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LIBRARY

OF THE

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.

Class

MEMOIR

OF

SIR A. C. RAMSAY

WaJker <3cBoutall.Fh,Sc

Memoir

OF

Sir Andrew Cjrombie rvamsay

BY

SIR ARCHIBALD GEIKIE, F.R.S,

DIRECTOR -GENERAL OF THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF
GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND

WITH PORTRAITS

Honfcon

MACMILLAN AND CO.

AND NEW YORK
1895

A il rights reserved

PREFACE

THE life of a professional man of science seldom offers
such variety of incident and interest as to justify more
than a brief record. In most cases a summary of his
work and an estimate of its value in the onward march
of knowledge form for such a man the most fitting
memorial. Now and then, however, a leader has ap-
peared, who, by the fascination of his personality, or
by the extent and importance of his individual achieve-
ments, has exercised so marked an influence on his
contemporary fellow-workers, or on the general ad-
vancement of science, that the desire naturally arises
to know something more of him and of his surround-
ings, than the mere list of his labours. One would
fain learn how he came to be drawn into the ranks of
the soldiers of science, and by what process of training
or what stages of evolution he rose to be a captain in
those ranks. The story of his discoveries may some-
times have had a vivid personal interest, and those
who can best appreciate the value of these discoveries
would gladly know how they were made.

The subject of the present memoir stood in the

226536

vi PREFACE

forefront of the Geology of his time, and by the charm
of his genial nature, as well as by the enthusiasm of
his devotion to science, exercised a wide influence
among his contemporaries.

To that large circle of friends who knew him in his
prime, and to that yet wider public which recognises
how much it has profited by his labours, some brief
record of the life of Andrew Crombie Ramsay will
be welcome. He was almost my earliest geological
friend, and for many years we were bound together by
the closest ties of scientific work and of unbroken
friendship. It has been, therefore, a true labour of
love to put together this little memorial of him. As
far as the materials at my disposal would permit, I
have allowed his personal experiences to be told in his
own words. I have tried to trace the gradual progress
of his development as a geologist, and to offer a short
summary of what seem to me to have been the
essential features of his contributions to his favourite
science. And I have sought, though I fear with but
imperfect success, to show something of that bright,
sunny spirit which endeared him to all who came
within its influence.

Sir Andrew Ramsay joined the Geological Survey
when it was still in its infancy, and he remained on its
staff during the whole of his active scientific career — a
period of forty years. So entirely did he identify
himself with the aims and work of the Survey, and so

PREFACE vii

largely was he instrumental in their development, that
the chronicle of his life is in great measure the record
also of the progress of that branch of the public
service. Recognising this intimate relation, I have
woven into my narrative such additional detail as
might perhaps serve to make the volume not only a
personal biography, but an outline of the history of the
Geological Survey of the United Kingdom.

Among those who have kindly supplied me with
letters or information I would especially express
my indebtedness to Lady Ramsay and Sir Andrew
Ramsay's nephew, Professor William Ramsay, F.R.S.,
who have furnished many family and personal details ;
and to Mrs. Johnes and Lady Hills-Johnes of Dolau-
cothy, who have lent a large collection of letters. Old
colleagues on the Geological Survey have likewise
been helpful, especially Lord Playfair, Mr. W. T. Ave-
line, Mr. A. R. C. Selwyn, Professor T. M 'Kenny
Hughes, Professor A. H. Green, Mr. H. H. Howell,
Mr. W. Whitaker, Mr. F. W. Rudler, Mr. A. Strahan,
and the late Mr. W. Topley. Mr. M. J. Salter has
lent a number of letters addressed to his father. To
some of Sir Andrew's foreign correspondents I am
likewise under obligation, particularly to Professor
Zirkel, Professor Daubree, Professor Rlitimeyer, Pro-
fessor Capellini, and the family of Signor Sella.

It has seemed to me that additional interest would
be given to the biography by the insertion not only of

viii PREFACE

a likeness of its subject, but of portraits of some of
his more notable comrades. I have accordingly added
likenesses of a dozen of his geological associates
whose names and work are well known. These have
been taken as far as possible from early photographs,
so as to picture the men as they looked when they
were actively engaged with Ramsay in geological
work. But in some cases when no early likeness
was available, or where the photographs had become
too faded for reproduction, later portraits have been
chosen.

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OFFICE, JERMYN STREET,
LONDON, 12th September 1894.

CONTENTS

PAGE

LIST OF PORTRAITS . xi

CHAPTER I

PARENTAGE AND YOUTH . . , . . i

CHAPTER II
THE ORDNANCE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY . . . . 34

CHAPTER III
THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY UNDER THE OFFICE OF WORKS . 65

CHAPTER IV

THE PROFESSORSHIP OF GEOLOGY AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE,

LONDON . . . . .98

CHAPTER V

THE SURVEY OF THE SNOWDON REGION . .' . 132

CHAPTER VI

THE SCHOOL OF MINES AND MUSEUM, JERMYN STREET . 182

CONTENTS

CHAPTER VII

PAGE

THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY IN SCOTLAND . . . 209

CHAPTER VIII

FOREIGN TRAVEL . . . . • . .251

CHAPTER IX

THE PRESIDENCY OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY — REORGAN-
ISATION OF THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY . ... , . 276

CHAPTER X

DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY . . 314

CHAPTER XI

RETIREMENT — SUMMARY OF CAREER . . 351

APPENDIX ; LIST OF WORKS BY A. C. RAMSAY . . 367

INDEX . . . . 381

LIST OF PORTRAITS

ANDREW C. RAMSAY, from a Photograph by D. Mains (1882) Frontispiece
HENRY T. DE LA BECHE ..... To face page 28

WILLIAM E. LOGAN, from a Photograph by Kilburn . ,, 44

WILLIAM T. AVELINE, from a Photograph by Elliot and Fry

(1894) ,,66

ALFRED R. C. SELWYN, from a Photograph by Perry,

Melbourne . . . v . . ,, 80

HENRY W. BRISTOW, from a Photograph by Wilson and

Beadell . . . .... ,,98

RICHARD GIBBS , . . . . . . . „ 136

THOMAS OLDHAM . . . . . . ,, 168

WARINGTON W. SMYTH . . . . . „ 186

JOSEPH BEETE JUKES, from a Photograph by Cranfield, Dublin ,, 216

EDWARD FORBES, from the Portrait in his Memoir . . ,, 224

RODERICK I. MURCHISON, from a Photograph by Whitlock,

Birmingham . . . . . . ,, 280

JOHN W. SALTER, from a Photograph by the London

Stereoscopic Company . . . . . , , 324

CHAPTER I

PARENTAGE AND YOUTH

IN the little town of Haddington during last century
several generations of Ramsays carried on the craft of
dyers. At length one of the family, William by name,
the son and grandson of previous Williams who had
been content to pursue their calling by the banks
of the East Lothian Tyne, determined to push his
fortune in a wider sphere. He appears to have been
a man of high principle and great energy, wide-minded
and good - tempered, with a strong bent towards
chemical pursuits, and not a little originality as an
investigator. About the year 1785 he went to
Glasgow, and became there junior partner in the
firm of Arthur and Turnbull, manufacturers of wood-
spirit and pyroligneous acid. Besides making dyers'
chemicals and a variety of Prussian blue still known
as ' Turnbull's Blue,' this firm was the first to manu-
facture ' chloride of magnesia ' as a bleaching liquor,
and also 'bichrome.' Had William Ramsay patented
some of his processes, it was generally believed among
his friends that he might have become one of the
richest men in the west of Scotland. But he did not
consider himself entitled to retain for his own behoof
a discovery which, if made widely known, would

\ : i^l } : O *::..! &AJZENTA GE AND YO UTH CHAP, i

benefit the general industry of the country, and he
was content to remain comparatively poor.

The requirements of his business made him an
excellent practical chemist, but his interest in chemistry
reached far beyond these limits. In 1800 he founded
the ' Chemical Society of Glasgow,' into which, by the
energy of his example and the kindly courtesy of his
manner, he brought those of his fellow-citizens who
were interested in the progress of theoretical as well
as practical chemistry. He was chosen first President,
and among his associates were the well-remembered
chemist and mineralogist, Thomas Thomson, Professor
of Chemistry in the Glasgow University, and Walter
Crum, of Thornliebank. Two years later, on the
foundation of a wider brotherhood of science by the
establishment of the ' Philosophical Society of Glas-
gow/ the Chemical Society was voluntarily dissolved
in favour of the new organisation, which thus received,
we may believe, not a little of the vigour which has
enabled it to flourish till now as a centre of scientific
life in the midst of the mercantile atmosphere of
Glasgow. William Ramsay's reputation as a chemist
spread outside his own country. His house was one
of the attractions to foreign chemists who came to
Glasgow ; and even long after his death his widow
received visits from such men as Liebig, who re-
membered her husband's meritorious work.

In the year 1809 William Ramsay married
Elizabeth Crombie, a second cousin of his own,
daughter of Mr. Andrew Crombie, writer in Edin-
burgh. The Crombies, like the Ramsays, had for
many generations been connected with the trade of
dyers. There is a tradition that during the famous
Porteous Riot in Edinburgh in 1736, so graphically

1 8 1 4- 1 840 PARE NT A GE

described in Scott's Heart of Midlothian, the mob,
coming down the West Bow with their wretched victim,
stopped at the shop of Crombie, the dyer, with the
object of hanging Porteous from the pole above the
door, when a shout arose that it would be a shame to
do the deed at the door of so worthy a man. The
crowd, determined as it was on vengeance, recognised
the justice of this protest, and passed down into the
Grassmarket, where they made use of the pole of
another dyer not so popular among his townsmen.
The last representative of the family who still carried
on the trade of dyer in Edinburgh was a not less
worthy citizen — John Crombie, who, firm in the ancient
ways, went about in a tail-coat and ' stock ' up to the
end of his life, in 1874. He was a cousin of Sir
Andrew C. Ramsay, who often stayed in his hospi-
table house during visits to Edinburgh.

Mrs. Ramsay was a woman of strongly-marked
character, uniting a firmness of purpose with a gentle-
ness and sweetness of nature that gave her remarkable
influence over all who came in contact with her.
Clever and wise, she had had her natural powers
quickened and trained by an excellent education. She
was beloved by the young, for whom her face used
to light up with a cordial welcome. In the esteem
and affections of her sons she ever held the foremost
place. Her husband died in 1827, and her circum-
stances became thereafter somewhat straitened, but her
cheery spirit and unruffled temper enabled her to keep
a happy, though modest home for her children. She
survived until the year 1858. The children of this
marriage were four in number — Eliza, born in 1810,
William in 1811, Andrew Crombie in 1814, and John
in 1816.

4 PARENTAGE AND YOUTH CHAP, i

In this well-ordered household, where both the
father and mother had read widely, much was done to
foster a love of literature among the younger members.
It was one of the practices of the family that on at
least one morning of the week French should be the
language of the breakfast-table. On other mornings a
paper from the Spectator would be read, or a passage
from some standard English author. And doubtless
the achievements of science, as far as they could be
made intelligible and interesting, were often subjects of
conversation.

Such was the household in which Andrew Crombie
Ramsay was born on the 3ist January 1814. Of his
early years little record has been preserved. From
his mother's letters we learn that when five years old,
during a painful operation on one of his fingers, he
showed such self-possession as to earn from the
surgeon the encomium of being ' the most determined
little fellow he had ever seen.' In a letter written to
his wife in 1854, when his eldest daughter was a child,
he says : ' I fancy I see Ella in the hayfield. These
early days are never lost. I recollect them on rare
occasions. I remember the first time I saw cowslips in
a field ; how amazed and charmed I was ! The mind
drinks in beauty in early life that never leaves it, if of
good quality. Happy is the child whose first im-
pressions are not of smoke, bricks, and gutters.'

For some time his health appears to have been deli-
cate. At nine or ten years of age he was removed from
Glasgow, and sent to the Parish School at Saltcoats, a
little village on the coast of Ayrshire, where the sea-air
might enable him to gain strength, and throw off his
ailments. An observant boy could hardly have been
placed in a position better fitted to stimulate his

1814-1840 THE AYRSHIRE COAST 5

faculties. A sea -beach strewn with pebbles and
shells lay in front of him, with rocks over which he
could climb, and pools wherein he might bathe,
or watch the movements of the creatures left by
the tide. To the south a range of sand-dunes
stretched for miles along the coast, mounting into
ridges and sinking into hollows, which a young
imagination could easily transfigure into ranges of
mountains and lines of valley, interspersed with bare
sandy plains and recesses that might typify trackless
deserts — a lonely region, and a very paradise of boy-
hood. Then, in the interior, a long sweep of upland
rose northward from the shore, commanding from its
breezy heights a wide expanse of the Firth of Clyde,
with the blue hills of Cantyre and Arran, sometimes even
those of the north of Ireland, closing in the distance.
On the lower grounds many a dell and ravine served
as channels for streams which, haunted by trout and
minnow, wandered through woodlands where many a
bird built its nest, and where with the changing seasons
came the successive attractions of blackthorn, may-
blossom, blackberries, wild cherries, and hazel-nuts.
There were likewise not a few ruined castles and
crumbling peels, which an adventurous boy might
climb, and where a contemplative one could find
material for many a pleasant reverie. We can hardly
doubt that surroundings such as these must have quick-
ened in young Ramsay that love of nature, that delight
in antiquities, and that devotion to out-of-door pursuits
which formed such strong features in his character.

From Saltcoats he was eventually brought back to
Glasgow, to continue his education at the Grammar
School there. Mr. James King, probably his only
surviving schoolmate, has kindly supplied the

6 PARENTAGE AND YOUTH CHAP, i

following notes about his school-days : ' Andrew was
always cheerful and full of fun, so much so that he
was nicknamed "Appybe" (happy bee). He was
our leader in the stone-fights with the Camlachie
boys. He attended Mr. Dymock's class at the
Grammar School. When he was a child, a lady who
had called was telling Mrs. Ramsay what a good child
her lost son was, when Andrew, looking up to his
mother, said, " Mother, I would not like to be a good
bairn ; good bairns aye die." He was very fond of
dogs. I remember his great grief at being obliged to
drown Puck for biting the postman.'

He lost his father in the summer of 1827. Twenty
years afterwards, on the anniversary of this sad event
in his life, he wrote as follows : 'My father died this
day twenty years at Roseneath. I was then between
thirteen and fourteen, and recollect it well. We had
been there about a week. He was very ill on the
way down in the steamboat, having had an additional
slight shock the very night before we started. Willie
was sent up from Roseneath a day or two before his
death. I accompanied him as far as Ardincaple
Ferry, and watched him across. It was a fine day,
but blew hard. On the way back I recollect playing
with flowers, so strange is it (I believe with all men)
that even in great distress the mind occupies itself
with trifles. I also recollect during this week of
severe illness my mother told me to take a book and
amuse myself. It was Shakespeare. I read Julius
Cczsar — the first play of Shakespeare I ever read, and
even then it highly interested me. Willie brought
down Drs. Coldstream and Buchanan with him. My
father died, I think, shortly after they arrived, having
been speechless for some time before. I did not see

1814-1840 A MERCANTILE CAREER 7

him die, having, if I recollect right, left the room in
great distress some half-hour before. My mother
prayed aloud soon after, most passionately and fer-
vently ; so did Dr. Coldstream. Curiously enough,
none of our relations came to aid the widow and her
children up to town, but Mr. Napier, the engineer,
came down of his own accord in one of his own
steamboats, and took on himself most kindly all the
arrangements. My uncles arrived the day of the
funeral. My mother threw herself into her brother
Andrew's arms, and said, " Oh Andrew ! "

'The funeral was large and imposing. He was
carried "shoulder-high" to the Ramshorn Church-
yard, and buried in the Walkinshaw ground. ;.i;r:i.

'By and by, shortly after, my troubles in life
began. Willie was apprenticed to Napier, the
engineer, and I was sent to Mr, 's counting-house.'

The boy's education was thus prematurely -cut
short, for in the straitened circumstances in which
the widow found herself after her husband's death,
she deemed it necessary that she should take boarders,
and that her sons should, as early as possible,
begin the active business of life. Andrew was
intended for a mercantile career, and went when a
mere boy into the office to which he refers in the pre-
ceding extract. After being some time there he
removed to the warehouse of a firm of linen merchants
in Glasgow — a situation in which he seems to have
been specially unhappy, for mention of the misery he
there endured occurs in his diaries and in his family
correspondence long years after he had become a
successful man of science. He once came upon one
of these old masters of his in a little inn in Wales, and
the following entry occurs in his journal of that day :

PARENTAGE AND YOUTH CHAP, i

' After dinner an old man, whom I had observed
promenading the road before the inn, came into the
room and took off his hat ; his hair was bleached. In
an instant a recollection flashed upon me. I started
up and stretched out my hand, crying, " Mr. - — ,
I am delighted to see you," for my heart warmed
towards him, in spite of all his want of consideration
and kindness when long ago I sat, a boy, at a desk in
his office. How changed care and anxiety have made
him ! He is an old, old man, though only sixty-one,
and has been very ill/

There never appears to have been any question in
the family but that Andrew was to devote himself to
mercantile pursuits. Yet, from the very outset, he
kept his interests broad, and made amends for his
curtailed education by cultivating his mind with wide
reading. His natural tastes led him to continue the
literary pursuits that had from his early years been so
well fostered at home. He was an omnivorous reader,
and acquired a facility in expressing himself in clear,
vigorous language.

An interesting relic of this period of his life has
survived in the shape of a few numbers of a manu-
script periodical, written by him and a few young men
of similar tastes. He acted as editor, and the paper
circulated among the families and friends of the con-
tributors during the years 1835 and 1836. It bore
the name of * Ramsay's Miscellaneous Journal,' and
upon the wrapper of each number, in the handwriting
of the editor, some appropriate motto appeared from a
play of Shakespeare or a poem of Pope. The articles
contributed by him included some nightmare hallu-
cinations and sketches of character, with occasional
sonnets and odes, more or less grotesque in subject

1814-1840 EARLY STRUGGLES 9

and treatment. The concluding number closes with
an editorial farewell : ' May our journal rest quietly
in its grave ; and if ever its pages should be used to
light your pipes, peace be with its ashes ! '

Though he had not himself matriculated at the
University of Glasgow, he came into close personal
relations with some of its professors and many of its
students. Chief among his academical friends and
advisers was Dr. J. P. Nichol, the well-known and
accomplished Professor of Practical Astronomy. To
this sympathetic associate he owed more than to any
other for the guidance and encouragement which
eventually led him into the career of a man of science.
Among the young men then attending the University
his closest friend was Lyon Playfair, now Lord Play-
fair, who was one of the boarders in Mrs. Ramsay's
house.

In pursuance of the intention that he should follow
a mercantile profession, Ramsay, about the year 1837,
entered into partnership with a Mr. Anderson as
dealers in cloth and calico. The firm took an office
in the Candleriggs of Glasgow, and carried on
business for some three years. But the venture
was not successful, and the copartnery was dis-
solved, leaving Ramsay poorer in purse, some-
what enfeebled in health, and rather depressed in
spirits.

It was natural that these successive disappoint-
ments should create a strong revulsion in his mind
against an occupation which had never had great
attraction for him. In a letter to his brother William,
written in 1846, when he had thoroughly established
his position in the Geological Survey, he refers to
these early and bitter experiences of his life : * You

io PARENTAGE AND YOUTH CHAP, i

must bear in mind how unhappily I was placed —
first with - — , when a system of miserable petty
tyranny was carried on from beginning to end, with
other disagreeables going much against the grain ;
then with — , a falling, low concern from the
beginning, and then something still worse behind.'

