Scotsman, he was a Scotsman with a difference, and had wandered too far, alike in mind and in body, to have any intense attachment to the pattern of the parish pump.

The spring of 1875, which saw him still working in the Cheviots, brought him his first great honour—the fellowship of the Royal Society of London. A note, undated, written from Morebattle to his future wife, immediately after he had received the news, is full of justifiable pride and joy:—“I suppose I am the youngest F.R.S. on the roll ... you will believe me, I know, when I say that I am pleased as much for your sake as my own, that my work is recognised. It is no small honour to be elected F.R.S. out of 57 candidates for the 15 vacancies.” The note encloses two letters, one from his old friend and honoured chief, Prof. Ramsay, saying:—“You came in triumphantly yesterday for the Royal Society, having the largest number of votes of any candidate,” and another from Mr H. W. Bristow, the Director of the Geological Survey of England and Wales, which shows clearly with what friendly feeling James Geikie was regarded by his English colleagues:—

28 Jermyn St., S.W.,
17th April 1875.

My dear James Geikie,—It gladdens my heart as one of your “Royal” sponsors, to congratulate you upon your election into the Society, which I hope you may live long to adorn. Etheridge[3] is also very full of rejoicing, and I only regret that the earliest announcement of the glad tidings did not reach you from one of us.—Believe me, your faithful confrère,

H. W. Bristow.

[3] Mr R. Etheridge, another member of the Survey staff.

As the Survey work in the Cheviot region was finished in the year that James Geikie married, his friend Prof. Ramsay so arranged matters that it was possible for him to take a house at Perth, which remained his headquarters for six years after his marriage, that is until he went to Edinburgh to take the Chair of Geology.

At Perth Mr and Mrs Geikie made many friends, and the former threw himself actively into the life of the place, taking especially a great interest in the Perthshire Society of Natural Science, of which he became president later. This brought him into contact with Sir Thomas Moncrieffe, also at one time president of the Society; Mr Andrew Coates, who took a very great interest in the establishment of the excellent Perth Museum; Dr Buchanan White, and others. James Geikie also gave courses of lectures to ladies on geology during his stay in Perth, and generally did not a little to stimulate an interest in natural science in the town.

The year 1876 was a very full one. In spring he paid a short visit to Norfolk and Suffolk to study some interesting glacial results which his colleague Mr Skertchly had obtained there. At the same time he was working at The Great Ice Age, which had done so well that a second edition was required. Under date 27th June he writes to Mr Horne:—“My new edition will be out, I expect, in October—the first of the season! It is in the printers’ hands now, and we are settling about the size of page and type. Printed the same size of type as last, the volume would be 900 pages, which shows that I have made some additions!”

At the beginning of July Prof. Ramsay wrote to ask him if he would be willing to go to Gibraltar to assist in an investigation of the water-supply there, the work to count as a piece of Survey duty. The invitation was promptly accepted, and on 11th September James Geikie left Perth on his long journey to the South. He stopped a couple of days in London, and did not finally reach Gibraltar till 19th September. Here he remained till 25th October, much longer than he had expected, and in addition to doing a large amount of geological work, in what both he and Prof. Ramsay found most oppressive heat, received much kindness and hospitality from the civil and military officials, and made many interesting excursions. It was apparently the first time he had seen subtropical vegetation, and his letters to his wife are filled with accounts of all he saw, written in a spirit of almost boyish glee, and accompanied by much groaning over the heat, and the resultant thirst. Even bathing afforded little refreshment, for he says ruefully:—“Even in the water one has much the feeling that a herring must have when it is newly put into a pot upon the fire. All the springs,” he adds, “yield half-warm water—everything indeed is baked, blistered, and boiled.”

The abundant hospitality, delightful though it was, naturally took up much time, the hosts perhaps not fully realising that the two geologists had a fairly heavy piece of work on hand, and James Geikie complains that it was difficult even to find time to write letters to his wife, in the midst of the ceaseless round of work and pleasure. An interesting fact, which he does not fail to record, is that at a Mess dinner at which he and Prof. Ramsay were the guests of honour, the military band played Scotch music in compliment to their nationality, and among the airs James Geikie recognised a selection arranged by his father for a Scotch regiment many years before.

Among the excursions was included one to the African coast, where the two made a short stay in Tangier: the diary, with characteristic orderliness, records the purchases made here for the people at home. But in addition to making these, the two found time to study the geology of the coast between Ceuta and Cape Spartel.

A letter to Mr Horne, written from Perth on 18th November, not long after his return home, makes some mention of the tour, and of the other events of a crowded summer.

I heard all about your Shetland work. It did my heart good, and right glad I am that it has been done by a Survey man.... You would hear about Skertchly’s find. I was down there again ten days ago at Ramsay’s request, to see the evidence again.... In my new edition, which is out (and selling well!), I go much more fully into the English Drifts. I got to-day a long letter from Darwin, along with a copy of his new edition of Geological Observations. His letter is very complimentary, and of course that is gratifying to me, for I look upon Darwin as a real genius.

I enjoyed my Gibraltar trip very much. Ramsay was very jolly and in excellent spirits all the time. We did have some fun, I can tell you. Also we crossed over to Africa and had a run amongst the Moors. The result of our Survey was so far satisfactory as it enables us to say very positively what is best to be done in the matter of the water-supply.