The island of Arran has been for the last two or
three generations one of the chiefs centres of attrac-
tion in the west of Scotland. To the inhabitants of
Glasgow it has offered a much-prized retreat, where
pure air and charming scenery can be reached after a
journey of only a few hours. It was the custom of the
Ramsay family, and of many families of their acquaint-
ance, to spend as much of the summer as possible
in this delightful island. In those days the accommo-
dation to be had in Arran was of a far more primitive
kind than it is generally now. Almost the only
available lodging was to be found in the little thatched
cots of the peasantry, and the unpretending farm-
houses, where the rooms were few and small, and the
furnishing generally scanty. Yet into one of these
lowly dwellings a large family would contrive to
squeeze itself, laughing at the discomfort with the
light-heartedness of holiday-makers who were pre-
pared to enjoy everything. The conventionalities of
town life were left behind. Except for the hours of
meals and of sleep, and the intervals of bad weather,
the time of the visitors was spent entirely out of
doors. Bathing, boating, climbing, and walking or
driving to different parts of the island filled up each
day, and the evenings brought pleasant interchanges
of hospitality, with music and dance and endless merri-
ment. If at the end of the week the heads of families
brought down with them more guests than the capa-

1814-1840 ISLE OF ARRAN n

cities of the cottages — elastic as these were — could
accommodate, there was always the homely and com-
fortable hostelry of Mrs. Jameson to fall back upon,
with the calm bay in front, the Castle woods behind,
and the noble cone of Goatfell towering into the sky
beyond them.1

Sixty years have passed away since the time to
which I am now referring ; and though in this in-
terval Arran has altered far less than other places
on the Firth of Clyde, it has, nevertheless, undergone
some marked changes. The old village of Brodick,
for instance, with its long row of thatched cottages,
has been removed. The old inn no longer 'invites
each passing traveller that can pay,' though the build-

1 Among the reminiscences of this pleasant Highland inn I recall the eccen-
tricities of a half-witted but pawky attendant, who used to be employed in
miscellaneous errands, and had a specially pronounced love of brandy. On
one occasion he was pushing his boat down the beach, when two visitors came up
and asked where he was bound for. He answered that he was going across the
bay to the Corriegills shore for a bag or two of potatoes. The gentlemen asked to
be allowed to accompany him ; a request with which Sandy willingly complied,
the more especially as they volunteered to do the rowing if he would steer.
Having crossed the bay, they were coasting quietly past the huge boulder of
granite which, lying on the red sandstones, forms so notable a landmark on
that part of the shore. Directing the attention of his crew to this object, Sandy
remarked : ' Maybe ye'll no believe me, but if anybody climbs to the tap o' that
stane and cries as loud as he likes, there's naebody can hear him.' This state-
ment, as he expected, was received with a smile of derision, whereupon he
insisted that he would wager them a bottle of brandy that it was true. So they
drew to land, and Sandy, jumping ashore, was speedily on the top of the
boulder, where he proceeded to open his mouth and swing his body as if he
were roaring with the strength of ten bulls of Bashan, but without emitting a
sound. * Very extraordinary,' said his friends, and they resolved to try the ex-
periment themselves. So when Sandy had descended, they proceeded, with
rather less agility, to clamber up the stone. When they were both on the top
they proceeded to shout with such vehemence that they might have been heard
on the other side of the bay. Sandy, however, stood on the shore below,
putting his hand behind each ear in turn to catch any sound that might come
from the boulder. They shouted to him until they were nearly hoarse, without
evoking one sign of recognition from him. At last coming down they demanded
if he meant to say that he had never heard them. Sandy had a remarkable power
of expressing astonishment by his mere looks, and availing himself of this power,
he loudly protested that he had never heard one single sound from them, and,
with a face of childlike innocence, asked if they really had called out. He was
allowed to pull the boat back himself, but he had his bottle of brandy that
evening.

12 PARENTAGE AND YOUTH CHAP, i

ing still stands as part of the offices of the Castle.
The deserted pump-well remains to mark the centre
of the life of the vanished hamlet. A large hotel,
with waiters and other products of modern civili-
sation, has since risen at Invercloy, on the south
side of the bay, together with many slated houses ;
while the inns all over the island, as well as the
farm-houses and cottages, have been much enlarged
and improved. The young visitors of to-day would
probably look with disdain on the humble cots where
their mothers and grandmothers were contented and
happy. But it may be doubted whether the charms
of this most delightful of islands are more appreciated
than they were in old days when the enjoyment of
them was coupled with discomforts now happily
removed.

Since the early decades of this century Arran has
enjoyed a special reputation as a field for geological
study. Its mountainous northern half has been held
to represent the main structural features of the Scottish
Highlands, while its southern half has been regarded
as affording examples of the younger formations, and
especially of the igneous rocks, which form a con-
spicuous feature in the geology as well as the scenery
of the southern part of the opposite mainland. It has
been described as affording an epitome of the geology
of Scotland, with all the salient points of structure
comprised within such narrow compass, and so clearly
displayed as to afford exceptional facilities for practical
investigation. Its coast-line supplies an almost con-
tinuous section of the rocks, with admirable exposures
of their various structures and relations to each other.
Its streams, too, coursing for ages from the watershed
to the sea, have trenched their channels into the solid

1814-1840 EARLY INFLUENCES 13

rock. All over the island, crags and rugged knolls
reveal the nature of what lies beneath the surface,
while the peaks and crests of the northern mountain
group form the background of the finest landscapes.
Nowhere can the influence of geological structure
upon scenery be more clearly seen, and nowhere is
that influence displayed in forms that more em-
phatically appeal to the imagination. It is a region
where a slumbering love of geological inquiry can
hardly fail to be stimulated into activity, and where
a latent aptitude for such inquiry may easily be
quickened into life.

Such were the surroundings amid which Ramsay
spent the holidays of his boyhood and youth. I have
not been able to trace definitely the beginning and
earliest development of his enthusiasm for geology.
There can be little doubt, however, that, over and
above the effect of his environment, he owed much of
the impulse which led him into the geological field to
the influence of two early friends. When still a boy
at Saltcoats, he had come into close contact with
David Landsborough, with whom he then began a
life-long friendship. This genial man and enthusiastic
naturalist, born in 1779, became in 1811 minister of
the parish of Stevenston, in which part of the village
of Saltcoats lies. He had from an early period of his
life devoted himself to the study of the botany and
natural history, not only of his own parish, but of the
neighbouring region of Ayrshire and of Arran. So
ardent was his devotion to these pursuits, and so
successful his cultivation of them, that he was known
as the Gilbert White of the west of Scotland. He is
said to have added nearly seventy species to the pre-
viously known flora and fauna of Scotland. His

14 PARENTAGE AND YOUTH CHAP, i

personal influence in communicating the contagion of
his love of nature is vividly remembered by those who
knew him. As Ramsay came under this influence
when a mere boy, we can hardly doubt that it helped
in giving the bent to his future life-work.

The other friend, who contributed still more to
the determination of Ramsay's geological career,
was Professor Nichol, already referred to. Besides
guiding the young man's reading, this helpful mentor
incited him to the undertaking of definite pieces of
geological field-work. Nichol, though not a professed
geologist, had himself read widely and critically in
geological literature ; he was therefore well qualified
to suggest lines of inquiry, to appreciate the signifi-
cance of new observations, and to share in the plea-
sures and excitements of geological rambles. He, too,
used to spend his summer holidays in Arran, and while
there enjoyed long walks and talks with his young
friend. If any stimulus to sustained geological effort
had been needed on Ramsay's part, it was amply
supplied by 'the Professor.' When the two friends
were separated, long letters of suggestion and advice
would come from Nichol. The kindly and helpful
interest thus taken in him was always gratefully
remembered by Ramsay, who never ceased to look
back upon the Professor of Astronomy as his true
father in science, to whose wise counsel and assistance
he owed the happy change from a merchant's office to
the life of a professional man of science.

The fame of Arran as a happy hunting-ground
for the geologist drew many men of note to visit
it. Of one of these visits Lord Playfair has
been so good as to communicate the following recol-
lections : —

1814-1840 EARLY GEOLOGICAL RAMBLES 15

* At the latter end of April 1836, or beginning of May in that
year, I was going down to Arran, and was reading LyelPs Geology -,
which I had got as a prize at Graham's Class of Chemistry. Sitting
beside me in the steamboat was a charming lady, who entered into
conversation with me, and I showed her my book. I expressed
great admiration for the author, and she smiled, and then called a
gentleman from the other side of the steamer, to whom she intro-
duced his young admirer. This was my first introduction to the
Lyells. At Arran I used to help Mrs. Lyell in collecting shells, for
at that time I knew something of conchology, while Lyell geologised
in the interior of the island. Ramsay joined me in Arran after a
few days, and I told Mr. Lyell that my friend would like to help
him in his excursions, which thereafter they used to make
together.

In the letter to Lyell, given at p. 92 of this
Memoir, Ramsay himself dates the beginning of his
serious study of geology from about the year 1836, and
acknowledges his great indebtedness to the illustrious
author of the Principles of Geology.

It is not possible now to recover traces of the
successive tours and excursions by which the young
geologist gradually filled up the geological map of
Arran. He had been preceded by several able ob-
servers, who had published accounts of the structure of
the island, notably by Macculloch, Jameson, Sedgwick,
Murchison, and Necker de Saussure. But their descrip-
tions could not be regarded as more than outlines of a
wide subject, which would require years of patient
research before its details could be mastered. It was
with no idea of testing, still less of criticising, their
labours that Ramsay followed in their footsteps along
the shores and up the glens. He had not originally
proposed to himself to publish any of his observations,
which were made entirely for the pleasure they
brought in their train, as they led him year after year
over hill and dale. Gradually he found that various
facts met with by him in the course of his rambles had

1 6 PARENTAGE AND YOUTH CHAP, i

not been noticed by others before him. Thus, as far
back as the summer of 1837, he had observed the
mass of granite of ' Ploverfield,' of which the first
published account was given three years later by
Necker de Saussure.1 These discoveries were duly
communicated to his friend Nichol, who doubtless
made good use of them as an encouragement to
continued investigation.

The meeting of the British Association for the
Advancement of Science was held in Glasgow in
September 1840. Among the preparations for that
meeting a committee was started for the purpose of
gathering together a collection of specimens, maps,
and sections illustrative of the geology of the west of
Scotland. In order to expedite the task, various
sub-committees were formed, to each of which a special
branch of the work was assigned. One of these was
organised to prepare a model of the island of Arran,
together with specimens of its geological formations.
The convener of this sub-committee was Professor
Nichol, who, as one of the local secretaries of the
Association, undertook a large amount of labour and
responsibility, and contributed much to the success of
the Glasgow meeting. Ramsay was the secretary of
the sub-committee, and, single-handed, did almost the
whole of its work. In reporting to the general
Museum Committee what they had done, Professor
Nichol, who drew up the statement, remarked that
1 Arran had previously been surveyed by several
geologists ; but although these eminent men had given
valuable accounts of their observations, many blanks
remained to be filled up, and several important ques-
tions, having reference to the particular modes and

1 Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin. xiv. (1840), p. 667.

1 8 1 4- 1 840 BRITISH A SSOCIA TION A T GLA SGOW 17

epochs of the elevatory movements, and other phe-
nomena of which this remarkable island is a memorial,
do not appear to have been stirred at all. The Com-
mittee cannot presume that all deficiencies are now
supplied, but they are certain that many points formerly
obscure have been illustrated by their labours, and
that a foundation at least is laid for a very complete
and singular geological monograph. Their specimens,
amounting probably to 700 or 800, have been selected
with much care,1 many sections have been drawn, a
large map is in progress, and they have every hope
that the model will, when finished, answer the purpose
of rendering a great class of phenomena more palpable
than could be done by any other mode of representa-
tion. It is necessary to mention that a new survey of
the island in every locality has been executed, and that
nearly all these labours have been gratuitously per-
formed by their secretary, Mr. Andrew Ramsay, to
whose talent and untiring energy their success is
wholly owing.'

By the time the Association met, these active pre-
parations had been completed. The specimens from
Arran, after much anxious consultation over them on
the part of Professor Nichol and his young associate,
were duly displayed, the large map and sections were
hung up, and the model, on the scale of two inches to
a mile, was exhibited, with all the geological formations
of the island clearly depicted on it in distinct colours.

A notable gathering of geologists assembled in
Glasgow in September 1840. They included Lyell,2

1 These specimens became the property of the British Association, and were
handed over to the Andersonian University of Glasgow. But many years
afterwards (1876) the Andersonian authorities, having no longer room for them,
returned them, and they are now in the British Museum.

2 Charles Lyell, born 1797, died 1875 ; author of the immortal Principles of

1 8 PARENTAGE AND YOUTH CHAP, i

Greenough,1 Buckland,2 Phillips,3 Murchison,4 De la
Beche,5 Smith of Jordanhill,6 Agassiz,r Strickland,8
Edward Forbes,9 and Griffith.10 It was before this
audience that Ramsay read his first scientific paper,
' Notes taken during the Surveys for the Construction
of the Geological Model, Maps, and Sections of the
Island of Arran.' n In this communication he gave a
brief sketch of his work. How he was guided in the
conception of it, and in the further elaboration of his
results, will appear from the following sentences in a
letter to him from Nichol : 'In writing out your
memoir never omit to draw attention as you go along
to points yet requiring elucidation, and which present
hopes of something very interesting. You must make
this memoir short, chiefly in the way of scientific notes.

1 George Bellas Greenough, born 1778, died 1855; one of the founders
and the first President of the Geological Society of London.

2 William Buckland, born 1784, died 1856; author of Rdiquia Diluviancz,
also of one of the most celebrated Bridgewater Treatises, and of numerous geological
memoirs ; Dean of Westminster, and Reader in Geology in the University of
Oxford.

3 John Phillips, born 1800, died 1874 ; one of the founders and for many
years General Secretary of the British Association ; was for some years attached
to the Geological Survey under De la Beche ; an able writer and clear lecturer
on geology ; succeeded Dr. Buckland in the geological readership at Oxford.

4 Roderick Impey Murchison, born 1792, died 1871 ; author of The Silurian
System, etc., and Director-General of the Geological Survey from 1855 to 1871.

6 Henry Thomas De la Beche, born 1796, died 1855 ; founder and first
Director-General of the Geological Survey of Great Britain ; author of some
valuable papers and treatises.

6 James Smith, born 1782, died 1867 ; author of a remarkable work on The
Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul, and some of the earliest papers on the shelly
deposits of the Glacial Drift.

7 Louis Agassiz, born 1807, died 1873 > famous as a writer on fossil fishes,
and for his contributions to glacial geology.

8 Hugh Edwin Strickland, born 1811, died 1853; a geologist of great
ability and promise ; killed by a passenger train when examining a cutting on the
Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire Railway.

9 Edward Forbes, born 1815, died 1854; one of the foremost British
naturalists of his time ; attached to the Geological Survey, and shortly before
his early death appointed Professor of Natural History in the University of
Edinburgh.

10 Richard Griffith, born 1784, died 1878; the most illustrious geologist
Ireland has produced.

11 Report, Brit. Assoc. 1840, Sections, p. 92.

1814-1840 BRITISH ASSOCIA TION A T GLASGO W 19

The popular descriptive part must be kept for your
book. I have been thinking of a speculation with
Griffin in regard of your model and book, which I
think might be very advantageous to you ; of which,
when we meet.' We shall see immediately what came
of the * speculation ' here referred to.

Ramsay was heartily welcomed at Glasgow into
the brotherhood of geologists. He formed there some
of the most lasting and influential friendships of his
life. It was there that he first came in contact with
De la Beche, under whom, though at that time un-
dreamt of by either of them, he was within a few
months to enter upon the career of a professional
geologist. It was there that he first met Murchison,
who was from the very first deeply impressed with
his capacity and geological ardour. It was there, too,
that he made acquaintance with Edward Forbes, and
began that intimacy which linked the two men together
by the closest ties of friendship in the prosecution of
scientific work.

It was arranged that on the Saturday of the
Association week an excursion should be made to
Arran, and the young geologist who had explored the
island so well was invited by Lyell, who was President
of Section C (Geology), to read his communication the
day before, in order that those who intended to take part
in the excursion might be put in possession of the neces-
sary information. The excursionists divided themselves
into two parties, one proceeding direct by steamer,
the other by railway to Ardrossan, and thence by
steamer to Arran. Ramsay was to conduct the
party united at Brodick, and give them a general
exposition of Arran geology. But he had worked
hard in making all the preliminary preparations, and

20 PARENTAGE AND YOUTH CHAP, i

for some days before had been up early and late.
Hence, when the morning came, he unluckily overslept
himself, and was too late for both steamboat and train.
This untoward accident he never ceased to regret.

The excitement of the Glasgow meeting, the first
entry into the company of renowned geologists with
whose names he had so long been familiar, the first
public exhibition of his own work as a geologist, the
first plunge into the sea of active scientific discussion,
and the cordial welcome extended to him by men
whose achievements he had followed from afar, left
Ramsay with many regrets when he came back again
to the consideration of his own prospects in life. How
gladly would he have taken to science as a calling if
only any opening had offered itself. Nine years after-
wards, when he had found his place in the active
brotherhood of men of science, chancing to meet
Professor Johnston of Durham, whose acquaintance
he had made at the British Association in Glasgow,
he recalled to him an incident of that meeting,
which he thus describes : ' On the Sunday of the
Association week I chanced to overtake Johnston in
Ingram Street, and, talking about geological matters,
I told him how I was busy with mercantile affairs, and
longed for an opportunity to engage in geological
pursuits, after the happy taste I had had of it in
working before the coming of the Association. " Stick
to your work," quoth he, "and don't forget your
geology, and something may arise ! " He spoke truly.'

The British Association meeting, while it had
stimulated his bent towards geological work, threw no
light upon the dark outlook before the young man.
From a letter of his mother's, it appears that there was
at one time some prospect of his going out to Tasmania,

1814-1840 HIS FIRST PUBLICATION 21

and with her maternal desire to keep all the family
around her if that might be, she gladly welcomed any
proposal that would prevent such a breaking up of
her home-circle. As one disappointment succeeded
another in his efforts to obtain a solid footing in
business, he employed himself in completing his
account of Arran. The ' speculation ' referred to by
Nichol took formal shape in an agreement between
the Glasgow publishing firm of Richard Griffin and Co.,
and Andrew Ramsay, ' Merchant in Glasgow,' dated
2nd November 1840, by which, in consideration of the
payment of a sum of twenty-one pounds, the latter
undertook to prepare within three months a work on
the geology of the island of Arran, together with the
necessary views, sections, and maps.

In pursuance of this agreement, the work was duly
written, and appeared the following spring as a thin
octavo volume of seventy-eight pages, with a little map,
a page of sections, and upwards of two dozen wood-
cuts, chiefly from drawings by the author. It was
entitled The Geology of the Island of Arran from
Original Survey, by Andrew Crombie Ramsay, and was
appropriately dedicated to Nichol. This essay has long
since taken its place among the classics of Scottish
geology. As a broad outline of the structure of an
exceedingly interesting geological region it was a most
meritorious production. It gave sufficient detail to
show how carefully its author had gone over the
ground, how accurate and acute he was as an observer,
and how clearly he saw the relation between scattered or
isolated facts and the broad principles that connected
them. While his chapters did not by any means
exhaust Arran, they correctly described its general
geological structure. In particular, the existence of

22 PARENTAGE AND YOUTH CHAP, i

a 'New Red Sandstone ' series, first proposed by
Sedgwick and Murchison, was clearly recognised by
him. Other observers have since disputed this
assertion, but its truth has recently been confirmed
by the Geological Survey. The history of the igneous
phenomena remains very much as Ramsay left it, and
is not likely to be much advanced until the still com-
paratively unknown southern part of the island is
mapped in minute detail.

Apart from the excellence of his essay as a geological
treatise, it had no little merit as a piece of descriptive
prose. A few passages from it may be quoted here
to show that, besides cultivating habits of geological
observation, the author entered thoroughly into the
spirit of the scenery amid which he was working, and
could depict in graphic words the aspects of the land-
scapes. Let us accompany him to the top of Goatfell,
the highest summit in Arran, and listen to his account
of it : ' The eye of the geologist suddenly rests on a
scene which, if he be a true lover of nature, cannot
fail to inspire him with astonishment and delight.
The jagged and spiry peaks of the surrounding moun-
tains ; the dark hollows and deep shady corries, into
which the rays of the sun scarce ever penetrate ; the
open swelling hills beyond, the winding shores of Loch
Fyne, and the broad Firth of Clyde, studded with its
peaceful and fertile islands ; the rugged mountains of
Argyllshire, and the gentle curves of the hills of the
Western Isles, their outlines softened in the distance,
form a scene of surpassing grandeur and loveliness.
In all its varying aspects, it is a scene, the memory of
which can be dwelt on with pleasure : whether it
be seen in the early morning, when the white mists,
drawn upward from the glens, float along the hills, and

1814-1840 SCENES IN ARRAN 23

half conceal their giant peaks ; or in the gloom of an
autumn evening, when the descending clouds, urged
onwards by the blast, flit swiftly across the mountain
sides, while ever and anon their gloomy shoulders
loom largely through the rolling masses, and seem to
the beholder to double their vast proportions ; or in
the mellow light of a summer sunset, when the shadows
of the hills fall far athwart the landscape, and the
distant Atlantic gleams brightly in the slanting rays of
the setting sun ; while, as he sinks below the horizon,
it is difficult to distinguish the lofty summits of Jura
and the Isles from the gorgeous masses of clouds
among which he disappears.'

In the midst of these impressive scenes, while
enjoying to the full their picturesque beauty, Ramsay's
eye was ever keenly sensitive to the geological lessons
so vividly taught by them. Lingering among the
granite precipices, and ' surrounded by the grey peaks
of the solemn hills,' the observer reflects that these
colossal features in the scenery, notwithstanding ' all
their appearance of majesty and power, are day by day
slowly crumbling into dust. Even now the landscape
on which he mutely gazes is imperceptibly yielding to
the never-dying principle of change ; and the time will
come when, with all its varied features, it shall have
passed away, and left no trace behind.'

The young geologist had an eye, too, for the little
touches of human pathos which so often lighten up the
sombreness of a Highland scene. As he comes down
North Glen Sannox, once a populous valley, but in
his day, as it is still, almost uninhabited, he contrasts
its very different conditions. He marks how ' green
spots, clothed with a close-cropped herbage, and still
bearing witness to the marks of the plough, surround

24 PARENTAGE AND YOUTH CHAP, i

each ruined clachan. The hazel and the fragrant
birch, the ash and the charmed rowan, fringe the
banks of the stream, or mark the remains of the little
garden -enclosures ; and mingled with these may be
seen the white blossoms of the gnarled elder, famed
of old for its irresistible power in scaring the midnight
witches from the neighbourhood of lonely dwellings,
and counteracting the malicious pranks of the fairies,
who, it is well known, still inhabit these desert
wastes ! '

The author avoids letting his own personality be
seen in the course of his narrative, but in the following
passage we seem to meet him coming back somewhat
jaded from a long tramp to his welcome resting-place
for the night in the snug homely inn of Loch Ranza.
' Tired and hungry though the traveller be, and with
the very smoke of the little inn curling before his
eyes, let him pause for a moment at the entrance of
the loch, and seating himself on a granitic boulder,
quietly contemplate the placid scene before him.
Trees there are few to boast of, and what is pleasanter,
there are still fewer strangers, for to the traveller in
such a scene, all strangers seem out of place but
himself. The sinking sun shines bright on the
gleaming peaks of Caistael Abhael and Ceum na
Cailleach, where the shadows of the rugged scars
and deep hollows of the winter torrents, mingled with
the lights brightly reflected from the projecting rocks,
form a hazy radiance which more obscures than
illuminates the shady recesses of the rugged corries.
The tide is at its full, and the lazy sails of many
a lagging fishing-boat, the image of the ruined tower
and of the green hills around, lie calmly reflected in
the unruffled waters : —

1814-1840 SCENES IN ARRAN 25

The lake returned in chastened gleam
The purple cloud, the golden beam ;
Reflected in the crystal pool,
Headland and bank lay fair and cool ;
The weather-tinted rock and tower,
Each drooping tree, each fairy flower,
So true, so soft, the mirror gave,
As if there lay beneath the wave,
Secure from trouble, toil, and care,
A world than earthly world more fair.

* But it is in a cold February evening that the
pleasant solitude of the place will be most esteemed.
There, seated at a blazing peat-fire, as the geologist
extends his notes or arranges his specimens after his
day's work, he will hear the piercing wind whistling
down Glen Chalmadael and the narrow pass of Glen
Eisnabearradh, then dying away as it reaches a wider
expanse of the loch, to be again renewed by a louder
and a shriller blast. And as he loiters to the door
to speculate on the probabilities of the morrow's
weather, he may chance to see the burning heath,
like the beacons of old, blazing on the hills around,
and faintly gleaming on the far-distant headlands of
Argyllshire.'1

It was while Ramsay was engaged in the pre-
paration of these chapters for the printer that the
long-looked-for prospect of congenial employment at
last opened out to him, in a form as unexpected as
it was welcome. Among those who, from what they
had seen of him and his work at the British Associa-
tion, had formed a high opinion of his geological
capacity was Murchison. This illustrious geologist,
then in the full tide of his work among the older
formations of the north and east of Europe, had
entertained the idea of possibly extending his labours

1 Geology of the Island of Ar ran, pp. 7, 27, 36, 40.

26 PARENTAGE AND YOUTH CHAP, i

to North America, though he ultimately went to
Russia instead. The young geologist who had
done such excellent work in Arran would, he thought,
make an admirable companion and assistant in his
foreign expeditions ; and in the autumn he wrote to
propose such an employment to his young friend.
No letter appears to have survived from Ramsay
himself in reference to this sudden lifting of the clouds
that had darkened his path. But we get a glimpse
into the family circle in a letter written at the time by
his mother to his brother William. ' Dr. Nichol,' she
says, 'seems to think Andrew will have to go to
London about the beginning of February. Andrew
is in high spirits himself with the prospect. I hope
it may turn out as much for his good as he expects.
For my own part, I think there should be some
written agreement about money matters ; it is far
more agreeable to claim as a right than to get as a
favour, although the very travelling at Murchison's
expense is a matter of consequence, and you may
say although he were to get nothing he will see the
world. At the same time, as he cannot afford to be
without a salary, I hope it will be given.'

After some delay all the preparations were made,
and Ramsay left home for his new career on Monday,
1 5th March 1841. A large band of his old friends
and associates assembled on the Broomielaw to see
him start, for he had arranged to take steamboat to
Liverpool, and pay a visit there on his way to London.
His journey and subsequent doings are best told in his

own words : —

LIVERPOOL, WEDNESDAY (\^th March 1841).

MY DEAREST MOTHER — You have by this time
got over the first violence of your sorrow at parting

1814-1840 OPENING OF A SCIENTIFIC CAREER 27

with me, and however painful the separation is to all
of us, you will find that time will gradually accustom
you to my temporary absence ; and you will look on
a letter from me in the same light as you do one
of Johnie's, with this difference, that you have the
absolute certainty of seeing the second son (the go-
between — the link between Willie and Johnie — who
has part of the features and part of the character ot
both) in less than a year, and probably in six or eight
months. Won't I rush home to Glasgow ? brimful of
London and Russia — of sights, wonders, and travels,
a perfect Munchausen, telling most incredible stories
about bearded Muscovites, horrible escapes from bears
and wolves, burning suns and mountains of snow,
expatriated Poles and Siberian mines. How I was
introduced to the Emperor, how he smiled and bowed,
and by a smile and a bow secured a deathless immor-
tality, and honourable mention in the 2 vols. royal
8vo which are to hand down to future times the
results of Mr. Hosie's 1 observations on men and
manners in Russia ; for a bow from a prince to a
geologist excuses the depopulation of Poland, and a
smile renders him amiable and attractive in the bosom
of his family and in all his private capacities.

LONDON, 25^ March 1841.
MY DEAR WILLIE — You will have heard all about

1 ' Andrew Hosie ' was a nickname by which he was familiarly known among
his friends and associates. In another manuscript journal named ' The Renfield
Rocket,' of later date than the ' Miscellaneous Journal ' already referred to, the
scientific doings of this personage are made the subject of jocular description.
A Scots song also appears there to celebrate his virtues, of which the refrain
runs —

My Hosie O ! my Hosie O !

He's neither thin nor brosy O !

There's no a lad in Scotland broad

Can ever match wi' Hosie O !

28 PARENTAGE AND YOUTH CHAP, i

me ere this from our folks at home, but perhaps I
may as well give you a synopsis of the whole of my
proceedings. I left Glasgow on Monday, and arrived
in Liverpool on Tuesday at three. ... I left Liver-
pool at half-past ten on Thursday morning, and arrived
in London at half-past nine at night, and being at a
loss what to do with myself, went to the nearest hotel,
viz. the Victoria, Euston Square, from whence I imme-
diately wrote to Murchison announcing my arrival.
I did not hear from him till next day (Friday) at five
o'clock, and in the meantime went and saw St. Paul's
and the outsides of some of the streets, for you see
I had always to be running home to look for a letter.
He asked me to breakfast with him on Saturday
morning. This I did. His house is a splendid one.
They are quite people of fashion, but, notwithstanding,
Mrs. M. is a kindly body, and made me quite at
ease at once. I should previously have informed
you that Mr. M. told me in his note that he had
given up the idea of taking me to Russia with him,
but said he was almost certain he had procured me
a much better place, viz. that of Assistant Geologist
to De la Beche, who is at present making the
Ordnance Geological Survey for Government. To
cut the matter short, I may here tell you that on
that day he again wrote to De la B. that the matter
might be finally settled, and on Tuesday last had a
most satisfactory letter from De la B., enclosing
one for me, officially appointing me to the situation
of Assistant Geologist, with pay of 95. a day. * Here's
a start.' On Monday first I leave this for Bristol /.
Great Western Railway, and on Tuesday I shall be
at Tenby, Pembrokeshire, South Wales, there to join
De la B. Tenby lies, I think, at the mouth of

v

HENRY T. DE LA BECHE

1814-1840 FIRST DA YS IN LONDON 29

Milford Haven, a place celebrated by Shakespeare
in Cymbeline.1

Before leaving, Murchison asked me to dine with
him next day at seven. Mrs. M. also asked me to
breakfast, and to go to church with her afterwards.
The remainder of Saturday I spent getting into my
lodgings, going through the Geological Museum at
Somerset House, calling on Lyell and Graham,2 and
seeing the Polytechnic. Lyell and Graham both
received me very kindly, indeed Lyell as much so
as Graham. He was very glad to hear of my success,
and told me to be sure and let him know when my
Geology of Arran came out, as he wished to notice
some of my remarks in a new edition of his Elements
of Geology. Here's another start. I went to Co vent
Garden on Saturday night, and was delighted with
The Critic. On Sunday I went with Mrs. M. in her
carriage to St. Luke's, Chelsea, and having keeked
through the rails and seen the Duke of Wellington,
I went to Westminster at three. At seven I went to
Murchison's to dinner, and there met Mr. Feather-
stonhaugh, the American plenipotentiary, his lady,
and two gentlemen — a Captain Pringle and Mr.
Munro. Featherstonhaugh is a lively man, but takes
no wine for his stomach's sake.

Monday I spent in the National Gallery and the
British Museum, and in the evening called on Dr.
Stanger, with whom I was acquainted at the meeting.
I found him out by the merest chance. He took me

1 The writer's literary memory was here better than his geography. Tenby
lies about 18 miles due east from the entrance to Milford Haven.

2 Thomas Graham, born 1805, died 1869, one of the most distinguished
chemists of our time, was for some years Lecturer on Chemistry in Glasgow, and
in 1837 became professor of the science at University College, London, an
appointment which he held until 1855, when he was made Master of the Mint.
He had known Ramsay and his father in Glasgow, and was one of the first men
of science to welcome him to London.

30 PARENTAGE AND YOUTH CHAP, i

with him to a Philosophical soiree at Mr. Bowerbank's,
and we had a good deal of interesting discussion. On
Tuesday, after writing to Nichol and home, I went to
Belgrave Square, and there got my official appoint-
ment. De la B.'s letter is a very kind one. In his
note to Murchison he speaks of my pay rising. I am
thoroughly convinced that this is a much better thing
than going to Russia. If I behave, and am found
worthy, I am sure to rise in the service.

By and by the Survey will go to Scotland. Prob-
ably I may get the neighbourhood of Glasgow to do,
including my own island. After leaving Murchison
I went through Westminster, and saw Dr. Johnson's
and Garrick's gravestones side by side, and all the
others. 'O rare Ben Jonson ! ' 'The cloud- capt
towers ! ' I afterwards met Murchison at Somerset
House.

Yesterday I spent in the Zoological Gardens,
Regent's Park, and also visited the Colosseum. At
six I dined with the Geological Club1 at the Crown and
Anchor, Strand. It has a most shabby outside, but
is one of those old-fashioned splendid inns inside,
which, I suppose, are not to be found out of London.
It was here that Fox and the great Whigs of that
great day used to meet and enjoy themselves. Lyell
and Featherstonhaugh were there, and Captain Pringle ;
Murchison in the chair. There were about twenty-
five gentlemen present. I was introduced to Dr. Buck-
land and some others. Murchison introduced me also
to Mr. Taylor, the croupier and treasurer of the
Society, and asked him to take me beside him. I
heard him say to Buckland : ' You remember young
Ramsay, who made the model of Arran ? I shall intro-

p. 121.

1814-1840 APPOINTED TO GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 31

duce him to you.' ' Oh yes,' quoth the Doctor.
So I was introduced, and the Doctor gave me two
of his digits to shake. There were a lot of big-wigs
there whose names I do not know — members of Par-
liament and others. Mr. Taylor, whom I sat next,
knows, or knew, Dr. Thomson of Glasgow, Dr. Ure,
Charles Mackintosh, C. Tennant, and others, who
were old friends of my father's, and we had a great
deal of conversation together. After dinner we went
to Somerset House to hear Murchison on Russia.
The Marquis of Northampton was there. The dis-
cussion broke up about eleven, when we all went
upstairs to tea.

I must now close, as I have to go to Belgrave
Square and elsewhere, to get my equipment before
leaving for Wales.

From De la Beche's letter, containing the formal
offer of the appointment, a few sentences may be
quoted. It is dated from Cardiff, 22nd March 1841 :

' My friend, Mr. Murchison, having recommended
you to me as well qualified to assist on the Ordnance
Geological Survey, as I have little doubt, judging
from your labours in the Isle of Arran, is the case ;
and Mr. Murchison having also stated that you were
desirous of joining the service as Assistant Geologist,
I have now to offer you the situation of Assistant
Geologist on this Survey, with a rate of pay, for the
present, of 95. per day for the six working days of the
' week (it being the somewhat singular rule that the
Sundays are unprovided with pay), payable quarterly,
which is at the rate of ^140:85. per annum. Inde-
pendently of this salary, your travelling expenses from
station to station would be paid, and all necessary

32 PARENTAGE AND YOUTH CHAP, i

instruments, drawing materials, etc. etc., are found by
Government.

* Should you feel disposed to join the Survey on
these terms, I would thank you to write to me to that
effect, directing your letter to me, Tenby, South
Wales, to which place I intend to remove my head-
quarters to-morrow. In that event, it would be desir-
able that you should report yourself at Tenby on the
ist of April, the commencement of one of our official
quarters. A steamer leaves Bristol for Tenby on
Tuesday, the 2Qth instant, so that you would only
remain a day or two at Tenby without your pay.'

Though Murchison's strong recommendation may
have had some influence in determining the offer of
this appointment to the young geologist, it must be
remembered that De la Beche had attended the
Glasgow meeting of the British Association, where,
as one of the vice-presidents of Section C, he had
met Ramsay, seen his map and model, and been able
to form an independent judgment as to his capacity
for the work of the Geological Survey.

The pecuniary prospects set forth in the Director-
General's letter could not be regarded as specially
inviting. They were much canvassed in Glasgow,
where the news that Ramsay was not to go to Russia
after all, but had been offered, and had accepted, a
post in the Geological Survey of this country, fell like
a thunderbolt in the family a few days after he had
left home. Mrs. Ramsay's first feeling was one of
bitter disappointment, and it needed all Professor
Nichol's powers of persuasion to convince her that
the situation now offered to her son might really open
the way to his future distinction.

At length, having completed his outfit in London,

1814-1840 APPOINTED TO GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 33

he started on the last day of March, and arrived at
Tenby at one o'clock in the morning of the 2nd of
April by the Phoenix, from Bristol, there to begin
a career in the Geological Survey which was to last
until he had risen to be the head of the service, and
one of the foremost geologists of his day.

D

CHAPTER II

THE ORDNANCE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

IN the Geological Survey of Great Britain, to which
Ramsay was now appointed, he spent more than forty
years. The work of his life was so intimately bound
up with the progress of the Survey that it cannot be
intelligently followed unless this relationship is clearly
understood. At the outset, therefore, it will be desir-
able to trace the origin and development of the organ-
isation of which he now became a member, and of
which for many years he was the guiding spirit.

The Geological Survey owes its existence to the
sagacity and energy of Henry Thomas De la Beche.
This distinguished man — the last male representative
of a family of Norman barons who came to England
with the Conqueror — was born in 1796. From his
father, who was in the army, he inherited some landed
estate in Jamaica. But the halcyon days of this island
had fled, and left him by no means wealthy. It was at
first intended that he should follow the profession of
his father, and with that end in view he was sent to
the Military College of Great Marlow, where he had
been preceded some five years earlier by his future
friend Murchison. But the close of the great war
seeming to shut out any hope of distinction in the
career of an active soldier, he turned his thoughts in

1841 H. T. DE LA BECHE 35

another direction. From early years he had been
fond of natural history pursuits, and especially of
geology, for the prosecution of which he had found
admirable opportunities along the southern coast of
England. When only twenty-one years of age he
entered the Geological Society, and two years later
was admitted into the Royal Society. He did not
confine his attention, however, merely to English
geology, but extended his acquaintance with the
principles and illustrations of the science by foreign
travel. At one time he might be seen sounding and
charting the Lake of Geneva, at another he was at
work among the rocks on the Riviera, or studying the
fossil plants of the Col de Balme. He even carried
his science across the Atlantic, and while visiting his
paternal domain in Jamaica, lost no opportunity of
studying the geology of that island, of which the first
account was published by him.

De la Beche had a singularly wide and firm grasp
of geological science. A master of stratigraphy, he
likewise made himself familiar with minerals and
rocks, at a time when the study of petrography can
hardly be said to have existed in this country. Having
read much and critically in chemistry, he was able
to apply the results of chemical research to the prob-
lems presented by his geological work. Though
not a professed palaeontologist, he had such keen
sympathy with natural history inquiries, and knew so
much of the natural history of his own country, that
he recognised from an early period the necessity of a
knowledge of organic remains in geological research,
and did all in his power to foster the study and applica-
tions of palaeontology. Moreover, he wrote a number
of papers and books. Among his most important and

36 THE ORDNANCE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY CHAP, n

successful works were an excellent Geological Manual ;
a practical treatise, The Geological Observer, full of the
experience of many years of field-observation ; and a
striking little volume, Researches in Theoretical Geology,
which for sagacious insight and breadth of view was far
in advance of its time.

To his scientific qualities were added those of the
artist and the keen lover of nature, combined with a
strength of frame which, in his prime, made him a bold
swimmer and an active pedestrian. Over and above
all shone his bright cheery nature, his irrepressible
merriment, his helpful sympathy, and that inexhaust-
ible enthusiasm which not only supported his own
untiring efforts, but, like a contagion, affected and
stimulated all who were associated with him. In his
later days he was sometimes thought by his officers to
be too scheming and to subordinate their interests to
the advancement of the Survey and of the large
Museum and School of Mines which grew out of it.
But we must remember that he had to create the
whole establishment, to gain the goodwill of suc-
cessive governments and ministers, not always pre-
disposed to spend money in the cause of science,
and to keep the organisation effective with as little
outlay as possible.