There are two letters from Darwin about this date. One has been already quoted ([p. 27]). In the other, which is taken up largely with a geological discussion, he says:—“Allow me to tell you with what extreme pleasure and admiration I have just finished reading your Great Ice Age. It seems to me admirably done and most clear. Interesting as many chapters are in the history of the world, I do not think that any one comes nearly to the glacial period or periods. Though I have steadily read much on the subject, your book makes the whole appear almost new to me.”

In this month of November also another sign of appreciation of his work reached James Geikie in the offer by the University of St Andrews of its LL.D. degree, which was conferred the following year. About the same time he was approached informally to know whether he would care to have a knighthood. This was at this date a much rarer honour than it became later, and the young couple decided that their income was not large enough to support it. Very many years later, after his retirement, James Geikie’s friends again urged his claims to the title, but the matter was dropped at the outbreak of the war, and death came not long after.

Other letters of the same autumn refer to the “Ice Age,” and to the report upon the Gibraltar work. In addition to the Memoir upon the question of the water-supply, a general article on the geology of the region was contributed to the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society. Rather curiously, even at Gibraltar Geikie found evidence of use to him in connection with his glacial work.

In the early spring of 1877 his eldest son was born, and the summer saw him wandering about the Hebrides, of which he sends so racy a description to his wife that large extracts from the letters may be given:—

Obbe, Harris, 7th July 1877.

This is written out on the hill-side—I will tell you why presently. Yesterday we walked from Tarbert, twenty-three miles, by a wild and lonely track-road, through a desolate and dreary region—nothing but bare rock, and a little heather and grass growing in rocks and crevices. It was all very interesting to me, however, as every square yard of rock was marked and scored and smoothed by the great ice-sheet that flowed out from the mainland. We took our time by the way, making notes and sketches. Every now and then we passed standing stones and ruins of Picts houses. At each bend in the track there were always two or three cairns of stones, which mark the spots where coffins have been rested. When the Harris folk bury anyone they have to carry the body often for many miles, as there is only one burial-place for the island. The poor people must rest by the way, therefore, for refreshment. Much whisky and kebbocks of cheese and scones go down, and then they raise a cairn to mark the spot. We met no one all the way for fourteen miles.... The road wound along the sea coast, across which we had lovely views to the islets that dot the horizon. You have no idea of the lovely shades of blue and green and saffron and orange and gold that streak and flush the sea—the water is so clear and crystalline, too, that one feels as if he should like to throw his knapsack down and take a header! There are few or no houses. We passed the ruins of several villages, but the poor people were driven out some forty years ago, and most of them emigrated to Canada. I believe they were very unwilling to clear out, and the soldiers had to be marched upon them. It is very sad to see their poor huts, all roofless, and grass and nettles growing over them. As we had much to look at on the road it was nearly ten o’clock before we came to Obbe, and we passed the inn—not knowing it. Losh keep us a’, what an inn! It was a mere hut—just like that used by the “natives.” There are only two rooms—a kitchen and a double-bedded room. The peat-reek circulates freely through the whole cottage, and the walls are mouldy and damp. We had a peat fire in our room, and did what we could to make ourselves jolly. But salt ham is not good to feed on after a long walk. However, we were satisfied, and after a while got to bed.

To-day we started to climb Roneval, the highest mountain in South Harris. It has been polished by ice all over, a splendid confirmation of what I had already described in my book. What a magnificent view I had from the top! Far away to the west was St Kilda and the little island of Berneray. Southwards stretched the various islands of the Outer Hebrides—North Uist, Benbecula, South Uist, and Barra. How plainly seen they all were—high mountains with broad plains at their feet, over which were dotted lakes innumerable. In the east, Skye with its wonderful Coolins lay spread out before us; and north of Skye I could see our old friend Ben Slioch, and the mountains of Loch Maree and Loch Torridon. Harris, of course, lay under our feet: and you can form no idea of its sterile desolation. Endless round-backed hills and rocks, scraped bare of any soil, and supporting hardly a vestige of vegetation; great rocky mountains, smoothed and polished all over and equally bare and desolate, with blue lakelets scattered in hundreds among the hollows and depressions of the land—such is the appearance of Harris. Then there lay the great blue sea shining like sapphire in the sun, and flecked with tiny sails where the fishermen are busy at their calling.—I began this letter outside to escape the peat-reek, but the midges have driven me in again!

Lochmaddy, North Uist,
Tuesday, 10th July 1877.

We got here yesterday, after a long and very tedious sail in an open boat. With a good wind we should have crossed the Sound of Harris in two hours—instead of which we were nine hours. We kept dodging about from islet to islet, sighing for a breeze, but no breeze would come—what little wind there was being in the wrong direction. We landed hungry as hawks, or any other animal of prey, and found a very comfortable inn. Of course we were offered the usual ham and eggs, but prevailed upon the landlady to give us fish instead. This place is like the sweepings of creation. It is made up of irregular bits of land, all jumbled about in a shallow sea—or of bits of sea running into the flat land in all directions—so that to get to a place one mile in direct distance you may have to walk five or six or even ten miles, if you can’t get a boat. It is a land of desolation and dreariness. Bare rocky hills form the eastern coast, and from the foot of these the low undulating rocky and peaty land stretches for some ten or twelve miles to the Atlantic. The land, as I have said, is everywhere intersected by the sea, and sprinkled with innumerable lakes and peaty tarns. Along the flat Atlantic coast there are dreary stretches of blown yellow sands that form hills like those of Barry, near Carnoustie. Near these are a few huts and a kirk and manse! Not a tree, not even a bush higher than heather is anywhere to be seen—peat and rock and water—water and rock and peat—that is North Uist.... I have been vastly pleased with what I have seen, and will have a lot to tell geologists that is new.