After various more or less desultory geological
studies at home and abroad, De la Beche at last
settled down seriously to the detailed investigation of
the geological structure of the south-west of England.
He began to map that region on the Ordnance maps
which had then been published on the scale of one
inch to a mile. He soon saw of how much practical
utility carefully-prepared geological maps would be in
aiding the development of the mineral resources of

1841 EARLY HISTORY OF SURVEY 37

the country, and that the work which he was himself
voluntarily undertaking at his own charges would be
more efficiently performed in connection with the
general Trigonometrical Survey of the country. Ac-
cordingly, having laid his views before the authorities,
he was in 1832 appointed by the Board of Ordnance
' to affix geological colours to the maps of Devonshire
and portions of Somerset, Dorset, and Cornwall.' 1 His
work thus obtained official recognition.

By the beginning of 1834 De la Beche, acting
under the direction of the Board of Ordnance, had
produced a geological map of the county of Devon
which, as remarked at the time by Greenough, ' for
extent and minuteness of information and beauty of
execution has a very high claim to regard.'2 He
worked with such rapidity that by the end of that year,
of the eight sheets of the Ordnance map on which he
had been engaged, four had been published, three were
complete, and the eighth nearly complete, while the
explanatory memoir and sections were far advanced.3

Next year (1835) an important step was taken in
the official recognition and assistance of De la Beche's
labours. Owing, no doubt, to his own representations
on the subject, the Ordnance authorities were led to
consider the question of the geological work which he
had been carrying on under their sanction, and to take
the advice of distinguished experts in regard to it.
Their action and its results cannot be better told than
in the following quotation from the address of Lyell as
President of the Geological Society in February 1836.

Early in the spring of last year an application was made by
the Master-General and Board of Ordnance to Dr. Buckland and

1 Proc. Geol. Soc. i. p. 447. 2 Op. cit. ii. p. 51.

3 Op. cit. p. 154.

38 THE ORDNANCE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY CHAP, n

Mr. Sedgwick, as Professors of Geology in the Universities of
Oxford and Cambridge, and to myself, as President of this Society,
to offer our opinion as to the expediency of combining a geological
examination of the English counties with the geographical survey
now in progress. In compliance with this requisition we drew up a
joint report, in which we endeavoured to state fully our opinion as
to the great advantages which must accrue from such an undertaking,
not only as calculated to promote geological science, which would
alone be a sufficient object, but also as a work of great practical
utility, bearing on agriculture, mining, road-making, the formation of
canals and railroads, and other branches of national industry. The
enlightened views of the Board of Ordnance were warmly seconded
by the present Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. T. Spring Rice),
and. a grant was obtained from the Treasury to defray the additional
expenses which will be incurred in colouring geologically the Ord-
nance county maps. This arrangement may be justly regarded as
an economical one, as those surveyors who have cultivated geology
can with small increase of labour, when exploring the minute topo-
graphy of the ground, trace out the boundaries of the principal
mineral groups. This end, however, could only be fully accom-
plished by securing the co-operation of an experienced and able
geologist, who might organise and direct the operations ; and I con-
gratulate the Society that our Foreign Secretary, Mr. De la Beche,
has been chosen to discharge an office for which he is so eminently
qualified.1

The amount granted by the Treasury was only
^300 a year, so that most of the expense of the
surveying still fell upon De la Beche himself. He
obtained, indeed, occasional assistance from two officers
of the Ordnance Survey2 who possessed some geo-
logical knowledge, and who more especially helped
him in the mining districts.

At last by the year 1839 all the maps of the south-
west of England had appeared ; likewise an admirable
octavo volume, giving a description of the geology of
this interesting and important region.3 How these

1 Proc. GeoL Soc. vol. ii. p. 358.

2 H. M'Lauchlan and H. Still, who were both Fellows of the Geological
Society.

3 Report on the Geology of Cornwall, Devon, and West Somerset, by Henry
T. De la Beche, F.R.S. and Director of the Ordnance Geological Survey, 1839.
The Survey maps are sheets 20-33.

1841 EARL Y PROGRESS OF SUR VE Y 39

publications were regarded at the time by English
geologists may be gathered from the encomium pro-
nounced on them by Buckland as President of the
Geological Society in the spring of 1840.

The first map which I shall mention affords another example of
the recognition by Government of the importance of our subject
by their having attached a geological department to the Ordnance
Survey of England and Wales. The first-fruits of this appointment
are the splendid maps of Devon and Cornwall and a part of
Somerset, coloured after the surveys of Mr. De la Beche; and it
may truly be said of them that they are more beautiful in their
execution, more accurate in their details, and more instructive in the
economical and scientific information they give respecting mines
than any maps yet published by any Government in the world ;
affording documents to which we can at length with pride appeal,
in reply to the reproach that has so long, with too much truth, been
cast upon us, that England alone, of all the civilised nations, has
abandoned to gratuitous individual exertions, and the liberality of
amateurs in science, the great work of exploring and delineating the
mineral structure of the country, and ascertaining the nature and
extent of the subterranean produce which lies at the foundation of
the industry of its manufacturing population, and to which the nation
owes no small portion of its wealth.1

The rapidity with which these maps were prepared
by so small a staff would have been impossible had
the ground been surveyed in the same minute detail
as is now practised. In fact, admirable as they were
in many ways, and far as they were in advance of any-
thing of the kind previously attempted, they can be
regarded as little more than sketch-maps, giving a
first general outline of the geological structure of the
ground. They ought not to be judged by the higher
standard of intricate detail subsequently developed in
the work of the Survey. In later years, had Ramsay
been free to act as he pleased in the matter, he would
have had all these early maps resurveyed.

Having so successfully launched his scheme for a

1 Proc. Geol. Soc. iii. p. 221.

40 THE ORDNANCE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY CHAP, n

geological survey of the kingdom, De la Beche pro-
ceeded to point out to the Chancellor of the Exchequer
that for the adequate development of the great mineral
industries of the country it was not enough to make
accurate maps of geological structure, but that it was
further needful to collect and exhibit specimens of
rocks and minerals which were used, or might seem
capable of application, in the industrial arts. He had
already, during his work in Devon and Cornwall,
made an extensive collection of specimens from the
great mining region of the south-west. Another large
series of samples of British building-stones was ac-
cumulated by the Commission appointed to inquire
into the most suitable materials for constructing the
new Palace of Westminster, after the burning of the
old Houses of Parliament in I834.1

There was thus a large amount of material ready
for display, and through the labours of the Ordnance
Geological Survey, as well as from donations, it was
continually increasing in extent and in value. De
la Beche's representations were so obviously well
founded, that they soon obtained official approba-
tion. Apartments were allotted for the accommoda-
tion of the Survey collections, and in February 1837
the Office of Woods and Forests formally took the
scheme under its charge, and asked De la Beche to
carry out his proposals. His design was to establish
a Museum of Economic Geology, wherein the

1 This Commission consisted of Mr. — afterwards Sir Charles — Barry, William
Smith, the father of English Geology, De la Beche, and Mr. C. H. Smith, a
practical sculptor. De la Beche probably took the main part of the labour of
collecting the specimens and preparing the Report. The work was done before
the days of railroads, and the Commissioners drove about the country in an old
carriage and pair, visiting quarry after quarry, procuring rough samples of the
different stones, which were sent up to Mr. C. H. Smith's yard to be dressed into
six-inch cubes. These blocks are now in the Museum of Practical Geology,
Jermyn Street.

1841 MUSEUM OF ECONOMIC GEOLOGY 41

various practical applications of the science might be
thoroughly illustrated by specimens, models, maps,
sections, and as much information as possible, not only
for the general public, but especially for the guidance
of all persons practically interested in mineral sub-
stances and their applications.

The premises assigned to him for the housing of
his collections were in a plain building of moderate
size, with no front to the street, and situated in the
retired space known as Craig's Court, Charing Cross.
The Museum of Economic Geology, thus started, was
in fair working order by 1839, though not ready to be
opened to the public for two years later. It was under
the control of the Office of Woods, but the Geological
Survey remained as a branch of the Ordnance Survey,
and De la Beche directed the Museum gratuitously. So
vigorously did he set to work that, besides the speci-
mens of rocks, minerals, and fossils, he soon gathered
together, arranged, and displayed models of mines,
samples and models of mining machinery and appara-
tus, with illustrations of metallurgical processes and of
the various industries which arise from the manipula-
tion of mineral substances.

He further secured sanction to fit up a laboratory,
and to appoint as Curator of the Museum one of
the best analytical chemists of his day, Richard
Phillips, who had taken part in the foundation of
the Geological Society. At this laboratory it was
arranged that the public might obtain analyses of
rocks, minerals, and soils.

There was yet another important department which
De la Beche now organised. The British Association
had in 1838 memorialised Government to collect and
preserve documents recording the mining operations

42 THE ORDNANCE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY CHAP, n

of the United Kingdom, on the ground that, for want
of the proper preservation of such records, great loss
of life and destruction of property had taken place.
This petition having been favourably received, De la
Beche was authorised to form a Mining Record Office
as part of the Craig's Court establishment. Plans and
sections of mines were obtained from various mining
districts, steps were taken to procure statistics of
mineral industry, and in 1840 the Mining Record
Office thus started was committed to the charge of
T. B. Jordan, a man of remarkable ingenuity, who had
been Secretary of the Royal Polytechnic Society of
Cornwall. It was further arranged that lectures should
be given on the subjects illustrated by the Museum.1

When he had completed, with so little aid, the
survey of the south-western counties, and had roused
the Government of the day to some appreciation of at
least the industrial value of his work, De la Beche
resolved to transfer his field - operations to South
Wales, where an important coal-field awaited examina-
tion. Still under the Board of Ordnance, he obtained
increased parliamentary grants, and was allowed the
services of a few assistants — young men with no geo-
logical experience, whom he had to train in all the
details of geological mapping.

The field-work had been a year or two in progress
in South Wales when Andrew C. Ramsay joined the
staff. Referring to this period of his life at a much
later time, he remarked: ' In the year 1841 I had the
good fortune to be appointed one of the few assistant
geologists. The Survey had then progressed west-

1 For the early history of the Museum of Economic Geology and Mining
Record Office see theAccounfof them by T. Sop with (see p. 78), published by Murray
in 1840. See also Buckland, Proc. Geol. Sec. iii. (1840), pp. 211, 221. The
Mining Record Office was transferred to the Home Office in 1883.

1841 DUTIES OF GEOLOGISTS 43

wards into Pembrokeshire, and was at work at Tenby,
and St. David's, and the neighbourhood. There
were then four assistants besides myself.'1

Over and above the ordinary assistants, however,
the Survey was aided in the palaeontological depart-
ment by Professor John Phillips — a name affectionately
remembered by those who knew him, and honoured
by all to whom the history of British geology is
familiar.2 Phillips had previously been employed to
examine, figure, and describe the organic remains in
the older rocks met with in the course of the survey of
Cornwall, Devon, and West Somerset, and an im-
portant monograph giving the results of his labours
appeared in 1841 as a sequel to the Report of De la
Beche.3 Before the publication of this work, however,
the field-operations of the Survey had extended into
South Wales, and Phillips in 1840 received an
appointment to extend his task into East Somerset,
Gloucester, Monmouth, and South Wales. He was
in Pembrokeshire when Ramsay joined the staff, and
they had some excursions together.

The duties of the geologists in the Geological
Survey were to trace on the one-inch maps of the
Ordnance Survey the boundaries, structure, and
relations of the various geological formations, to
collect as much information as possible regarding the
nature of the rocks and minerals, to mark where any
substances of economic value might be found, to follow

1 ' On the Origin and Progress of the Geological Survey of the British Isles '
in Conferences held in connection -with the Special Loan Collection of Scientific
Apparatus, South Kensington Museum, 1876, p. 364. The four assistants
referred to above were W. T. Aveline, who joined the service the year before
Ramsay, retired from it the year after him, and now lives in Somerset ; Trevor
E. James, D. H. Williams, and J. Rees.

2 See ante, footnote, p. 18.

3 Figures and Descriptions of the Paleozoic Rocks of Cornwall, Devon, and
West Somerset. By John Phillips, 1841.

44 THE ORDNANCE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY CHAP, n

out the crops of lodes and mineral seams, as well as of
the more important dislocations in the crust of the
earth, to note where fossils occurred, and to take such
specimens of minerals, rocks, and fossils as might be
required for the preparation of the maps for the
engraver, and the compilation of material for the sub-
sequent explanatory Memoirs. There were likewise
levellings to be executed for the purpose of constructing
horizontal sections, which were drawn on the scale of
six inches to a mile. These sections formed as novel a
feature as the detailed maps in the progress of geo-
logical surveying. They had been constructed by Logan
in Wales, in order to represent accurately the structure
of the great South Welsh coal-field. The same scale
was adopted by De la Beche, who, with his artistic eye
and deft hand, introduced into his horizontal sections
a system of representation of geological structure such
as had never before been attempted. The sections
were on a true scale, vertical as well as horizontal.
By carefully chaining and levelling, the topography of
the ground was represented correctly, and for the first
time the relations between surface-features and under-
ground structure were clearly brought out.

In carrying out the various field-operations of the
Survey De la Beche took an active personal interest.
He spent the greater part of the year with his officers,
and kept himself in touch with the details of their
work, besides continuing for some years to carry on
independent mapping of his own. As the staff in-
creased in number, and Ireland came under his
jurisdiction, he was necessarily prevented from doing
much himself in actual mapping, and he gradually left
more and more to the judgment of his subordinates.

Being under a military organisation, the surveyors

f

WILLIAM E. LOGAN

1841 LIFE IN THE SURVEY 45

wore a dark blue uniform. A tight - fitting, well-
buttoned frock-coat, however, was not a very com-
fortable garment for the rough scrambling and climb-
ing work of the survey life. The geologists were
therefore by no means sorry when, on their trans-
ference in 1845 from the Ordnance Department, they
were at liberty to choose their own civilian apparel.
But as a souvenir of their military connection they
retained the gilt buttons embossed with the crown
and crossed hammers, which for many years after-
wards were worn on festive occasions. Even those
members of the service who joined in later years
used to provide themselves with a set of the * Survey
buttons,' and wore them on their waistcoats at the
annual dinner.

The life of a member of the Geological Survey is,
in many respects, an enviable one. He starts soon
after breakfast, lightly accoutred, and spends the day,
map in hand, over the ground assigned to him for
survey. Every exposure of rock is noted by him on
his map or in his note-book, with all the needful
details. Each stream is followed step by step up to
its source ; each hill-side and ravine is traversed from
end to end ; each quarry, sometimes each ditch, and
even the very furrows and turned-up soil of a ploughed
field are scrutinised in turn. He is thus led into
every nook and corner of the ground, until he
acquires a more intimate knowledge of it than many
of the natives who have been living there all their
lives. Out early and late, and in all kinds of
weather, he witnesses changing atmospheric effects
such as few others have opportunities of enjoying.
He is brought into every variety of scenery, and is
compelled by his very duties to study these varieties,

46 THE ORDNANCE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY CHAP, n

and make use of them in his daily work. If he has a
love of nature, and this, to be a good geologist, he must
possess, he is afforded ample scope for its gratification.
Flowers, insects, birds, and living things of every
kind meet his eye at each turn of the way. If he has
any antiquarian instincts, his rambles enable him to
visit every antiquity for miles around him. If, lastly,
he is of a social temperament, and cares to mix with
his fellowmen, there is often pleasant society in the
neighbourhood, where a stranger of good address is
generally welcomed. Sometimes he must content
himself with the kindly gossip of the little farm or way-
side-inn ; at other times he finds himself discussing
rural politics with the village doctor, or undergoing a
process of examination in the tendencies of modern
science at the parsonage, or joining in a pleasant
dinner-party at the squire's.

That such a life has its trials, however, may readily
be believed. The mere physical endurance which it
often requires is enough to tax the strength of a
strong man. Not unfrequently, indeed, it involves
personal danger as well as discomfort. Few members
of the staff but can give instances of narrow escapes
from fatal accident. Now it is a mass of cliff or crag
which, without warning, falls with a crash close to
where the surveyor is standing, or a single loosened
block from the rocks above shoots past his head with
a whizz like a cannon-ball. At another time it is a
treacherous bog which, firm apparently on the surface,
suddenly gives way under his feet, and out of the mire
of which he with difficulty drags himself. Streams
which in the morning could be jumped across may
by nightfall, after heavy rain, be so swollen as to be
unfordable without peril. Snow - storms sometimes

1841 LIFE IN THE SURVEY 47

surprise the geologist among the hills, and as the
snow rapidly gathers, roads, walls, and fences may
be entirely buried before he can struggle through the
blinding drift back to his quarters. Among the
mountains he is apt to be overtaken by mists so
dense that much skill may be needed to steer a right
course through them. And in thunderstorms he is
sometimes startled by the lightning flash which strikes
a tree or a house, or kills a cow, quite close to him.

But apart from occasional personal risk, the con-
stant exposure to the vicissitudes of a changeable
climate, the necessity of sometimes enduring serious
discomfort and privation in districts where quarters
are hardly to be had, where the food is of the sorriest
kind, and yet where the geological work may be most
difficult and prolonged ; the isolation and loneliness at
stations where no congenial society of any kind is
to be found, the necessity of frequently moving camp
to begin all the domestic experiences and discomforts
over again, and the poor pay for which all this
drudgery has to be undergone — these and other hard-
ships which may be easily imagined test the scientific
enthusiasm of a geologist. By a young man who is
fired with an ardent love of his science they are lightly
regarded and soon forgotten. It is only as he grows
older, and his enthusiasm somewhat wanes, that he
begins to find them a serious impediment to the
settled home which he then, not unnaturally, longs
to establish.

It may easily be imagined that when a member of
the Survey plants himself in a country village his
occupation becomes at once a source of the utmost
curiosity to his neighbours. He carries his accoutre-
ments about his person in such a manner that they do

48 THE ORDNANCE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY CHAP, n

not attract notice. Compass, clinometer, map, note-
book, lens, pencils, and so forth, are easily stowed
away in his pockets ; the hammer can be disposed in a
belt under the tails of his coat, so that he presents no
outward marks of his profession. His movements are
consequently mysterious in the extreme to the villagers
and farm-people, and the most amusing mistakes are
made in endeavouring to guess his calling in life. He
finds himself set down now for a postman, now for a
doctor, for a farmer, a cattle-dealer, a travelling show-
man, a country gentleman, a gamekeeper, a poacher,
an itinerant lecturer, a gauger, a clergyman, a play-
actor, and often as a generally suspicious character.
A former distinguished member of the staff, who now
holds a University professorship, has received and duly
posted many a letter entrusted to him in the belief that
he was the authorised bearer of Her Majesty's mails.
Another well-known colleague, who is now also a
University Professor, tells how on one occasion he
was taken for a policeman in plain clothes, and could
not for some time make out why a poor woman poured
into his ears a long story about her son, who had been
taken up for doing something that he had not done,
and did quite unintentionally, and was quite justified in
doing. Gamekeepers are sorely puzzled sometimes
what to make of the Geological Survey trespasser ;
they are afraid to challenge him lest he prove to be a
friend of their master, and afraid to let him go his way
for fear he be on poaching thoughts intent. One
member of the staff who had taken up his quarters in
a village was watched for some days by the police on
suspicion of having been concerned in a recent burglary.
Another was stalked as a suspect who had been setting
fire to farm-buildings. A third was watched hammer-

1 84 1 SURVEY EXPERIENCES 49

ing by himself in the bed of a stream, and as he gave
vent to some strong expression when the obstinate
boulder refused to part with a splinter, the onlooker on
the other side of the hedge fled in terror to the neigh-
bouring village and reported that this strange man
who had come among them was stark mad, and should
not be left to go by himself. Sometimes the laugh
goes distinctly against the geologist, as in the case of
one of the staff who, poking about to see the rocks
exposed on the outskirts of a village in Cumberland,
was greeted by an old woman as the * sanitary
'spector.' He modestly disclaimed the honour, but
noticing that the place was very filthy, ventured to
hint that such an official would find something to do
there. And he thereupon began to enlarge on the
evils of accumulating filth, resulting, among other
things, in an unhealthy and stunted population. His
auditor heard him out, and then, calmly surveying him
from head to foot, remarked, ' Well, young man, all I
have to tell ye is that the men o' this place are a deal
bigger and stronger and handsomer nor you.' She
bore no malice, for she offered him a cup of tea, but
he was too cowed to face her any longer.

When Andrew Ramsay entered upon this roving
Survey life in the spring of 1841, he was twenty-seven
years of age, active and athletic in body, with bound-
less enthusiasm for geology, and an ardent desire to
devote himself to practical geological work. Long
afterwards, looking back on this period of his life, he
used to tell how at first the change from a Glasgow
counting-house to daily occupation among the hills
and along the shores of South Wales seemed like
a dream. He could hardly realise for some time
that the pursuit, formerly followed only during brief

50 THE ORDNANCE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY CHAP, n

but coveted intervals of holiday, was now to be the
constant business of his life. Day after day, as he
went out with map and hammer, it seemed to him
still holiday work. He brought the same insight and
ardour to the study of the Welsh region as he had
shown in that of Arran. And before long the
Director recognised that in his new recruit he had
obtained by far the ablest member of his staff.

For upwards of four years the Survey continued
to advance across South Wales. During this period
Ramsay gradually worked his way northwards from
the southern coast-line of Pembrokeshire across the
counties of Caermarthen, Brecknock, and Cardigan,
into those of Montgomery and Radnor. Professor
John Phillips was with him for a short time along the
Pembrokeshire coast before establishing himself among
the Malvern Hills, which he mapped in detail. H. W.
Bristow was at work in Gloucestershire, where Ramsay
joined him (p. 235), and afterwards, under Phillips, took
a share in mapping the Oolites of the Cotteswold Hills
and of the Cheltenham, Wotton-under-Edge, and Bath
district.1 But in these early years his time was almost
wholly devoted to the older rocks in Wales.

The geological structure of the Welsh region in
which he was called upon to labour proved to be exces-
sively complicated. It had been only cursorily examined
by previous observers. De la Beche and Phillips were
content to map its southern outskirts in a somewhat
sketchy manner. Its real difficulties remained to be
discovered and grappled with. After his first year's
experience Ramsay drew up a draft report of his
operations. Unfortunately this report was never
printed, nor do its conclusions appear to have been

1 See Prefatory Notice to ' Geology of East Somerset,' Mem. Geol. Surv. 1876.

1841 GEOLOGICAL WORK IN SOUTH WALES 51

published even in abstract. It is entitled ' Report on
the work entrusted to A. C. Ramsay in North Pem-
brokeshire, and part of Cardiganshire and Caermar-
thenshire.' The MS., which is in his handwriting,
remains in the archives of the Geological Survey. In
this document he gave special prominence to the
igneous rocks, which he separated into intrusive and
contemporaneous, showing that the latter cover by far
the greater area. Among the rocks of St. David's
he clearly recognised the presence of volcanic ash, and
saw in these rocks the records of prolonged volcanic
activity. Other geologists, notably Sedgwick, Mur-
chison, and De la Beche, had described the proofs of
contemporaneous volcanic eruptions among stratified
formations of old geological date. But Ramsay was
the first to trace out in detail the structure of a
volcanic series of such high antiquity, and to separate
from each other the outflowing lavas, the ejected
ashes, and the deep-seated intrusive sills. When we
remember, too, that this was practically his first piece
of detailed mapping, we cannot fail to acknowledge
the earnest which was thus given of the future
geological accomplishment of the surveyor.

It fell to Murchison's lot as President of the
Geological Society in 1843 to giye some account of
the recent proceedings of the Geological Survey in his
address at the Anniversary of the Society in February.
He referred to the increasing evidence brought for-
ward by the officers of the Survey that the interior of
South Wales, which had been vaguely referred by him
to Sedgwick's ' Cambrian ' system, consisted largely
of Lower Silurian rocks. He spoke of the Survey's
* results, obtained among strata so obscured by change,
as among the very highest triumphs of geological

52 THE ORDNANCE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY CHAP, n

field-work.' * I therefore wish,' he added, 'to be fore-
most in recognising the deserts of the labourers who
have obtained them, among whom the Director par-
ticularly cites Mr. Ramsay, already so favourably
known to us by his geological map and model of the
Isle of Arran.'1

The St. David's map was published in 1845, an<^
after its appearance a sheet of horizontal sections was
prepared and issued, showing what was believed to be
the general structure of the ground. Unfortunately,
twelve years afterwards, in second editions of these
publications, while great improvements were made in
the general stratigraphy, the views originally formed
by Ramsay as to the nature of the St. David's rocks
were so modified, though confessedly with his own con-
sent and co-operation, that the essentially accurate inter-
pretation at first adopted disappeared. In later years
the truly volcanic nature of much of the fragmental
rocks in that district, which in the second edition of
the map became ' altered Cambrian,' was re-discovered,
and the merit of the first observations was for a time
obscured.2

There was yet another feature in which Ramsay
improved the mapping of the Survey. He traced out,
where practicable, lithological subdivisions among the
older Palaeozoic rocks, which had not previously been
subdivided, and was thus able to detect their sequence
and the general structure of the ground over which
they extended. In particular, even in his first year's
work, he drew a line between the black and purple
slates which, though not put on the published map at

1 Proc. Geol. Soc. iv. (1843), P- 76-

2 The details of this question will be found narrated in the Quarterly Journal
of the Geological Society, vol. xxxix. (1883), p. 263.

1841 GEOLOGICAL WORK IN SOUTH WALES 53

the time, was afterwards adopted as the boundary
between the Cambrian and Silurian systems. It was
in those days the belief of the great body of geologists
that the older rocks of South Wales belonged to Sedg-
wick's Cambrian formations, and as such they were
coloured on the large map accompanying Murchison's
Silurian System, published in 1839. A few fossils had
indeed been found in them which were of Lower
Silurian species, but the evidence supplied by these
fossils does not seem to have been considered strong
enough to change the general current of opinion.
When in 1841 the Survey began to map the region
about Haverfordwest, neither De la Beche nor his
officers could find any base to the series which, by
common consent, was acknowledged to be Lower
Silurian. And when in that and the following year
Ramsay and others obtained Lower Silurian fossils at
various points across the whole breadth of South
Wales, they could come to no other conclusion than
that this wide region consisted of Lower Silurian
rocks repeated in endless undulations.

Much more detailed work would now be possible
in South Wales than is shown upon the maps of the
Geological Survey. But those who may in future
carry out this re-survey will doubtless be the first to
admit the value of the work of the pioneers who pro-
duced the first geological map of that difficult tract of
country. Ramsay himself was well aware of the
imperfection of the early work in South Wales, as will
be apparent in later pages of this volume.

Of the actual daily life of these first years
of his Survey experience in Wales little record
seems to have been preserved. He used to tell in
later life how, when stationed at St. David's during

54 THE ORDNANCE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY CHAP. 11

the summer of 1841, he sang in the Cathedral choir,
for he had an ardent love of music, could with facility
read music at sight, and possessed a good voice.
One of his early experiences he used sometimes to
recount : how, having been benighted among the hills,
he found his way in the dark to a stream-course, and
in descending it came to a cottage where he was
known. The shepherd brought him in out of the
darkness, and his wife, seeing the famished look of the
wanderer, set a large dish of food before him. Eating
with all the * passion of a twelve hours' fast,' Ramsay
soon emptied the dish, and then to his dismay dis-
covered that he had eaten up the supper of the family.
From his pocket diary for 1842, which has survived,
we get a few further glimpses into his proceedings.
Instead of going up to London he remained at his
field-quarters all winter, and went out among the hills
when the weather permitted. He continued his active
pedestrianism, sometimes covering 30 miles in a day.
When the distances from his station got too far to be
easily reached on foot, he would ride out to his
ground, put up his horse at a farm, spend all day in
mapping, and ride back to his quarters in the evening.
On wet days and in the evenings he had always
plenty of occupation indoors. He was a regular corre-
spondent with his family in the north, and with many
of his old Glasgow companions, now scattered over the
world. In the brief jottings of his memorandum books
he always inserted the names of those to whom he had
written. Hardly any of these early letters have been
recovered. Besides writing to his mother and sister,
who were now all that remained in the old home, from
the very beginning of his Survey life he remitted
money out of his income to them, and he continued

1842 SURVEY LIFE IN SOUTH WALES 55

this pious duty as long as his mother lived and his sister
remained unmarried.

Of an eminently social temperament, he made
acquaintances easily wherever he went, and these
chance acquaintanceships sometimes ripened into life-
long friendships. In one family circle we find him
reading aloud Shakespeare, or Scottish ballads, or a
good novel ; in another he takes part, heart and soul,
in singing glees and madrigals ; in a third he joins in
dancing and all kinds of merriment. After being some
little time at a station he knew everybody worth know-
ing all round him, and sometimes had difficulty in
satisfying the demands for his company. The appear-
ance of a pleasant, conversational, and merry-hearted
stranger was sometimes an extraordinary boon to a
country district in the days before railways. His
doings and sayings, his goings-out and comings-in,
were a source of the deepest interest to gossips who
longed for some new event in their little world. If he
dined at a house noted for its conviviality, there would
be solemn head-shakings and expressions of regret
that one so young should have been led into such
courses. If he spent an evening now and then in a
family where there were two or three daughters, it was
supposed that he could have but one object there.
Curiosity was at once aroused to discover which of the
ladies he had chosen, and curiosity soon gave way to
certainty as the report of an engagement was rapidly
circulated through the parish.

In South Wales Ramsay had early experience of
these manifestations of public interest in his affairs.
He was naturally fond of female society. His conver-
sational powers, his literary taste, and his lively
humour found there a congenial stimulus. And while

56 THE ORDNANCE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY CHAP, n

he thoroughly enjoyed it, his presence brought a
brightness which gave general pleasure in return.
This mutual reaction continued to mark his social
intercourse up to the end. In his younger days in
Wales, when the tittle-tattle of a countryside was
beginning to teach him greater circumspection, he
passes judgment rather severely on himself. ' i^tk
February 1842. — Am, on the whole, rather an ass to be
so serio-comic, sentimental, and universally captivato
flirt aceous!

Although most of the time working alone, he had
occasionally visits from one or other of his colleagues,
or went to see them at their stations. De la Beche,
too, used to join him and spend a few days with him
on his ground. The Director-General was knighted
in April 1842, and early next month paid a visit to his
officers in South Wales. The following entries occur
in the diary of 1842 : ' $rd May. — Sir Henry De la
Beche arrived at Caermarthen. I called at night,
when we walked down to the stables to see his horse.
As jolly as ever.' ' ^th. — Out all day with Sir Henry.'
* \$th. — Sir Henry left me to-day.' * ' qtk June.—
To-day we [A. C. R. and T. E. James] found lots of
fossils far to the north of Llandeilo ; wrote to Sir H.
to come and see them.' * loth. — Had a glorious find
of fossils, and played at cricket in the evening.' * nth.
—Sir Henry came down and saw our beautiful section
by Cwm y Wern. We all bathed in a pool. Fossilised
a bit, and then home.' ' \^th. — Rode to Llangadock
to see Rees ; a delightful night ; Sir H. very kind
about futurity.'

It was one of De la Beche's characteristic traits
that, having wide aims, and clear views as to how he
should endeavour to carry these aims to their fulfil-

i844 EDWARD FORBES JOINS THE SURVEY 57

ment, he possessed a power of discerning the qualities
of the fellow-workers who would best serve his pur-
pose, and of attracting and attaching them to his corps.
He was always moving about with his eyes open, on
the outlook for the best men to co-operate with him
in his great scheme for the national endowment of
geological inquiry. After many months of delay and
suspense he succeeded, in the autumn of 1844, in
inducing the Government of the day to authorise him
to appoint a palaeontologist to the staff of the Survey,
whose special duty it should be to determine the fossils
found by the surveyors and collectors, and to confer
with these officers in the field as to the classification
and boundary lines of the fossiliferous formations.
He selected for this important post perhaps the most
brilliant naturalist of his day — Edward Forbes, who,
after returning from his researches in the ./Egean Sea,
had been appointed Curator of the Geological Society.
Ramsay and Forbes had formed a friendship at the
Glasgow meeting of the British Association, and
their intimacy grew every year closer. The subjoined
letter is of interest here.1

22nd November 1844.

DEAR RAMSAY — What on earth put it into your head that I
could possibly be offended at anything you have lately written and
done ? My dear fellow, I feel most grateful to you, and it is only
the press of business engagements upon my change of office which
has prevented my writing. I can assure you I feel 10° happier
than I did last winter and spring, having now a fair promise of doing
something satisfactory for science, and getting rid of Geological
Society patchwork. In a fortnight I shall be altogether clear of the
G. S. (as an officer, that's to say), as I suppose they will make their
election next meeting. Ansted [see p. 7 8] will probably be the man,
and a better for their purpose they could not have. He'll keep up
the dignity of the office, and work like a brick. ... I look forward to

1 The triangle at the end of Forbes's signature was characteristic of his early
days. See his Life, p. 195.

58 THE ORDNANCE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY CHAP, n

great things at C. C. [Craig's Court], and have the fullest faith in Sir
Henry.

As to news here, there isn't much stirring yet. It may be divided
into Scientific, Literary, and Philosophical —

1. Scientific. — Mantell is giving a course of geological lectures
at the London Institution. A curious book called the Vestiges of
Creation, containing many speculations on Geology and Natural
History, said to be written by Sir Richard Vivian, is making great
stir in town. A first-rate synopsis and analysis of the Trilobites has
just come to hand from Germany with exquisite plates. It is written
by the great entomologist Burmeister.

2. Literary. — Punch is published as usual every week. Two
new plays have just come out, and the theatres are worth going to.

3. Philosophical. — Lankester, Day, Francis, Henry, etc. etc., and
myself have succeeded in establishing a monthly meeting and feed
of Red Lions at the 'Cheshire Cheese' in Fleet Street [see p. 62]. We

look forward to your roaring in our company. Clara , the pretty

dancer, ran away with somebody the beginning of last week, and
came back at the end of it. Amen ! Ever, dear Ramsay,

EDWARD FORBES A.

Ramsay and Forbes in the early part of this
year (1844) had been sounded as to the feasibility
of bringing out, with the sanction and co-operation
of W. D. Conybeare,1 a new edition of the classic
Outlines of the Geology of England and Wales, by
Conybeare and W. Phillips, of which the original
edition appeared in 1822. Conybeare himself had
made some progress with the task, but he seems
to have found the labour beyond the strength of
his advancing years, and through the intermediary
of De la Beche, entered into negotiations with the
two younger authors. These proposals took at last
definite shape in a formal legal agreement, dated
8th April 1844, between Conybeare, Forbes, Ram-
say, and Messrs. Longmans and Co., publishers.

1 William Daniel Conybeare, born 1787, died 1857, author of some im-
portant geological memoirs, but best known for the Geology of England and
Wales, referred to above. This work was properly the second and much enlarged
edition of a volume by W. Phillips, which was published in 1818. It did not
include an account of the older Palaeozoic rocks.

1 844 THE CLIMATE OF BRITAIN 59

The work was to be in three parts or volumes,
of which it was stipulated that the first should be
delivered complete by the ist January 1845, the
second by the ist October of the same year, and
the third by the ist October 1846. In fulfilment
of this undertaking Ramsay made numerous notes,
and wrote out many pages of manuscript, but the press
of official and other engagements, which became, both
with him and with his colleague, increasingly severe,
prevented the task from ever being completed. Looking
back upon this enterprise, we can hardly doubt that
Ramsay felt his practical acquaintance with English
geology to be as yet too limited to enable him to per-
form the task as he would have wished. It was only
three years since he had left Scotland, and those years,
actively spent in field-work as they were, had been
passed almost wholly in South Wales. He gained
eventually an unrivalled familiarity with English geo-
logy, but many years had still to elapse before that
qualification was acquired.

Much is said and written in dispraise of the climate
of the British Isles, but the field-geologist can find
few regions on the face of the globe where he may ply
his vocation more continuously from season to season
than there. The winters over much of the United
Kingdom are seldom so severe as seriously to inter-
rupt out-of-door work for more than a week or two at
a time. The summers are not too warm to prevent
active exercise in the open air from early morning
until dusk, while the length of a summer's day in these
northern latitudes gives time for as much continuous
walking and climbing as the strongest frame can
endure. Even the rain, which is the geologist's chief
meteorological enemy, falls in such wise that the

60 THE ORDNANCE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY CHAP, n

number of thoroughly wet days, when nothing can be
properly accomplished out of doors, is much less than
most people would be apt to believe. Hence, even
as far north as central Scotland, it is quite possible to
carry on geological surveying throughout the whole
year. And often the clear bracing air of December
allows nearly as much work to be done in a day as
can be accomplished in the warmer but more exhaust-
ing weather of June. Accordingly, it was no hardship
to Ramsay that, for the first year or two of his Survey
life, he spent the winters in South Wales. Thereafter
he generally came up to winter quarters in London,
the building in Craig's Court serving as the head
office of the Survey.

As occupation for the members of the Survey dur-
ing the winter months there is generally a considerable
accumulation of indoor work which cannot be satis-
factorily completed in country quarters. The lines
traced on the field-maps have to be drawn on fresh
copies, or what are called 'dry-proofs' of the sheets,
and all the details must be inserted which are intended
to be published, preparatory to the engraving of the
work. The horizontal sections levelled in the country
have to be plotted to scale, and their geological details
to be inserted. There are likewise reports and descrip-
tions which require to be extended from the field note-
books. There is thus usually ample occupation to
keep the surveyors busy from the time when they drop
field-work towards Christmas till they resume it in
spring.

In the early days of the Survey's history most
of the staff were young and unmarried. They took
lodgings in London, and generally dined two or three
or more together in some restaurant. Once a fort-

i845 PROMOTION IN THE SERVICE 61

night came the meeting of the Geological Society,
where they usually made their appearance, and, seated
on the back benches, looked down upon the veterans
on the front rows, and listened to the papers and
discussions, often lively enough in those early days of
geology. They had the entry also into various social
gatherings, with an occasional night at the theatre, so
that the time they could secure for quiet reading was
by no means great. How Ramsay passed his time in
the first seasons of his London life may be gathered
from a few extracts from his diary of the early months
of 1845 : —

4 ^rd January. — Reached the Paddington Station
[from Wales] at five in the morning. Got down to the
" Golden Cross," slept on benches, and breakfasted at
eight. At ten met Sir H. at the Muzzy [Museum], and
had a most jolly reception. Minute from the Treasury
authorising the junction of the Survey and the Muzzy.
It is proposed also that I should be Sir H.'s first
lieutenant with ^300 ! ! ! Thus one dream is in a fair
way of being realised. Playfair and I dined and
then danced at Smyth's till four.'

The change in the official relations of the Survey
thus briefly alluded to was a momentous one in
the history of the service. It was now arranged
that the Survey, hitherto conducted under the
Board of Ordnance, should be transferred to the
Office of Works, and that the Museum and Survey
should thus be united as part of one organisa-
tion under the control of a single public depart-
ment. It was further provided that the staff of sur-
veyors should be increased ; that the Geological Survey
of Ireland, which had likewise been in charge of the
Board of Ordnance, should henceforth be placed under

62 THE ORDNANCE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY CHAP, n

the supervision of the Director of the Geological
Survey of Great Britain, who should assume the title
of Director-General, and that under this chief there
should be two Directors, one for England and Scot-
land, with the title of Local Director for Great Britain,
and one for Ireland. It was the former of these two
posts which was now to be conferred on Ramsay.

* 8M January. — Playfair and I dined together.
Geological Society night. Paper on Fossil Crania
from South-Eastern Africa, by Owen. He, Forbes,
and I supped with Playfair after. Owen's genius
throws light on everything.