Cairnish, North Uist,
11th July 1877.

This place is still further out of the world than Lochmaddy. We walked to it to-day accompanied by one of the Inland Revenue officers, a very good intelligent fellow, who is quite an antiquarian and takes an intelligent interest in geology. He knew of me quite well and had read my “great work.” The road lay for twelve miles through bogs, morasses, rocks, and lakes, and passed over as dreary a stretch of country as I ever set eyes on. The sky was cold grey, and the wind too was none of the kindest. Here we found a wretched inn, where we were waited on by a great hulking Heeland lassie with a back as broad as a barn door, and bare feet which haven’t been in a tub since the day she saw the light of this weary world. She is shy, the dear creature, and has not one word of English. When I ring for her with the bell that lies on the table, she looks into the room with a grin on her face. I want salt, so I take up a bit of the Australian meat and dab it on the side of the plate. She twigs at once what I want, makes a guttural sound, and in half-an-hour or so returns with a soap-dish full of dirty salt. However, she gives us good scones and not bad tea, and strong peat-reekie whisky. The landlord has been a soldier, I think, for he speaks of Hyderabad. Fancy a man coming from the sunny plains of India to this fearful howling wilderness. It would make a fine penal settlement. You see poor, ragged, dirty women bending under their creels of peat, and men digging the mosses as for dear life. It is hard living for them, poor devils. There is no shelter in the land, even the heather is low and stunted, and the wind howls in from the Atlantic with a long melancholy sough that is depressing in the extreme. No sportsman ever comes here, for there is nothing to shoot. It is said that there are fine trout in the lakes. It may be so; but the man who could fish such peaty holes and feel happy in the occupation, could only be an escaped convict or downright lunatic. The inn at Lochmaddy was snug, if the country was miserable. Here everything is in keeping.... Most of the houses are mere stone-and-mud huts with mud floors and heather roofs. Cattle enter them freely and mingle with the family. I was amused with an old man who came up to us and asked our friend the Inland Revenue man what we were doing. He took us for drovers come to buy cattle. When he heard that we had come to look at rocks and stones he said—“We were great fools, and must be very idle, and light in the head.” And indeed when I looked round the miserable dreary wilderness I was half inclined to agree with him. Who but a geologist would ever think of visiting such a land. Well, it won’t be my fault if I ever revisit the place.

Loch Boisdale, 15th July 1877.