* 1 6tk. — Dined for the first time with the Metro-
politan Red Lions in my capacity as a corresponding
member. Smyth and Falconer elected members.'
This fraternity took its rise at the Birmingham meet-
ing of the British Association in 1839. Edward
Forbes and a few congenial spirits, finding the dull
conventionality of the * ordinaries ' insupportable,
started simple dinners of their own, where beef and
beer were the chief viands, and where the mirth and
jollity were so great that admission to these gatherings
soon came to be eagerly sought after. The place of
meeting was a modest inn known as the ' Red Lion/
and the company styled themselves therefrom * Red
Lions.' They agreed to meet at every meeting of the
British Association — a custom which they and their
successors have kept up till the present time. Those
of them who lived in London, with Forbes at their
head, feeling that a year's interval made too wide a
gap between their festive gatherings, formed them-
selves into a London company of the original brother-
hood, and it was to the monthly dinner of this com-
pany that Ramsay was now introduced.

1 845 HIS FIRS T SURVEY MEMOIR 63

* i^th January. — Home to read [Hugh Miller's]
Old Red Sandstone.

' 19^/2 February. — Drew [sections]. Phillips (John)
came, and we had a big talk. He is still to join us for
six months in the year. Went at night to B. and F. I.
soiree — a most brilliant affair. Moscheles there, and
heaven knows all who besides in the musical line.

' 22nd. — At work as usual. Dined, came home,
slept, dressed, took a cab to the Athenaeum ; met Sir
Henry, and went with him to a soiree at the Marquis
of Northampton's. Duke of Cambridge there, Lord
Brougham, and many others ; Hallam, Monckton
Milnes, Forbes, Graham, Gifford, Babbage, etc. etc.

( 2nd March, Sunday. — Read and wrote. Walked
through St. James's Park to Hyde Park, up Hyde
Park along Oxford Street, and down Regent Street.
Dinner, and came home to roast chestnuts, and finish
the rough draft of a paper for our Memoirs.' This
paper is again referred to under date 5th June, where
the entry records : * Writing at home at night. Finished
my paper for the Memoirs, that is the first writing of it
sans re-reading.' This was his famous essay on the
' Denudation of South Wales,' which eventually ap-
peared in the first volume of the Memoirs of the
Geological Survey in 1 846, and of which some further
account will be given in the following chapter.

* ^th. — Forbes's lecture. Dined with Falconer l at
the Oriental Club ; capital turn-out. Refused the
Geological Survey of India. Heigho ! Went to the
Linnaean, and afterwards Forbes, Ibbetson, Henfrey,
and I supped at Lankester's.' Further reference is

1 Hugh Falconer, born 1808, died 1865 ; distinguished as a palaeontologist
and botanist, especially in regard to India, where he spent a large part of his life.
His great memoirs on the fossil vertebrates of the Sivalik Hills have been of the
highest importance in the history of palaeontological discovery.

64 THE ORDNANCE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY CHAP, n

made two days later to the host here mentioned.
* Falconer came, and Logan1 is the man for India.
Sir H. told me, like a daddy, he would advise me not
to go, but he would not stand in my way. Shan't take
it. At Captain Smyth's 2 at night. Pleasant party.

' \2th. — Reeks3 came home with me, and we had
tea and ham together. Then the Geological Society ;
scrimmage between Sedgwick and Greenough. Play-
fair and I had a long talk after about my Welsh affairs.'
The animated discussions at this Society are merely
alluded to in the diary. Thus on 5th February he
notes : * Geological night. Fitton 4 on Greensand ;
a tremendous row, and a regular blow-up after between
Fitton and Forbes.' On 2nd April : ' Went to the
Geological Society, where old Warburton5 frightened
me out of my wits by calling on me to speak ; ' 6 and
on the 1 6th of the same month: 'Jolly night at the
Geological. Buckland's glaciers smashed.'7

1 William Edmond Logan, born 1798, died 1875 ; connected in early life
with the South Welsh coal-field, of which hemapped a large part, afterwards handing
over his maps to the Geological Survey, which published them ; subsequently
appointed Director of the Geological Survey of Canada ; one of the great
pioneers of pre-Cambrian geology. He was a life-long cherished friend of
Ramsay. He retired from the Canadian Survey in 1869, and afterwards settled
in this country, and died here.

2 Captain, afterwards Admiral William Henry Smyth, born 1788, died
1865 ; distinguished for his great survey of the Mediterranean, for his numerous
contributions on nautical and astronomical subjects, for his acquirements in numis-
matics, and for his important services in founding the Royal Geographical Society.

3 Trenham Reeks was appointed in 1839 to the Museum in Craig's Court,
and was Curator of the Museum of Practical Geology in Jermyn Street from its
inauguration until his death in 1879.

4 William Henry Fitton, born 1780, died 1861 ; an able geologist, to whom
we are largely indebted for the stratigraphical arrangement of the Cretaceous rocks
of England. The paper read by him on the 5th February 1845 was 'On the
Atherfield Section of the Lower Greensand in the Isle of Wight.'

6 Henry Warburton, born 1784, died 1858; President of the Geological
Society 1843 to l845-

6 The subject on which Ramsay was called on to speak was a paper by Captain
Bayfield, ' On the Junction of the Transition and Primary Rocks of Canada.'

7 The writer of this curt record lived to be one of the foremost supporters of
the 'glaciers' which he here dismisses. The paper read at the Society was one by
A. F. Mackintosh, ' On the Supposed Evidences of the Former Existence of Glaciers
in North Wales,' controverting the conclusions previously published by Buckland.

CHAPTER III

THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY UNDER THE OFFICE OF WORKS

ON the ist April 1845, the beginning of the Par-
liamentary financial year, the Geological Survey was
formally taken over from the Master -General and
Board of Ordnance, and was placed ' under the direc-
tion and supervision of the First Commissioner of Her
Majesty's Woods, Forests, Land Revenues, Works,
and Buildings.' The staff was partly reorganised and
somewhat augmented. At the same time the geo-
logical mapping of Ireland, which had been partially
done for some of the north-eastern counties by Captain
Portlock1 under the Ordnance department, was now
definitely undertaken upon the same lines as those
followed in the larger island. The Irish Survey was
made to form part of an organisation which embraced
the whole United Kingdom, and which now became
1 The Geological Survey of Great Britain and
Ireland.'

The chief appointments of the staff thus enlarged
were arranged as follows : Sir Henry De la Beche had
charge of the whole organisation, with the title of
Director-General. The immediate supervision of the

1 J. E. Portlock, born 1794, died 1864 ; best known to geologists for his
excellent memoir on the ' Geology of Londonderry, Tyrone, and Fermanagh,
with portions of the Adjacent Counties.' He was President of the Geological
Society in 1856-58.

F

66 SURVEY UNDER OFFICE OF WORKS CHAP, in

work in England and Wales (and afterwards in Scot-
land) was assigned to A. C. Ramsay as Local Director
for Great Britain. The Irish branch was entrusted to
the care of Captain James,1 R.E. A palaeontologist
was appointed, and the office was filled by Edward
Forbes. W. W. Smyth2 became Mining Geologist, and
Dr. (now Sir Joseph) Hooker was a year later made
Botanist to the Geological Survey of the United
Kingdom. Dr. Lyon Playfair (now Lord Playfair)
was appointed Chemist, while Richard Phillips still
remained in charge of the original laboratory of the
Museum. Robert Hunt succeeded T. B. Jordan as
Keeper of Mining Records.

The staff of geological surveyors under Ramsay,
besides W. T. Aveline, Trevor E. James, D. H.
Williams, and H. W. Bristow,3 already members of
the Ordnance Geological Survey, was now augmented
by the appointment of W. H. Baily4 and of A. R. C.
Selwyn 5 — a name which will be frequently mentioned
in the course of this Memoir. Besides these officers,
the staff included a few assistants for special services.
R. Gibbs,6 one of the most admirable collectors the

1 Captain (afterwards Sir) Henry James, born 1803, died 1877; resigned
the Directorship of the Geological Survey of Ireland in June 1846, and was suc-
ceeded by Thomas Oldham. Pie afterwards held for many years the appointment
of Director of the Ordnance Survey of the United Kingdom.

2 Warington W. Smyth, born 1817, died 1890; son of Admiral W. H.
Smyth ; Lecturer on Mining and Mineralogy in the Royal School of Mines from
1851 to the time of his death. Knighted in 1887.

3 Henry William Bristow, born 1817, died 1889; appointed to the Survey
in 1842 ; became Director for England and Wales in 1872 ; an able and accurate
surveyor of Secondary and Tertiary formations, and, from his genial and
courteous manners, a great favourite among his colleagues.

4 William Hellier Baily, born 1819, died 1888; transferred in 1856 to the
Irish staff, where he acted as Palaeontologist.

5 Alfred R. C. Selwyn, after doing admirable work in the mapping of North
Wales, resigned, in July 1852, to accept the charge of the Geological Survey of
Victoria. On the resignation of Sir William Logan, he was appointed Director
of the Geological Survey of Canada, an office which he still worthily fills.

6 Richard Gibbs, a native of Gloucestershire, was first employed by De la
Beche in running sections in the Mitcheldean district, and made himself so useful

WILLIAM TALBOT AVELINE

1 845 REORGANISATION OF THE SERVICE 67

Survey ever possessed, had joined as far back as the
summer of 1843. Charles R. Bone was employed as
artist to draw fossils described by the palaeontologist.

With this augmentation of the staff, other addi-
tional duties were undertaken by the Survey. Of
these perhaps the most important was the preparation
and publication of Memoirs illustrative of various
districts that had been mapped, and containing a
discussion of subjects connected with general views
of geology and its applications. The first volume of
this series was soon planned. The Director-General
undertook to contribute an essay ' On the Formation
of the Rocks of South Wales and South -Western
England.' Edward Forbes supplied his famous and
classic paper * On the connection between the dis-
tribution of the existing fauna and flora of the
British Isles, and the geological changes which have
affected their area, especially during the epoch of the
Northern Drift.' Ramsay's contribution consisted of
his essay * On the Denudation of South Wales and
the adjacent counties of England.' The volume con-
taining these various papers appeared in 1846, and
the preparation of the material occupied much of the
time spent indoors in the previous year.

The general bearing of the scientific organisation
planned by De la Beche upon the progress of geo-
logical investigation was well expressed by Leonard
Horner1 in his address as President of the Geological
Society. * With scarcely any exceptions,' he said,
' all geological inquiries have [hitherto] been the

that he was eventually attached to the staff of the Survey. A large part of the
fossil collections in the Museum of Practical Geology was originally collected by
him. His name will frequently occur in the subsequent pages of this Memoir.
He retired from the service on a pension in 1872, and died in 1878.
1 See notice of Horner on p. 122.

68 SURVEY UNDER OFFICE OF WORKS CHAP, in

fruits of individual research. But in the Geological
Survey of Great Britain there is a combination of
forces which we have never, in this country at least,
seen applied to the promotion of any one department
of science. No department perhaps requires so many
different descriptions of force to be brought to bear
upon it. The Ordnance Trigonometrical Survey led
the way by the preparation of that indispensable
requisite in geological inquiries, an accurate map on
a large scale. For the more general (geological)
Survey, we have geologists of great practical experi-
ence, who have established a high reputation ; and
when the structure of each region is to be worked out
in detail, the special knowledge of the mineralogist,
the chemist, the natural philosopher, the zoologist,
the comparative anatomist, the botanist, and the
palaeontologist, will be brought to bear, as required,
by means of men of high authority in each branch,
and their labours will be illustrated by artists of great
skill, all attached to the Survey, forming together a
corps of scientific men, for the accomplishment of a
great work, not surpassed, I believe, by any similar
establishment in any other country.'1

By these new arrangements additional duties
and responsibility were thrown upon Ramsay. The
Local Director was to have immediate supervision of
the field-work of the staff, which would necessitate
his frequent inspection of the surveys of his various
colleagues. He was to see that the whole mapping
was conducted on uniform methods, to confer with
the officers on their difficulties, to bring the experience
gained in one district to bear upon the elucidation of
another, and thus to ensure the harmony and steady

1 Anniversary address, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. iii. (1847), p. 31.

1 845 THE QUAR TERL Y A CCO UNTS 69

progress of the field-work. To gain these important
objects it would no longer be possible for him to
spend his whole time in the field carrying out inde-
pendent mapping on his own part. It would be
needful to keep himself in touch with the progress of
the mapping in every district, though he resolved
from the first that he would still devote a good part
of the working season to mapping by himself — an
employment for which he was so admirably qualified,
and in which he took such a keen pleasure.

But besides superintending the surveys in the
field, the Director was charged with the task of seeing
the maps prepared for the engraver, of arranging the
lines of horizontal section, and of editing these sections
before they were sent to be engraved. These indoor
duties were sometimes exceedingly onerous, involving
as they did much correspondence and frequent visits
to the ground before all discrepancies, omissions,
or mistakes were finally rectified. From this time
forward letter-writing on official business claimed an
ever-increasing share of Ramsay's time.

The most irksome part, however, in the routine
of these duties was the supervision of the accounts
of the staff. Incredible as it may now seem,
each member of the corps was required to procure a
receipt for all travelling expenses. Continual and
vexatious were the disputes with railway-clerks, coach-
proprietors, hotel-keepers, and others who refused to
be at the trouble of granting receipts, or declined even
to sign their names at the foot of official receipts
already prepared for them. Moreover, each officer
was further bound to furnish at the end of every
quarter a detailed statement of his disbursements, with
vouchers for his travelling fares and other payments.

70 SURVEY UNDER OFFICE OF WORKS CHAP, in

All these documents required to be checked and made
conformable to the regulations, and the operation some-
times took several days, even if it was not further pro-
longed by correspondence as to inaccuracies in the
charges, or in the method of stating them. But the
crowning vexation came after the whole accounts
had been examined and passed. In those days it
was officially required that before sending in his
accounts the Director should appear before a
magistrate, and swear to their accuracy. In a
country place, as may easily be imagined, this regu-
lation often led to great loss of time, as well as
additional expense. It would sometimes happen that
no qualified official was to be found within a distance
of several miles from the Director's station. And now
and then, when found, the worthy justice had some
difficulty in comprehending the nature of the unusual
request that was made to him.

Ramsay chronicles a number of instances of his
experience of this serious infliction in country places.
Thus in the beginning of the October quarter of 1847,
while at Bishop's Castle, he records : ' Got the
accounts sworn to before Squire O. — a jolly, gentle-
manly red-faced man, who did not seem clearly to
understand the difference between an affidavit and an
oath. Accordingly, as the surest method, he made me
kiss the book.' On another occasion, while stationed
at Llanberis in 1849, he had the experience recorded
in the following entry : ' Having received the amended
accounts, started for Mr. Hughes' of St. Ann's, the
magistrate, ten miles off or so. He was away at
Llanfairfechan. No help for it but to walk to Bangor.
Every magistrate in the town was away to Llanfair-
fechan, for it seems they are one and all parsons, the

1 845 RUNNING A MAGISTRATE TO EARTH 71

magistrates of Bangor, and there was a chapel to be
consecrated there to-day. Took a car, and in despair
drove to Penrhyn Castle. Colonel Pennant also
gone to Llanfairfechan ! ' Next day he proceeded to
Caernarvon, ' expecting Mr. Morgan to do my magis-
trate's business for me, but lo ! he was gone to Bangor,
and no other was to be found in the town. I was
disgusted beyond measure. Then took steamer and
crossed to Anglesey to the Rev. Wynne Williams of
Menai fron, and as good luck would have it, he was
at home. At last we had run a magistrate to earth
after a two days' hunt. He was very civil and made
us take a glass of wine.'

The duties of the Local Director for Great Britain
were at that time confined to England and Wales, the
field-work not being extended to Scotland for some
nine years later. The Irish branch of the service was
entirely excluded from his supervision, but Ramsay
was kept fully aware of all that was going on in the
sister island, not only by conference and correspond-
ence with De la Beche, but also by frequent com-
munications from the successive directors of the Irish
Survey. His tact and good sense were often of
service in smoothing difficulties which threatened to
break up the discipline and effectiveness of the Irish
staff. Having the confidence both of the Director-
General and his subordinates, he was appealed to
frankly by both, so that over and above the cor-
respondence naturally entailed on him by his own
proper duties, he frequently was involved in much
letter-writing on the affairs of his colleagues in Ireland.
We get a glimpse into the life of the Irish Survey
in the following unpublished letter from Edward
Forbes.

72 SURVEY UNDER OFFICE OF WORKS CHAP, in

FETHARD, COUNTY WEXFORD,

\Afth September 1845.

DEAR RAMSAY — When I arrived in London from my Zetland
voyage I found you were in Glasgow. Had I known it before, I
might have given you a ten minutes' call on the way. I got your
note at Oban. On arriving in town I found half a dozen orders
from Sir Henry to be off to join him in Ireland ; so after three days
in London, I cut away to Waterford via Bristol. . . .

I am here in a little village near Hook Point, in the midst of
Mountain Limestone fossils, examining their distribution — all very
interesting. The Captain, a very nice fellow named Willson, who is
of his staff, and that thorough Welshman, little J., peppery, uncom-
fortable, and marvellously stupid and uninformed (as I find on close
quarters), are my companions. We make a very merry mess, how-
ever, and the Welsh squire's absurdities — for he is in misery in
Ireland — make us laugh. Sir Henry was with us till two days ago,
working like a trooper, and when not at work telling funny stories.
In a few days I leave this and go with the Captain (who sports a
ferocious pair of egg-brown moustaches) to look at the Pleistocene
beds in Wexford. Thence I go with Sir Henry to Dublin, after
which, route as yet undetermined. When in Zetland I got most
important data respecting the history of the animals found fossil
in the Pleistocene beds. This makes me very anxious to see the
Irish, and I should like much to go with you to Moel Trefaen and
thereabouts.

I have been talking to Sir Henry about Longman's book.1 I
don't see how the Devil it is to be done. One gets no time to do
it. Unless it can be done as Survey work, and in Survey time, it
seems to me to be quite out of the question, and if we find that it
cannot so be done, it would be better to write a joint letter to Long-
man submitting such to be the case, and requesting to be freed from
the engagement. As it is, it is an unpleasant fiction. What say
you ? I have not finished my great work yet from utter want of
time, nor when I think over it, do I see how it can be done, unless
Sir Henry grants a few weeks' respite. Ever, dear Ramsay, most
sincerely yours, EDWARD FORBES A.

With all the immediate and prospective additions
to his duties arising from the reorganisation of the
Survey, and happily ignorant as yet of the trouble and
worry which they might involve, Ramsay got through
the office work of the winter of 1844-45, and soon

1 This was the new edition of Conybeare and Phillips's Geology of England
and Wales, referred to on p. 58.

1 845 LEOPOLD VON BUCH 73

after the middle of April took again to the field. He
first joined H. W. Bristow in the Ludlow and New
Radnor district, 'turning Old Red Sandstone into
Silurian ' during the day, and spending the evenings
right merrily with musical friends.

The great Leopold von Buch, one of the oddest
and ablest of the German geologists of his day, came
to London early this summer. On the 27th May
Ramsay notes : ' Adjourned to Dr. Fitton's, where
were all the big-wigs of science to meet Von Buch.'
A few weeks later he accompanied the German
philosopher to Cambridge to attend the meeting of the
British Association, which was held there in June of
this year. Of this journey down from London he
afterwards wrote : ' At Murchison's request I took
Von Buch to Cambridge on the outside of the mail-
coach from the head of the Hay market. His luggage
always consisted only of a small baize bag, which held
a clean shirt and clean silk stockings. He wore knee-
breeches and shoes.'1

At this meeting Ramsay read a paper before
Section C ' On the Denudation of South Wales and
the adjacent Counties.' His jotting in reference to
this event runs thus : ' Read my paper, or rather
spoke it. Felt no difficulty. Much discussion.
Dined with the Reds. Evening meeting in our hall '
[Jesus College]. Edward Forbes formed one of the
merry party that was lodged in the College.