Some days have passed since I last had an opportunity of writing to you. We have had much walking and no time to write since we left Cairnish in South Uist. We started from Cairnish about twelve o’clock on the 11th in a broken-down gig with a one-eyed horse, which was led or rather pulled along by a native named Angus Macdougall.... North Uist and Benbecula are separated by an arm of the sea which is some five miles in breadth, but is so shallow that at low water it can be forded. What a peculiar scene it was! A long stretch of mud-flats and sand-banks broken here and there with reefs of tangle-covered rocks and low green islets on which a few black cattle were grazing. Men and women were busy cutting the tangle for kelp-burning, the smoke of the fires rising here and there from various points of the dry land on the Benbecula coast. Heavy drizzle wetted me through and through, and it was most cheerless. At the opposite side of the ford we reached a little inn, as dirty and clarty as all the inns are. We now got out of the trap to walk, as we wished to save the poor horse as much as possible, for the weary tramp before us. At the pace we went we calculated we should reach Loch Boisdale about two or three in the morning. Benbecula is about eight or nine miles in length, and is perhaps the dreariest bit of land I ever traversed. It is nothing but a big peat-moss, with a lot of lakes or boggy holes running through it in all directions. Indeed there is about as much water as land. Cultivation is a mere parody, everything bespeaks poverty. The people are as usual haggard and ill-clad, and dirty in the extreme. Things looked a little better as we got near the shore at Creagorry. Here our friend Mr Carmichael met us and took us into his house.... It was pleasant to get into a real house again and to sleep in a clean comfortable bed. Next morning we were up at three o’clock in order to catch the early ford between Benbecula and South Uist.... The ford between Benbecula and South Uist is not nearly so broad as the North Ford, but it is deeper. We got across about half-past four, and then I got out to walk so that I might make observations as I went along. It rained heavily for the first six miles and then cleared off, so that I had time to dry again. The road goes through much the same kind of scenery as Benbecula, but there are fine mountains immediately to the left, and these we gradually neared, and skirted the base of them for many miles. I saw so much glacial geology that I did not feel in the least degree fatigued.... As we took our time by the way, stopping to look at this, that, and t’other thing, it was nearly eight o’clock when we reached a place called Askernish about six miles or so from Loch Boisdale.... At five we set off again, and loitering by the way to chat and smoke and do geology, we did not get into Loch Boisdale until nine o’clock at night, having been out since four o’clock in the morning. So off to bed somewhat fagged. Next morning we were astir by six o’clock and set off in a boat for a sixteen-miles sail up the east coast to Loch Eynort, intending to land there and climb Ben More, the highest hill in South Uist. It was wet and cold, but we determined to go on. The cliffs are wild and dreary, and fearful places to be wrecked upon, for deep water runs up to the very rocks. We landed at a place where Prince Charlie lay in hiding while the King’s cruisers sailed past. It was a picturesque spot. Wild bare mountains cleft by mountain-torrents surrounded the small glen, down which leapt a noisy stream, on the bank of which were one or two thatched cots. The shepherd came out and asked us to drink milk. It was a picturesque interior that we were introduced to. There was the peat fire in the centre, dogs, cocks and hens, cats, and a small pig crowded round the fire, and the wife and lassies were bustling about. The spinning-jenny stood in a corner. None of the women looked well. They were all white and haggard. Carmichael told me afterwards that they wanted me to prescribe for them, as they had imagined I was a medical man! Poor things! I could not help thinking they were consumptive. Yet they all seemed happy enough, and certainly though I have seen much poverty all through these islands, yet I have not noticed any of that squalid misery which is so common in our large towns. The people are poor, but they always have something to eat. Their wardrobe can’t cost much, for they make everything themselves, and what they make seems to last half a lifetime. But to return to the shepherd’s house, we got our milk and after sitting for a while rose to go. They are very polite these Highlanders, much more so than most country folks in the mainland of Scotland. I was only sorry I could not speak Gaelic, for few of them had more than one or two words of English. The shepherd told us it had been a bad year for the sheep, but not so bad, he thought, as it seems to have been on the mainland. We bade good-bye and sailed into Loch Eynort at a wild part of the coast, where we landed and dismissed the boatmen and boat. But mists hung heavy on all the hills, and after much climbing we were compelled much against our will to give up all hope of getting to the top of Ben More. However, we managed to see a good deal, and then struck right across the mountain tract to the flat ground of the east coast, along which we had walked the day before. Just before we got down to the road, the mists cleared away, and the mountain-peak shone brilliantly forth; but it was now too late to think of climbing Ben More. We had been tramping over rock and bog and hill and dale for six hours, and we had still some twelve miles to walk before reaching Loch Boisdale, and were reluctantly obliged to abandon Ben More. But I was able nevertheless to make out all the main geological points that were important—so that, after all, we did not lose much.... I shall be right glad when my face is homeward turned. It is so wet and dismal it makes one dull whether he will or no. But I have very much enjoyed my visit, and have gathered material for a great geological paper, which will bring me much credit, I know.

The rest of the year 1877 was occupied with the writing of the Hebrides paper, published in the following year, and in various geological controversies, especially in regard to the superficial deposits of Norfolk and Suffolk. These years at Perth were thus a period of severe and productive work, for after long days in the field he would sit and write far into the night. He kept himself also carefully abreast of all recent work in his own subject, and with the help of grammars and dictionaries, read in the original the papers of all his foreign confrères, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, etc. The Norwegian geologist, Dr Amund Helland, afterwards professor at Christiania, it may be noted, paid a visit to the house at Perth in 1877, and James Geikie and he became great friends. A couple of years later they paid a visit together, an enjoyable and profitable one, to the Färoe Islands.

CHAPTER VI
Last Years on the Survey
1878–1882

The spring of 1878 saw James Geikie engaged in active correspondence with Prof. Ramsay in regard to their joint paper on the Gibraltar work, and also occupied, in his own words, in fighting with wild beasts at Ephesus and elsewhere, that is to say, in sundry controversies over glacial matters.

His happiness at home was clouded by the severe illness of his little son. In his letters he speaks of being knocked up with night-nursing, for he walked up and down the greater part of the night with the child in his arms during the most anxious period. Happily the baby made a good recovery, and in a letter to Mr Horne towards the end of the year he says:—“‘The boy’ is hale and flourishing, and a great amusement in the evenings when I come home. I prefer his company even to that of a pipe! Excuse the ‘eavy fawther.’” He was very fond of children at all times, and his own were a source of great joy to him.

In summer he went back to the Cheviot region for a couple of months to finish off his work there, and revisited Buchtrig. It was during this visit that he met Sir George Douglas (cf. [p. 67]). In August he went abroad with his wife and her sister, the baby, now quite recovered, being left with his grandmother. The tour was via the Rhine to Switzerland, and then across the St Gothard by carriage into Italy. Some interesting letters to the home people record the experiences met with, but as the ground covered is very well known they need not be quoted here. During the course of the tour some geological observations were made bearing on points treated in Prehistoric Europe, which was being written during this year.

Signs of overwork and some worry were, however, observable as the year went on. In an undated letter to Mr Horne he complains of not feeling good for much:—“I was busy at a new book, but being in the blues now for some time, the MS. lies aside, and I sometimes wonder whether I shall ever finish it. I thought my trip abroad would have cleared up my faculties, but no such luck!”

Among his causes for anxiety were his own future and that of the Survey. Prof. Ramsay’s health was breaking down, a fact which grieved James Geikie very much, and the possibility that difficult days for the Survey and its members were coming loomed ahead. In an unwonted fit of melancholy he says in the same letter:—“It makes one sad to think that the ‘brave days of old’ are all passing or past away. One gets sick of the strife and din and wishes for peace and rest, which, however, will only come when one shuts his eyes for the last time.” He found also that his distance from a good library was a great drawback in his work. The letter, with all its sadness, speaks of the pleasure which he found in the company of the “small chick,” who seems to have had a potent charm wherewith to dispel his father’s clouds of gloom.