It was past the middle of July before he had
resumed his field-work in Cardiganshire, working
along the coast and into the interior from Aberporth,
Aberaeron, Aberystwith, and other stations. This was
to be a season of hard work in the field, clearing off

1 Life of Sir R. I. Murchison, vol. ii. p. 76, footnote.

74 SURVEY UNDER OFFICE OF WORKS CHAP, in

outstanding unfinished tracts of ground, and joining
up lines so as to carry the mapping well to the north.
It was only interrupted by a few weeks spent in a visit
to his mother and friends in Scotland, during which
he passed an evening on the top of Goatfell, renewed
his acquaintance with the Glasgow circle, and saw his
relatives in Edinburgh and Haddington.

Back again in Wales, he writes to his mother from
Aberaeron on the 2Qth September : * Stress of weather
has delayed my work, two successive bad days having
driven me to the verge of despair, and, had I good
opportunity, there is no saying but I might run away
to sea. I have been wandering after dinner on the
shingly sea-shore. The wind was low, but a heavy
smooth swell played the dickens with the pebbles,
rattling and rolling them, and grind, grind, grinding
them into rounded surfaces as polished as a smooth
teapot. Then such piles of watery clouds in the west,
full of portentous caverns, through which the upward
rays of the sun (himself deep down in the sea) shone
with a strange unearthly light, the whilk it was diffi-
cult to say whether it most resembled a reflected glow
from the gates of Heaven or a lurid glare from the
portals of Infernality ! '

The Welsh ground that had to be mapped at this
time included tracts that lay far from his stations, and
necessitated long tramps on foot. Writing to his
brother William from Aberystwith on 25th Sep-
tember, he asks, ' Will no Christian make me a present
of a thousand pounds ? and then I might buy a horse
and gig and save my bones. When a man is wearied
his brain is barren. That's my case. I could sleep,
too, if it weren't that the tea keeps me wakeful. . . .
I wish I had four legs and a man's head. I wish I

i845 BUYS A PONY 75

were a centaur, and then I could go right across the
country, taking all the hedges and ditches just as they
come.' On 6th October he tells the same corre-
spondent, ' I have been obligated to buy a pony, for
this is too wild a country and the distances too great
for my legs to stand it. The day before I reached
Aberaeron I was fairly knocked up long before I
reached home. Ten miles to one's work is rather too
much of a good joke, for it makes twenty without
including the work at all. I have got a great bargain,
having only paid ^7 : ics. for her. She is at present
wrell worth £12 or ^13, and in six months I shall
make her worth more than double what I paid. She
is a chestnut, with silver mane and tail, and five years
old last May.' Four days later he writes to his
brother : ' I get a deuce of a drenching every day just
now, even to the very sark. However, it does me no
harm. My new pony turns out well — a little skittish
sometimes, but that makes one feel alive in the saddle.'
The short November days would sometimes close
in upon him while still far from his quarters, as on
one occasion, of which he notes, ' Walked up the road
to Llanidloes, and so over the shoulder of Plyn-
limmon. Benighted on the hills, sans road, and so
dark I could not see two yards. By dint of shouting,
a man came and found me.' At last, on the I4th
November, he is able to chronicle at Pont-rhyd-
fendigaid : 'Had a most successful day's work, and
finished South Wales, perfectly understanding the
same.' Before the end of the year he joined Selwyn
at Machynlleth, and the two comrades made some
traverses into the rugged country of Cader Idris,
from which in later years they were to work out the
complicated volcanic geology of North Wales.

76 SURVEY UNDER OFFICE OF WORKS CHAP, in

While stationed at Pumpsaint, near Llandovery, in
1842, Ramsay had received much kindness from Mr.
Johnes of Dolaucothi and his family. The friendship
then begun was one of the most cherished of his life,
and lasted undimmed to the time of his death. He
was always a welcome guest at the house and a
constant correspondent of the family. Not infre-
quently his epistles took the form of verse, and on his
visits he sometimes wrote rhymes in the albums of the
ladies. The earliest of these effusions dates back to
the summer of 1842, and its character may be gathered
from the following lines in it : —

And when 'mid other scenes I ride,

With good Sir Henry by my side,

Oft will I tell of merry staves,

Sung in Gogofau's ancient caves ;

And how his ' geologic son '

At Dolaucothi had ' such fun ' ;

Fenced with his host upon the green,

And came off second best, I ween ;

Ran races on the lawn, good lack !

And tumbled down upon his back ;

Or shouted loud among the train,

Till woodland echoes rang again ;

When I (with all the mirthful crew,

Yourself, and B, C, F, and Stue),

A stranger from the ' Land o' Cakes,'

On Cothi's banks made ducks and drakes ;

Or how, 'mid arbor-vitas bowers,

We plucked our ante-dinner flowers ;

And lofty Fanny chose to wear,

Entwined amid her raven hair,

Of cabbages a garland fair,

While Charlotte, less ambitious, weaves

A simple wreath of carrot leaves.

While the Geological Survey was in progress in
Wales it was not difficult for him to pay an occasional
visit to Dolaucothi, where he was always certain of
a cordial welcome. And even after the field-work
had been finished in the Principality he was able from

1846 WINTER LIFE IN LONDON 77

time to time to return to this hospitable home.1 From
his voluminous correspondence with the Dolaucothi
household we shall glean some interesting reminis-
cences of his life and work in later years.

From the brief entries in his memorandum book
of 1846 a few quotations may be taken, giving
glimpses into his London doings during three months
in the early part of the year.

' 2\st January. — Went to Putney with Playfair.
Lecture on chemical affinity. Came up to hear
Sedgwick's paper on Wales, Cumberland, etc. Made
a speech about South Wales. The old man horribly
wrong-headed.' This meeting is referred to in a letter
of the 3ist January to W. T. Aveline : * Sedgwick is at
work attempting to show that we are all wrong, and
that all North Wales (!), I think, and all South Wales
— Cardigan and Caermarthenshire — is Upper Silurian.2
He vows that Aberystwith is Ludlow. I flared up
the other night, after his paper at the Geological,
when he said that that was now the case, and thus we
must not leave him the shadow of a leg to stand on.
He is not content with the Cambrian, and so, gulping
it down, he wheels about ten times, and turns it all in
Upper Silurian.'

' 2§th. — At the Museum as usual. Had a scramble
with Sir H. among the old book-shops after four.
Bought an old Beaumont and Fletcher, and a Walton
and Cotton. Evening at home. Wrote Eliza.

\^th February. — At home at night reading the fifth
edition of the Vestiges [of Creation\. Saw in it things

1 Among his papers he preserved a clever and amusing sketch of a road map
of Wales by Edward Forbes, which showed Dolaucothi in the centre, with roads
leading directly to it from every quarter, even the most remote, where Ramsay
was stationed.

2 Yet Sedgwick was partly right. See W. Keeping, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.
xxxvii. (1881), p. 141.

78 SURVEY UNDER OFFICE OF WORKS CHAP, in

I had told Chambers in Edinburgh after the publication
of the fourth edition. He is the author [see p. 137].

2<zth. — Anniversary of the Geological Society.
Heard some of it. Went to the dinner afterwards ; sat
beside Sir H. and Henry,1 Ansted,2 Strickland,
Sopwith,3 Austen,4 and others of our party. Good
fun. Murchison awfully grand.

2\st. — At work as usual. Lord Northampton's
first soiree. Prince Albert, Sir Robert [Peel], and
Lord John [Russell] there among the crowd. Left at
half-past eleven. Dined with Reeks and Daily.

2$t/i. — Went to hear paper [by J. Prestwich5] on
the Tertiaries of the Isle of Wight at the Geological ;

excellent. The made an ass of himself. Sir

H. spoke admirably.

\2th March. — Sir H. criticised the first part of
my paper [on the Denudation of South Wales] to-day
most flatteringly.

ijtk. — Dr. Smith dined with us. Afterwards we
went to the Haymarket, and died of laughter. Oysters
with Playfair.'

1 Thomas Hetherington Henry, at one time head brewer in the brewery of
Messrs. Trueman, Hanbury, and Buxton, afterwards practised as an analytical
chemist. He was a contemporaiy and friend of Edward Forbes, a member of
the Red Lion Club, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

2 David Thomas Ansted, born 1814, died 1880; Professor of Geology at
King's College, London ; Assistant-Secretary of the Geological Society from
1844 to 1847 ; author of numerous popular works on geology. During the last
thirty years of his life he was largely consulted in regard to the practical applica-
tions of geology, and was much employed as a professional witness.

3 Thomas Sopwith, born 1803, died 1879 ; an ingenious mechanician, who
devised many excellent geological models ; devoted much time to the study of
mining districts ; became Commissioner for the Crown under the Dean-Forest
Mining Act, and ultimately manager of the Allendale Mines.

4 R. A. C. Godwin-Austen, born 1808, died 1884 ; a geologist of the keenest
insight, who, though he wrote little, was acknowledged by his contemporaries to
be one of the greatest of their number. His paper on the Possible Existence of
Coal under the South-East of England is a remarkable example of his skill. He
specially delighted in reconstructing the geography of former geological periods.

5 Joseph Prestwich, the living Nestor of English geologists, specially distin-
guished for his researches in Tertiary and Post-Tertiary geology, succeeded Phillips
in 1874 as Professor of Geology at Oxford, and retired from that office in 1888.

1846 FIELD-WORK IN WALES 79

Ramsay remained in London until the 25th April,
and passed the whole of the rest of the year in the
field, partly inspecting work already done, and partly
joining several of his colleagues in the tracing of fresh
lines and in the attack of new ground. The staff had
been recruited at the beginning of that month by the
addition of another palaeontologist in the person of J.
W. Salter,1 who was to play a brilliant part in working
out the fossils of the Cambrian and Silurian forma-
tions of Britain, and who from time to time gave his
services to the working parties in the field.

After a brief period of inspection with Bristow
around Yeovil, in Somerset, Ramsay turned his face
once more to North Wales, and remained there until
the middle of December. The problems which the
Survey was attacking in that region were of absorbing
interest. Besides the question of the relative bound-
aries of the Cambrian and Silurian systems, then
beginning to be agitated between Murchison and
Sedgwick, there was the marvellous display of
volcanic phenomena presented by the older Palaeo-
zoic rocks. Ramsay had already helped to map the
igneous masses north of Builth, in the Shelve and
Chirbury district, and among the Breidden Hills.
But it was a new experience to see volcanic sheets
developed on the magnificent scale which they pre-
sent in the noble range of mountains extending from
the ridge of Cader Idris northwards through the chain
of the Arans and the Arenigs. Selwyn was at work
from Dolgelli. Aveline was tracing the boundaries
of the Silurian series from Llanbrynmair eastwards to

1 John William Salter, born 1820, died 1869 ; appointed to the Geological
Survey in 1 846, and for many years engaged both in the Museum and in the field
in determining fossils for the Survey. His knowledge of Palaeozoic forms of life
was unrivalled. He retired from the Survey in 1863.

8o SURVEY UNDER OFFICE OF WORKS CHAP, in

Church Stretton and the Longmynd. At the beginning
of October J. B. Jukes (see p. 82), joined the staff, and
began to work out the ground around Bala. Between
these three centres of field-work Ramsay spent some
busy months, keeping himself in continual touch with
the progress of the mapping, and taking also an active
part in personally tracing geological lines. A few
excerpts from his memorandum book will bring his
life at this time before the reader.

' \^th May. — Out with Selwyn along the front of
the Cader cliffs. Glorious day and glorious scenery.

i6M. — Out with Selwyn over the top of Cader
Idris ; a long day's work. We had a splendid
scramble.

2oM. — Wrote Sir H. and Smyth with traps ; also
Gibbs, Playfair, and my mother. Out by Ty-gwyn
and all that country. Selwyn's work good. We
wandered all day by mighty pleasant brooks and
rivers.

\st fane. — Left for Mallwyd ; met Aveline there.

2nd. — Aveline and I began to work. Work ex-
cellent, so far as I saw, especially the traps ; awfully
hot day.

gt/i. — Out seeing the unconformable Caradocs on
the Longmynd ; splendid old coast. Never more
charmed.

2$rd. — Wrote Eliza, and Survey letters to Trimmer,1
Henfrey, Selwyn, Hunt. Walked up to Abergwailas
with Aveline, working all the way. Dined there.
Started again after dinner, and wrought till nine at
night ; then back to tea.

1 Joshua Trimmer, born 1795, died 1857. He was the first to recognise the
importance of mapping the drifts and other superficial formations. He was for
some time attached to the Geological Survey.

ALFRED R. C. SELWYN

1846 FIELD-WORK IN WALES 81

. — No sleep at Abergwailas owing to green
tea and fleas. Everything dirty. Started at ten,
Aveline and I taking different routes. We met at five,
having each traced some ten miles of winding boundary
and meeting to a nicety. We got home to Pen y bont
at nine, having walked thirty-five miles and fasted
twelve hours. Mutton chops and bottled porter.

Augiist 2nd. — Left [Dolaucothi] after lunch. Got
awfully drenched on Lampeter Mountain ; stayed at
Lampeter two hours. Rode to Aberaeron ; flood so
great I was obliged to stay two hours there. Rode
on ; bridges all gone ; forded the foaming torrents with
difficulty ; so late when I got to Llanrhystyd that I
stayed at Lewis.

$rd. — Rode on at half- past six to Aberystwith.
Breakfasted at the 'Lion.' Called and spent half the
day with Fosset and the Downies. Rode on to Dol-
gelli, and got there at half-past twelve at night. Slept
at the inn.

\^th. — Out by Llyn bach and along the range of
hills to the Dinas road. Splendid day.

2$th. — Out on Rhobell fawr.1 Excellent day's
work.

26tk. — Out above Llanfachreth. Home to dinner
at six. Found Sir Henry dining in the coffee-room.
Dined with the cricketers, and had a chat with Sir H.
after.

2*jth. — Out with Sir H. over Cader ; got many
wrinkles. Met a car at Tal-y-llyn ; home to dinner
at seven. Selwyn and I dined with Sir Henry. Sir H.

1 This interesting but difficult piece of geology was the subject of much care-
ful exploration in later years both by Ramsay and Selwyn. When the survey of
North Wales was almost completed, Ramsay wrote to Aveline (28th June 1853),
* I have often been prone to consider Rhobell as probably one of the centres of
eruption. '

G

82 SURVEY UNDER OFFICE OF WORKS CHAP, in

breakfasted with us.' With reference to the ' wrinkles '
which the Director-General was able to furnish to his
younger colleagues, the following extract from a letter
written four days afterwards to W. T. Aveline is not
without geological interest : * There are a number of
bands of strata here, which I at first took for altered
rocks, but which Sir Henry declared to be volcanic
ash, and which, though doubtless often deposited in
water, he declares must be mapped in green.1 His
reason is that they are volcanic products ; and I
see he is right. Some of them in structure are as
fine as porcelain - slates, being mostly or entirely
composed of felspar.'

1 2<$th. — Car to Drws y nant. Over Aran Benllyn
and Aran Mowddwy to Dinas Mowddwy. Came
home in a car to Dolgelli, well tired ; Sir H. the
freshest of us. Dined, slept, awoke, and went to bed.

Afth September. — Started. Walked down to the
castle [Harlech] after breakfast. Splendid ruin. From
thence along the coast, where we bathed. Thence to
Llanbedr, and across the sandstone hills through Bwlch
Ardudwy to Pont dol gefeiliau, where we met a car
and drove home by eight. Among the hills Sir H. and
I had lunch in a hut, where we met a Welshwoman,
who gave us bread, butter, and milk, and a hearty
welcome.

22nd. — Went with Selwyn, Oldham [see p. 84], and
Salter to Barmouth, etc. ; walked back across the sand-
stone hills over Llawllech. Jolly day. O. dined with us.

$th October. — Came up from Bala in a car with
Jukes2 [who arrived at Bala on the 3rd to join the

1 Green was the colour adopted at that time on the published maps of the
Geological Survey to express ' greenstones ' and other igneous masses.

2 Joseph Beete Jukes, born 1811, died 1869; after carrying on geological
explorations in Newfoundland and Torres Straits, returned to England and

1846 FIELD-WORK IN WALES 83

staff of the Survey] to Ffestiniog, and found Sir H.
there with erysipelas in the leg. Jolly !

iotk. — Came down to Bala with Sir H. and Jukes
in an eternal rain. Jukes and I dined with Sir H.
Pleasant evening, very.

27^. — Jukes and Forbes rode to the foot of the
Arenig ; Aveline, Williams, Gibbs, and I walked.
Foggy on the top. Ash, ash, ash everywhere.' By
this time Ramsay's eyes were fully opened to the
great importance of recognising the detrital material
of old volcanic explosions among the Palaeozoic
systems. Writing to W. T. Aveline on the 23rd Sep-
tember, he says : * On the whole, my experience here
makes me much more sceptical of altered rocks,
generally speaking, than I used to be, there being
many beds here that I would once have considered
altered rocks, which are in reality nothing but hard
consolidated ashes. The word " ashes " does not
imply " cinders," but often rather volcanic dust, which
may be as fine as you like.'

' 1 8M November. — Bala. Out among the traps ;
had a glorious find of fossils.

igtk. — Wrote Forbes with a trilobite. Away up
far among the traps. Got an excellent day's work
done.

21.57'. — Out with Aveline to the traps. It got wet
and turned us just when we had begun to work.
Nevertheless, we got a goodish day's work done on
the way home by the river, into which, a branch giving
way, I tumbled considerably over the boots.'

One of the most important events in the progress

joined the Geological Survey in 1846. He was appointed Director of the
Geological Survey of Ireland in 1850, and held that post till his death. Much
information about the Survey work in Wales will be found in Jukes's Letters (1871),
many of which were written to A. C. Ramsay.

84 SURVEY UNDER OFFICE OF WORKS CHAP, in

of the Survey, and also in the career of its Local
Director, during the year 1846 was the appearance of
the first volume of the Survey Memoirs already re-
ferred to. Allusion to the coming volume was not
infrequent during the summer in the correspondence
of the Survey officials. Thus Sir Henry, who had
gone over to Ireland to inspect the field-work there
under the new Director, T. Oldham,1 wrote :

NEWTOWN BRAY, Co. WEXFORD,
2.6th July 1846.

MY DEAR RAMSAY — Oldham and self continue to get on
famously, and I am right well contented with him. . . . Oldham
appears to have a philosophical mind, quite ready to go ahead
in the school we have been forming. In about ten or twelve days
I hope to be on the start for the other (your) side of the Irish Sea,
running up to London to see what progress we are making towards
a house.

Our tome of Memoirs is described as a handsome one; I
believe it to be a good one. The Longmans say it is too cheap,
but somehow £1 : is. seems a fair price for any work of the kind.
— Ever yours, H. T. DE LA BECHE.

We are here concerned with only Ramsay's con-
tribution to the volume. His essay on the Denuda-
tion of South Wales was a remarkably original and
suggestive addition to the literature of geology. It
was the first attempt to reduce the phenomena of
denudation to actual measurement by constructing
horizontal sections on a true scale, and showing what
thickness of rock had actually been stripped off the
face of the country.

The following correspondence will show how this
essay was regarded by two of the ablest reasoners in
geological science : —

1 Thomas Oldham, born 1816, died 1878 ; appointed to the directorship
of the Geological Survey of Ireland in 1846 on the retirement of Captain James,
and held it until 1850, when he became Superintendent of the Geological Survey
of India. He retired from that office in 1876.

1846 LETTER FROM DARWIN 85

C. DARWIN TO A. C. RAMSAY.

DOWN, FARNBOROUGH,
loth October (18 46).

DEAR SIR — Having just read your excellent Memoir on De-
nudation, I have taken the liberty to send you a copy of my volume
on South America, finding that we have discussed some related
questions. I wish I had profited by your Memoir before publishing
my volume. I see that we entirely agree on the sea's great power
compared with ordinary alluvial action, and likewise on the fre-
quency of grand oscillations of level, and on several other points.
If you had time to read parts of my volume, I should much like
to discuss with you many cases, such as my notion of subsidence
being necessary for the formation of high sea-cliffs, as inferred from
the nature of the sea's bottom off them; likewise the horizontal
elevation of the Cordillera as inferred from the sloping gravel
fringes in the valleys ; the non-horizontality of lines of escarpments
round old bays, etc. etc. I grieve to see how diametrically
opposite our views are (I being a follower of Lyell) on the prob-
ability of great and sudden elevations of mountain - chains ; I
cannot but think that you would have estimated existing forces
as more than 'petty,' and entertained some doubt about their
being 'conflicting,' had you inspected with your own eyes the
wide area of recently elevated and similarly affected districts in
South America. There is much which I could say on this head,
but I will not intrude on you.