Among the letters of the spring of 1879 are several to Mr Lamplugh, now of the Geological Survey. In regard to these Mr Lamplugh says:—“I do not know that they contain anything that is now of sufficient consequence to warrant their reproduction. But they illustrate very well the kindly attention and trouble that the late Prof. Geikie was always ready to give to a beginner in science. I was under twenty years of age when the first of these letters came to me, and I have kept them as treasures from those days.”

The letters in their friendliness and unaffectedness bear out this description, and some other letters of the same period show that while the writer was never deaf to the appeal of a common interest in the progress of knowledge, when to this was added the stronger appeal of friendship, he gave himself whole-heartedly. His friends Messrs Peach and Horne had written a paper on “The Glaciation of the Shetland Islands” for the Geological Society of London, and in this James Geikie took the keenest interest, giving advice freely both on the method of presenting the contents, and on the technical points connected with the effort to obtain for the paper a fair hearing and speedy publication. A hitch in the matter of publication brings from him a letter full of genuine and practical sympathy, combined with a whole-hearted espousal of his friends’ cause.

During this spring also he was still engaged, with varying fortunes, upon his Prehistoric Europe, a task of great magnitude on account of the enormous number of references and the labour which these involved. Thus a letter written early in March represents, as it were, the trough of the wave—he tires of the book at intervals, thinking it will never do, and throws it aside in a “kind o’ scunner.” Another letter at the end of May shows him on the crest of a new wave of enthusiasm. He had just received many new pamphlets from “furrin’ parts,” mostly inspired by his own glacial work, often accompanied by letters from the authors. Thus he says:—

Dr A. Penck of Leipzig writes to the effect that it was the reading of Great Ice Age that first opened his eyes to the meaning of the Diluvium of Northern Germany. He says he has got evidence of three glaciations with intervening glacial deposits! He says he has all the burning enthusiasm of a convert! His letter has greatly gratified me, of course. I see he is an old hand and has done a lot of geological work. Then I have a long letter from a Dr R. Lehmann of Halle, who is also congratulatory at the success with which the German Drifts have recently been explained on the principles laid down in my book!! Also, some duffers have sent me their photographs! I wonder what has so suddenly wakened them up. Helland has a long and interesting paper on the German Drift which I suppose you will see: also a batch of papers on same subject from Prof. Berendt of Berlin. I don’t know how I am to get through all the Swedish and Norwegian papers I have received. They are so hard to read.

A postscript to this letter says:—“Pray excuse the exulting egotism of this epistle. I would not write so to anyone else.”

But while glacial work was thus occupying most of his attention, lighter subjects were not altogether forgotten. In another letter to Mr Horne, written on Good Friday, he says:—

In a few days I am going to ask you to do me a favour, which is to run your eye over some MS. I shall send you. You need not read it all through—that would be too much of a good thing—but just dip into it here and there, and see what it is like. You will laugh when I tell you that the MS. is poetry, translations from the German. These have been lying beside me for some ten or twelve years. I was urged by several friends of good judgment to publish them long ago. But I would not be induced to do so, so I laid them aside until I had quite forgotten them and could read them and criticise them as if they had been the lucubrations of another man. They bore this better than I expected, and I gathered together all I could find and have had them copied out and stitched into a volume.

It is perhaps needless to say that this MS. was the translation of Heine’s poems, of which mention has already been made here repeatedly. The intention to publish at this time was abandoned, partly because of the possible effect on the “new book,” i.e., Prehistoric Europe.

During this spring James Geikie was also corresponding with Dr Helland on glacial topics, and had arranged to accompany him to the Färoe Islands, to study the glacial phenomena there. A start was made at the end of May, and the two spent a delightful time together, Prof. Helland’s knowledge of the language being a great help. James Geikie’s paper on his observations was published a year or two later, and his note-books contain long descriptions of his experiences, with many sketches and diagrams. A more informal account is given in a letter to Mrs Johnston of Crailing Hall:—

I enjoyed my trip very much though I had to rough it more than most people would care to do. But what I saw was quite enough to make me forget all discomforts. Perhaps the most striking features of the Färoe Islands are their sea-cliffs. These range in height from 300 feet to 2000 feet. I sailed in a little boat round a large part of the coast-line and was very much impressed. The cliffs rise sheer up out of deep water, seeming in some places almost to overhang. Fancy the sun shining brightly on a great wall of brown rock 2000 feet high—a wall which shows an infinite number of little shelves and ledges, and all these ledges thickly set with sea-birds in myriads, while the air is filled with them, wheeling and screaming above you, and the water is alive with them swimming, diving, floating, and capering! The great Atlantic rollers come smoothly up to the base of the cliffs and sweep into the caves, only to rush out again with a hoarse roar, and a wild splash of spray and broken water.

Not very long after his return from the Färoes, at the end of July, his second son was born.

Several letters from Prof. Ramsay, on the Färoes work and other subjects, in the course of the summer show the friendly terms upon which the two were. Thus in announcing that he (Ramsay) had been chosen President of the British Association for the Swansea meeting in 1880, he adds:—“And unless you write the Presidential Address for me, I will take steps to have you dismissed from the Survey!” Unfortunately for James Geikie, the time during which Ramsay had anything to say upon Survey matters was fast drawing to a close. A few days later Ramsay writes in jubilant spirits because their joint work at Gibraltar had proved correct, although certain borings had seemed at first to cast doubt upon some of their conclusions. Prof. Ramsay’s feelings in the matter are expressed as follows:—“Ho ho ho! Ha ha ha! also he he he!” In the same letter Ramsay speaks of Prof. Penck’s results, saying:—“It is a grand coup for you.”

Among James Geikie’s other correspondents this summer were Prof. Stevenson of New York, a very warm friend of later years after the two had met in the flesh, and Mr T. F. Jamieson, who like Ramsay was greatly interested in the Färoes work. Towards the end of the year he writes to Mr Horne:—

I have recently got heaps of new facts from Germany, France, and Austria, not to mention Italy, which will greatly aid me in working off my present book. That same book drags its slow length along, but I hope to finish it in time for publication next year.

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.

Second, and this is a point which is much less familiar to the general public than in a democratic country it ought to be, his books were not of the kind which bring direct monetary reward to their author. His family was increasing, for his third son was born in this year of 1881; he himself was past forty, and the probability that he could continue to go on working for many years more at the rate at which he had been toiling during the last twenty was necessarily diminishing. Now it is universally admitted, as a general proposition, that when a man without private means has done and is doing important and highly specialised work for his country and for the world, work which does not bring direct pecuniary gain, then it is the duty of those in high places to see that he be established in such a position as to free him from financial anxiety for the future, to enable him to face his responsibilities with a calm mind, to obviate the necessity for his wasting his strength and intellect in hack-work in order to supplement his income. But, while this is admitted as a general proposition, there is always the possibility that petty personal interests will intervene in a particular case. James Geikie left the Survey partly under the pressure of such interests, which seemed to threaten his prospects of immediate promotion, and partly under that of friends who thought that the professorship offered more scope for him. Whether he was right or wrong it is difficult to say, but there is evidence that at least at first he regretted his decision. He might have quitted the Survey of his own free will, and would certainly have done this with a pang, but the thought that his decision to leave was not wholly voluntary, made the pang excessively bitter.

Many of the letters of this year of anxiety are too intimate to be quoted. We shall only insert sentences and phrases to make the narrative plain.

One of the first indications of coming events was an attack upon Prehistoric Europe in the early part of 1881, an attack which it seems quite clear was not motived wholly by an honest desire to promote the cause of science. It was this element which made the matter so hard to bear.

The affair has affected me more than I can tell.... You will laugh, but it is true all the same, that I can hardly eat or sleep. For the attack itself I don’t mind, I know that my book is a bit of honest true work, and will outlive the attempts ... to stifle it.... I wish the snow would go and let me out to have a walk. Sometimes I wish that I had kept clear of writing books altogether.... I remember wondering once when Green told me that when he was vexed with anything a romp with his bairns made him quite hearty. It seemed to me overstrained. I don’t think so now that I have bairns of my own. Their quaint and funny ways quite carry you out of yourself.... Dearly as I love life, I can already foresee that the time will come when I shall be glad to lie down and sleep the sleep that knows no waking.... Verily I do believe a good wife and loving mother is the only treasure of treasures that is worth striving for in this world!... How much you and I have to be thankful for!

These are a few extracts written to his friend Mr Horne at the moment when the history of the incident was just becoming plain, and at a time also when Mr Horne’s first child had just been born; they throw perhaps more light upon it and upon the character of James Geikie than any ordered narrative could do.

Later letters of the same spring emphasise the effect which the incident had upon him. “The whole thing,” he writes in one letter, “has worried me more than I can tell;” but a journey south, where, inter alia, he lectured at Hull, and led a big geological excursion, helped to change the current of his thoughts, while his reception at Hull gratified him greatly. Fresh letters from continental geologists also, not only praising his book but discussing the bearing of his results upon their observations in various parts of Europe, must have helped to assure him that it was worth while to do honest work, despite detractors. Further, the family moved from Perth to Birnam, where they took a charming cottage at the foot of Birnam Hill, covered with roses, and with a large untidy garden. The early summer was brilliantly fine, and the fresh air and open life of the country must have made it easier to take a more philosophical view of the affair, unpleasant as it was.

The letters of early summer show at least a perceptible recovery of balance and cheerfulness. His third son was born in June, and in answer to congratulations he says:—“A third boy was a great disappointment—a girl would have ‘completed’ all the family any reasonable man could desire!”

The arrival of the baby prevented him from accompanying Dr Helland on a projected trip to Iceland in early summer, but, rather curiously, an opportunity to visit the island occurred a little later in the same year, for he went to report on some sulphur mines.

On 17th September he writes to Mr Horne:—“I have just returned from Iceland, where I have had some very hard but very interesting work. What a country! Fancy me riding eleven hours over lava-beds, mountains, etc., devil a road or even path! However, all was fresh and new.”

By this time the question of changes in the Survey was becoming acute, and James Geikie was beginning to debate with himself as to whether he ought to try for the Chair in Geology at Edinburgh for his children’s sake. The indecision he found very unsettling. “I can settle to nothing—reading and writing are alike out of the question.” More than a month later he writes:—“I am pulled two ways—my own desire and wish is to remain in the Survey.” “My repugnance to that Chair,” he says a few days later, “increases as the days go past.”

Perhaps nothing, however, shows better his fundamental repugnance to all the weighing of questions of worldly advantage, to the scheming and plotting and wire-pulling which go to the making of appointments, than a letter written to Mr Horne in the thick of the conflict. This begins with an account of information which had reached him in regard to the position of affairs as to the Edinburgh Chair, and glides off insensibly into an account of letters just received from Prof. Penck and Prof. Gandry, the one a German and the other a French geologist. Both letters contained much of great interest to him, and the letter becomes a full discussion of the points raised, the question of his own future meantime sinking entirely out of mind.

Obviously he wanted to be let alone and allowed to do his work in peace, to have reasonable security for his children. In one letter he laments his own lack of worldly wisdom, and his willingness to take advice from his various friends; and the rather pathetic balancing of the advantages of one apparently possible position against another, merely meant that his mind was set on other things altogether, and that in consequence he allowed himself to be swayed by the different influences brought to bear upon him. His own candour and frankness made him singularly willing to accept advice offered under the guise of friendship, without stopping to investigate the question whether his advisers were or were not wholly disinterested. But his unwillingness to be separated from his old colleagues remains the dominant note, even when he yielded to what seemed sound arguments brought to bear upon him. His instant response to kindliness is shown by the following quotation:—“Isn’t old Ramsay a trump. He wrote me a short, but such an affectionate letter that I declare I could not read it without wet eyes.”

His final decision to apply for the Chair was due to the receipt of a private letter which informed him that the Home Office was prepared to appoint him immediately on his sending in an application, on the ground that he was the man obviously best fitted for the post. It was also indicated to him informally that the reputation which he had obtained owing to his books was such that any other testimonial was unnecessary. Inquiries had been made which had satisfied the Home Office that no other possible candidate had such high qualifications for the post. In announcing to his friend Mr Horne the receipt of this flattering though unofficial letter, James Geikie cannot forbear adding:—“I shall quit the Survey dead against my desires. But yet I feel I am doing best for myself and for my children.”

Both his natural modesty, and perhaps the painful memory of his controversy in the spring, made him uneasy about the fact that the appointment was made without, as he says, any chance being given to other possible candidates. Thus he forwarded the unasked-for testimonials, the writers including all the leading men of the day in his own branch of science. But amidst all the bustle of arranging about the testimonials, and about the leaving of his work and the finding of a house in Edinburgh, the note of regret recurs constantly. “I can’t realise that I am leaving the Survey. How vexed I am—no one can tell.”

Not all his own regrets, however, could quench his enthusiasm for the service he was giving up. Thus he took up cudgels with the utmost vigour for his friends on the Survey, whose interests he thought likely to be affected by certain proposed changes. These changes he thought regrettable not only on this account, but also because they seemed to him contrary to the interests of the whole Survey.

His new work at Edinburgh was not to begin till the autumn of 1882, and though the house in Edinburgh was taken in spring, the family stayed on in the country all summer, partly to let the new-made professor finish off his Survey work, and partly that all might enjoy the country air. But the respite did not ease the pain of the prospective parting:—“It makes me sad at heart when I think that the old Survey days are for me so soon to end. So life wags—some day soon I shall be ending work for good and all, and then for a long rest, and no heartaches and no headaches. My heart gets heavy whiles at the thought of leaving the green fields over which I have wandered so long and happily. After forty years of life it is almost too late to change. But what I have done I hope will turn out for the best. Anyhow, I hope you fellows will not forget the old comradeship, but come often and see me. I can’t yet realise that I am leaving work in the field, and going into town to become fat, greasy, and respectable.” And so the summer months slipped away, and autumn brought Edinburgh and the new sphere.

CHAPTER VII
Edinburgh and the Professorship
1882–1888

Official work in Edinburgh began with the delivery by the new professor of his inaugural address on 27th October 1882, the subject being “The Aims and Methods of Geological Inquiry.”

In early days the class was small, and as the income derived from Sir Roderick Murchison’s endowment was supplemented by the students’ fees, then paid direct to the professor, their number was an important matter. Further, at the time of the appointment, as for many years later, geology was not compulsory for any degree, and was not even an optional degree for the ordinary course in Arts. This meant that the professor had not a status in the University comparable to that of those of the Arts professors whose courses were compulsory, or of the members of the Medical Faculty. On the other hand, it meant that the students who took the class did so from a genuine interest in the subject. The fact that Prof. Geikie soon acquired much weight in the Senate was due entirely to his strong personality, unassisted, at least at first, by any advantages of position.

The letters of this first winter session are filled, as might be expected, with the business of settling down in Edinburgh, the buying of furniture and carpets, the “grind” of getting up the lectures, and recurring regrets at parting with old friends. A letter to Mr Horne, written at the beginning of January 1883, illustrates very clearly the dawning of genuine interest in the new work, still mingled with longings for the old. The following passages may be quoted:—

I was at the office the other day.... But how the days flash by. And how the dear old days are gone when you and I and the others used to chaff and make a noise o’ winter in that office. It makes me melancholy sometimes when I think of it all. I am Professor in Edinburgh University, but my heart is in the Survey with my old Survey chums. Here are tall hats, black coats, pompous windbags—and in a word, starch and humbug. My boy, I have been caught too old. Had I come here earlier I might have become “respectable” too—but it is too late! However, I get on well with my students who, being young, understand fun and such improvised nonsense as I endeavour to cheer them with. I fancy some of my colleagues would have their hair elevated if they heard me. I like the work much better than I expected, but eh man! I miss the freedom of the country.

The office alluded to above was, of course, the Survey Office, and Prof. Geikie’s colleagues record that at first he found it difficult to keep away from it. He generally dropped in on his way to or from the University to see how things were getting on, and never missed an opportunity of meeting his old friends. When he began to have students’ parties some of the Survey men were generally asked also, so that the students might have an opportunity of coming into direct contact with the men who were making geology in Scotland.

Many allusions in the early letters show that the new professor found the task of arranging his class work irksome. In certain branches of geology he had himself taken little interest, having specialised early, and as at first he had no assistant, all the work fell on his own shoulders. For microscopic work and some aspects of mineralogy he had always expressed contempt, as being only suitable for the men who could not or did not work in the field; and these despised subjects he now felt himself constrained to “get up” for class purposes, and this necessity drew from him many groans. One must admit that there was a certain tragedy in this taking of a man of forty-four off his own highly specialised work to grind up a subject of practically no use to him in that work; but such tragedies are frequent when original thinkers are placed in professorial chairs which demand much elementary teaching. Preparing for his microscopic class, he complains, means sitting up half the night, and is “fiddling work,” requiring little in the way of brains.

A letter to Prof. Stevenson of New York, dated 26th January 1883, is not without interest in the same connection, in showing the effect of this drudgery on his own work. In acknowledging one of the former’s publications, he says:—“I am sorry I have no papers to send you. My preparations for a new start as professor in our University here have absorbed nearly all my leisure time, so that several papers I had chalked out have been laid aside for the present.” A letter to Mr Horne, written a few weeks later, while the author was invigilating a class examination, shows where his thoughts turned as soon as the strain was lifted for a moment. It records the receipt of a letter from Prof. Nathorst of Stockholm, who had been doing work in Spitsbergen, and had come independently to the same conclusion in regard to certain points as James Geikie. The latter adds:—“He says he is delighted that his conclusions, arrived at independently, should corroborate and support mine. Very nice.”

The same letter to Mr Horne contains an allusion to an odd form of compliment which had just reached the writer. A lady in Nova Scotia, apparently a total stranger, had written to ask if the author of The Great Ice Age would stand godfather to her baby. The cream of the jest was, however, that the said baby was not expected to enter this vale of tears till some three or four months after the date of the letter. History, unfortunately, does not record whether or not the infant put in an appearance, nor whether it had to be baptised as James or Jamesina, but the professor gave his consent without, as he says, any ungentlemanly reference to common proverbs.

At the close of this, his first winter session, the new professor took a party of students on a long geological excursion to the Border district, his old hunting-ground. During the course of the excursion, which lasted several days, the party visited Buchtrig, whether wholly from geological or partly from sentimental reasons does not appear. Some fine tramps were taken over the hills, and the fact that the leader had himself worked out the geology of the district must have added much zest to the excursion.

In May the first summer class in geology was held, this being one of Prof. James Geikie’s innovations. It was well attended, twenty-six students taking part, and consisted of both indoor work and excursions. After this year this summer course became a part of the regular routine, and while it was a great improvement from the point of view of teaching, it naturally still further diminished the professor’s spare time, and placed him at a disadvantage, so far as independent work was concerned, with his colleagues of the Arts Faculty who then had only a short winter session.

The summer holiday was spent at Largo in Fife, and the summer was clouded by the death of Prof. Geikie’s father, who passed away at the age of seventy-three, having seen both his geologist sons established in positions of importance.

The work of the following session, 1883–1884, proved easier than the first, “but just yet the Chair is not a ‘bed of roses.’ It takes up more time than I had reckoned for.”

[From an etching by Mr William Hole, A.R.S.A.

A Study of Prof. Geikie in 1884.

Spring brought two distractions, the Tercentenary celebrations of Edinburgh University, and preparations for a visit to Canada and the United States in connection with the British Association meeting at Montreal. Of the former Prof. Geikie soon wearied, and voiced his weariness, and perhaps some remains of resentment in regard to those winter nights spent—fruitlessly from his point of view—in “getting-up” uncongenial subjects, in a series of verses. These at the time were shown only to privileged friends, but may be quoted here now for the sake of those who can see a joke, even if it is partly at their own expense. They make it clear that the author was not yet wholly reconciled to academic life.

TO MY ALMA MATER ON THE COMPLETION OF HER 300TH YEAR

1.

Hail stately pile! hail treasure-house of lore!

Dear nurse of many a wit and many a bore!

What mingled thoughts have we in this late time,

Reviewing all the glories of thy prime!

2.

Three hundred years ago thou hadst thy birth,

And now thy name is known o’er all the earth:

In making ropes of sand once great thy skill—

Thy fame is now the scalpel and the pill.

3.

O Alma Mater, ’neath thy learned shade,

How many a plot against mankind is laid!