May I ask whether you do not admit Mr. Hopkins's views of
mountain-chains being the subordinate effects of fractures con-
sequent on changes of level in the surrounding areas ; and does
not all the evidence which we possess tend to show that widely-
extended elevations are slow, and may we not infer from this that
the formation of mountain-chains is likewise probably slow ? I can-
not see any difficulty, after a line of fracture has been once formed,
in fluidified rock being pumped in by as many strokes, as it is
pumped out in a common volcano, and yet producing a sym-
metrical effect. But I much fear that I have cause to apologise
for having written at such unreasonable length ; the interest excited
in me by your Memoir must plead my excuse, and trusting that
you will forgive the liberty I have taken, I remain, dear sir, yours
faithfully, C. DARWIN.

C. LYELL TO A. C. RAMSAY.

MY DEAR SIR — I have just been reading with great pleasure
your admirable and well-written essay on the Denudation of South

86 SURVEY UNDER OFFICE OF WORKS CHAP, in

Wales, the illustrations of which are most beautiful, and with nine-
tenths of which, in regard to the conclusion and reasonings, I agree.
I shall have to cite it in a seventh edition of my Principles, which
I am now printing, and I wish to guard myself against misunder-
standing the only point on which I shall have to differ from you.
I am anxious to have a speedy answer, as the sheet in which I shall
allude to your paper will soon go to press.

In that part of your section, plate 4, which relates to the Mendip
region, one which I have gone over sufficiently to take more interest
in it than I otherwise should do, you mean to say, if I mistake not,
that between 4000 and 5000 feet of strata have been removed by
denudation, between C and 40 ; in other words, that between the
deposition of certain Carboniferous strata and certain newer beds,
40, two events occurred : first, the disturbance of the beds of the
Palaeozoic rocks ; second, the denudation of several thousand feet of
the same beds. Yet it seems to me, on reading other passages of your
paper, that you cannot mean this; for your ideas of denudation
acting contemporaneously with subterranean movements, whether
of upheaval or depression, agree with those which I published in
1831 in my Principles (and, by the way, before that time it was
thought a triumphant argument against what were called 'modern
causes' to prove that a river could not denude the rocks); the
gradual action of the ocean acting concurrently with movements
of the land, as exemplified in my denudation of the Wealden, had
not, so far as I know, been fully set forth in any geological work,
with due allowance also for the resistance of the harder and yield-
ing of the softer rocks.

Now as you adopt these views, and have applied them with all
the modern lights to your sound and philosophical speculations in
this essay, I cannot comprehend how you can dispense with in-
definite geological time for your denudation in the case I allude
to. But if so, what becomes of your argument at p. 317 in favour
of grand catastrophic and intense disturbing power between the
close of the Coal Measure Period and the deposition of the un-
conformable beds, 4*2 ? You must be well prepared, from what I
have said of the amount of denudation, especially in my Elements,
for my willingness to admit as much of it, or more than you want,
as it must have exceeded all the sedimentary strata which are a
measure of its quantity, and of the gradual manner or slow rate at
which it took place. You will also expect that I, at least, shall feel
no difficulty in granting an indefinite lapse of geological time
between the deposition of the last of the Coal Measures in the
Mendip region and the oldest of the overlying conglomerates of
that country. The entire flora and fauna were changed once, if not
more, during that interval of unknown extent, and therefore I have
no objection to as much elevation, disturbance, and denudation as

1 846 LETTER FROM L YELL 87

you represent. But as I interpret your paper, you think the period
so short that you have only time for one gigantic effort to cause
all the faults, fissures, and curvatures of the older strata. You may
say, perhaps, that the greater time taken for the denudation the
less remains for the upheaval; but that argument is then against
the two operations having been contemporaneous. That you do
not suppose them to have gone on simultaneously I conclude from
the suddenness which you attribute to the action of the disturbing
forces. You also seem to assume (p. 317) that the action of forces
working at successive times could be conflicting. This seems to be
so contrary to the analogy of volcanic action, whether breaking out
at the surface or exhibited in the upheaval or depression of con-
tinents, or in convulsions which rend for several thousand years
lines of country, recurring so marvellously in the same tracts, and
in the same direction, that some facts or some references to con-
trary analogies should have been given. The conformity of the
Palaeozoic strata can in no wise circumscribe the lapse of time of
which I have defined the limits as above.

I do not think that any geologist who has lived, as we have
done, in a period when a single earthquake can rend a large district
like Chili, and permanently uplift a portion of the earth's crust,
which may possibly be miles in depth, will quarrel with you for any
intensity which you ascribe to the disturbing power ; but I shall be
surprised if you do not live to see the day when few will think it
consistent either with the ancient Plutonic or Trappean phenomena,
or with our acquaintance with actual igneous action, to suppose that
so mighty a change in the interior of the earth occurred at once, as is
implied by the sudden uplifting and contortion of thousands of feet
of strata. That no relief should have been obtained by intermittent
action, as now by the rending of the crust as soon as the expansive
power of the melted matter requires more room, but that it should
have all been kept under till it could be accommodated during one grand
convulsion is, I suspect, an hypothesis unnecessary on mechanical
grounds, and especially undesirable by one who adopts our views of
denudation, which are so naturally aided by taking not only un-
limited time for the development of igneous action, but equally so
as regards the upward and downward movements, and the rending
and bending of the beds. But I do not write this to make a con-
vert of you, but that you may explain if I have misconstrued your
meaning, and you will better see how I interpret you by my entering
into this line of objection. I do not quite follow you on the argu-
ment founded on the missing members ; but I am sure you cannot
assume that, in a region suffering denudation, deposits of such a
nature as to last must be found in the immediate neighbourhood.
It is, I believe, quite the exception to the rule, and in this view I
am not singular. Hoping to hear from you soon, and with many

SURVEY UNDER OFFICE OF WORKS CHAP, in

thanks for one of the very best papers I ever read, believe me,
very truly yours, CHA. LYELL.

ii HARLEY STREET, %th October 1846.

When I inferred that the denuded dome of the Wealden had
lost some 2000 [feet] and upwards of thickness of strata removed,
I also assumed that it was shaved off by the ocean when rising, and
had never constituted hills 4000 to 5000 feet high. So I think of
your denuded tracts. They were never suffered to attain an Alpine
elevation.

To the foregoing letter Ramsay sent the following

reply :—

BALA, \§th October 1846.

MY DEAR SIR — We have been so busy in the field
(Sir Henry only having left us to-day) that I have not
previously had time fully to consider your letter.

In the beginning you refer to what I have written
about the-Mendip Hills as a type of certain denudations
in the following words : ' First, the disturbance of the
beds of the Palaeozoic rocks ; second, the denudation
of several thousand feet of the same beds. Yet it seems
to me, on reading other passages of your paper, that
you cannot mean this ; for your ideas of denudation
acting contemporaneously with subterranean move-
ments, whether of upheaval or depression, agree with
those which I published in 1831 in my Principles; the
gradual action of the ocean acting concurrently with
movements of the land, etc. etc. Now, as you adopt
these views, I cannot comprehend how you can dis-
pense with indefinite geological time for your denuda-
tion in the case I allude to, etc. etc.'

In this argument I think you have partially mis-
understood me, partly because, in my anxiety to be
concise, I have not sufficiently entered into detail ; and
again perhaps from not bearing in mind that my
reasonings are not intended for universal generalisa-

1846 LETTER TO LYELL 89

tion, but simply refer to the phenomena exhibited in a
given district which came during the progress of the
Survey under my especial notice.

First, With regard to the disturbance and upheaval
of rocks. You will observe that in different parts of
this essay I recognise two distinct species of pheno-
mena, one that of violent and extensive disturbance
on a gigantic scale, and another that of slow upheaval
and depression, such as we now have experience of on
the shores of the Baltic and elsewhere. With regard
to the latter, I grant that any possible height may be
attained by an unlimited succession of comparatively
small elevating disturbances. But in reference to the
former I cannot conceive that the early forces that
affected the Palaeozoic strata in the district treated of,
and which I believe then elevated these strata, were at
all of the same intensity as those that in later periods
occurred in the same tracts. You may raise to a
given height a certain bar of iron with your finger, but
no succession of the same forces, however numerous,
could crush that bar laterally like a plaited frill. A
more sudden and powerful effort is requisite. Such I
believe to have been the case with the Mendip Hills,
viewing them solely as part of a much wider area.
But even granting this to be the case, it does not
follow that I therefore restrict the period required for
denudation. In the case referred to (the Mendips)
you will observe that I state, p. 320, that 'a mass of
limestone, etc., once existing above part of the Mendip
Hills, to an extent of at least 6000 feet high, had been
removed by the denuding agency of the New Red sea,
or possibly by that sea and the earliest Liassic waters,
since we find the lower beds of the Lias resting
horizontally on the upturned water-worn edges of the

90 SURVEY UNDER OFFICE OF WORKS CHAP, in

rocks that now form the flattened summit of the range/
Denudation, I uphold, though materially affected by
the nature (suddenness and intensity) of disturbances,
yet as an independent agency acts in a measure inde-
pendently of them. Thus the sea has greater facilities
afforded it for acting on a coast subjected to frequent
and gradual submergence and emergence ; but the sea
would still act, and might, if time were allowed it,
utterly destroy a tract of land of any given height, with
little or no oscillation of level. In the instance of the
Mendip Hills, there were doubtless many minor oscilla-
tions after the great catastrophe, and you will observe
from the foregoing quotation that I allow great part of
the New Red and part of the Liassic epochs for the
sea to effect this denudation.

This surely was a period of time fully equal in
extent to those comparatively latter days to which I
refer the greater part of the South Wales denudations.
I think in the paper I have given physical reasons to
show that in South Wales and the neighbourhood the
greatest denudation of great part of these tracts did
not take place during the first elevation (pp. 317, 323).

I shall by and by have occasion in subsequent
papers on the same subject to prove that in other
countries such long- continued denudations did take
place during a series of disturbances that affected the
Palaeozoic strata during the very period of their forma-
tion. The whole matter is merely a question of
degree, denudation in both cases being produced by
changes of level.

Respecting the forces that produced the earlier
great disturbances, I have perhaps used the words
' conflicting forces ' somewhat hastily. My object was
to show that the remarkable and intense curvatures

1846 LETTER TO LYELL 91

with which that country abounds were not produced
by any efforts of melted matter to escape, these efforts
being attended with the curved upheaval of different
parts of the strata where the efforts were made. I
wished to show that the curvatures were due to a more
universal action and a different power (see De la
Beche's Theoretical Researches ; I have not a copy
by me), viz. an effort of contraction in a solid crust to
accommodate itself by the force of gravitation to a
cooling and lessening internal mass. I never dreamed
of doubting that relief was obtained from the very
beginning of geological time by intermittent outpour-
ings of melted matter. On the contrary, I have got a
quantity of data together for future use respecting
remarkable periods when visible volcanic action more
or less obtained, and the efforts produced by this
action on the strata of the day ; but I shall also be
able to show that all these volcanoes were subsequently
affected equally with their associated strata by a power
stronger than they or than that which produced them.
You must not suppose that by such efforts I under-
stand a universal general crumpling at one time of
the whole earth's surface. There is perfect evidence
that the contrary was the case. It is not the accom-
modation of the melted matter I contend for, but the
accommodation of the solid circular external crust,
attempting to fit itself through the influence of gravita-
tion to a cooling and diminishing area within.

Respecting the missing members of the New Red
Sandstone, I believe that they may exist, though
concealed by the Upper Series, it being remembered
that the New Red Sandstone lies as it were in a basin,
since we find that proceeding from north to south the
higher marls gradually encroach on and cover up the

92 SURVEY UNDER OFFICE OF WORKS CHAP, in

lower beds. These lower beds may also cover up
members still lower in the series so completely that
they are nowhere exposed.

When I wrote this paper I was buried in the
country without the means of reference to a single
book, and if I have omitted to refer to what has been
done by you and others in the same walk, it entirely
arises from forgetfulness or ignorance. The papers
referred to in notes were quoted from memory, and the
notes in the manuscript left with blanks for more
accurate detail when I got to town. Nothing could
be farther from my wish than to assume as my own
any idea started by another, especially by one whose
Principles of Geology strongly tended to make my
geological mind such as it is by first directing its
inquiries into proper channels, when, now some ten
years ago, I first began to dip into geology as a relief
from the irksome drudgery of mercantile concerns.
Had I no higher motive than my affection for the mere
book, that of itself would be sufficient to deter me
from such an attempt.

Believe me, the opinion you express of my paper
has been to me a source of no ordinary gratification,
feeling as I do the value of approbation from so dis-
tinguished an author. — I remain, dear sir, ever yours
sincerely, ANDW. C. RAMSAY.

The following three letters of the same period
afford an indication of the relation of the Geo-
logical Survey to the dispute regarding Cambrian and
Silurian which was arising between Sedgwick and
Murchison : —

MUSEUM, 2<)tk December 1846.

MY DEAR RAMSAY — I put you in possession of notes which
have passed between Murchison and self touching Silurians, so that

1846 DE LA BECHE AND MURCHISON 93

you may know how to treat things if any discussion arises at the
next meeting of the G. S. The lower rocks should be mapped as
we have proposed.

Sedgwick at last meeting spoke highly of our sections.

We have to keep a straight honest course, thinking only of truth,
and aiding the advance of knowledge.

I am off in an hour or so for Swansea. — Ever yours,

H. T. DE LA BECHE.

NURSTED HOUSE, PETERSFIELD,
2<}th December 1846.

MY DEAR DE LA BECHE — Your note of the 24th followed me.

I cannot for a moment suppose after all you have said and
done, and after your fair and public recognition of my ' Lower
Silurian ' types, that you can in any way intend to swamp them.
The case is indeed so palpable that I believe every geologist is
desirous of sustaining the names of the person who first worked out
the succession from a known base line. All I expected, and do
expect from you is — that if'\\. be proven that Cambrian and Lower
Silurian are geologically synonymous, you will adhere to my name —
the only one worked out on a fossil basis. Now all I beg your
permission to do in my little ' apology ' for the Silurian System (the
Bible has even been apologised for !) is that I may say ' by what-
ever name the rocks be denned, it must be one name ; for that the
inquiries of the Government geologists (which are yet, however,
not completed) go to prove that there is but one natural series or
system of organic life in North Wales.'

Is there any objection to this, which leaves you by your subsequent
inquiries to make any statement you please? At all events, the
question between Sedgwick and myself is decided by his own
evidence of the existence of some of the commonest Caradoc fossils
in some of his very lowest beds. — Ever yours most sincerely,

ROD. I. MURCHISON.

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OFFICE,
December 1846.

And now, my dear Murchison, a word for you before I start for
South Wales, and that in about two hours. To tell you the truth, I
was a bit inclined to look queer at the preamble of your last missive,
seeing that you spoke a possible thought on my part of swamping
your ' Lower Silurian types,' and this at the very time I had been
doing my best to show how much I appreciated your labours, and
so I did not say so much about the matter as I might. The said
queerishness having duly evaporated, it is but fair that as you are
going to write, and you have broached the matter to me, I should

94 SURVEY UNDER OFFICE OF WORKS CHAP, in

put you in possession of things as I know them, since, as matters
stand, you will not get them elsewhere.

First to clear the ground as to classification. If the older
rocks be classed, as they are, according to the remains of life found
in them, it follows that any given mass of them containing the same
kind of life, really and truly, should have but one name. Whatever
the Bala beds may turn out to be, as to equivalent deposits in
geological time, they present, so Forbes says, the same kind of life
as that contained in the Silurian system, according to your published
works. The consequence of general name follows — that is, one
name for the whole.

Next come the beds, which have been termed the Lingula beds
— these underlie the others. Whatever other fossils may be found
among them in Wales, our collection will ultimately show. In the
meantime, rocks in Ireland which may be equivalent both to these
and the Bala beds contain Silurian fossils. Supposing further
researches to confirm these views — the same kind of life still, with
its consequences about one name.

Beneath these come rocks which you know well at the Long-
mynd, and of which you showed me an old section, at least one
showing your views at the time respecting them.

Without aid of any kind Ramsay this year made out their story.
Of the equivalents near St. David's you have often heard me speak,
and touching the Irish rocks of the same date you know what I said
the other night. Of all the exhibitions of them the Irish is the best
— a great thickness. Now it has been supposed that these beds are
not fossiliferous. This is not true in Ireland. Two or three years
since Oldham got some things that were clearly organic, though in
such a condition that nothing could be made of them. But this
year one of our lynx-eyed collectors has been turning out good
specimens. What they are is not clear ; anyhow they are more
diffused than at first thought. Now with this group of rocks
classification is not clear. We have abundant evidence, capital in
Ireland, of their slow deposit through a long lapse of time. These
things I tell you in confidence, because the affair is incomplete, and
there is much yet to be done, but you should know them — and now
I must run for it. — Ever sincerely, H. T. DE LA BECHE.

Griffith, in a document he has sent in to us of about a year's
date, has got there older rocks, though not correctly mapped. He
calls them Cambrian, and whenever he publishes his new edition of
map, so they will, I suppose, be called.

Before the end of the season for field-work in the
year 1846 Ramsay received an invitation which

1846 CHRISTMAS AT HOME 95

gratified him not a little, as it offered to him a wider
opening into the society of men of science and their
associates. He was asked to give a Friday evening
discourse at the Royal Institution, and on communi-
cating to De la Beche that he had accepted this offer,
he received from his chief the following characteristic
note in reply : —

[CONFIDENTIAL.]

LONDON, 24^ November 1846.

MY DEAR RAMSAY — In the matter of an evening at the Royal
Institution you have, I think, decided well — though I have by no
means the view of any great good to arise therefrom which some
folk have. The thing is over-rated.

All appliances shall be at your command — all aid that can be
given, and I have little doubt of your coming out of the matter in
good style.

Take some good commanding subject. Continue to think me a
kind of daddy — the more you do that the better I shall be pleased.
— Ever sincerely, H. T. DE LA BECHE.

All advancing famously.

The field-work of this year was prolonged by
Ramsay until late in the season. About the middle of
December snow fell thickly over the Welsh hills,
making further field-work for the time impossible.
He accordingly took advantage of the opportunity to
spend Christmas and New Year at his old home in
the north. He announced his advent to his mother in
the following effusion : —

BALA, i2th December 1846.
MY DEAR MOTHER —

Plunge the poker in the fire,

Stir the blaze ;

Rouse it high, and rouse it higher,
Till your very eyes it daze,

Brightly glowing,
And the puny candle's rays

Pale are growing.

96 SURVEY UNDER OFFICE OF WORKS CHAP, in

Hark the kettle's cheerful songs,

Shrilly crying

To the dull recumbent tongs,
On the clean-swept hearthstone lying,

Cheerily singing !
' Blithe I be because I'm trying,

By my ringing,

' To announce a merry meeting ;

I am humming
To arouse a jolly greeting.
Hear me on the hob a-bumming ;

Let me threep o't.
Even now I hear him coming j

Fill the tea-pot !

' Fill the tea-pot ! By the fire

While you're basking
You shall have your heart's desire.
I will tell you without asking

One is hasting
Even while the tea is masking,

No time wasting.'

Mother, mother ! — yes, I'm hasting,

Hasting home, too ;
Posting, steaming, no time wasting,
Till, O happy day ! I come to

Your own ingle,
For a while no more to roam to

Dell and dingle.

Yes, I'm coming ! Rouse the fire ;

Make it roar there ;
Rouse it high, and rouse it higher ;
Soon you'll hear me to the door there

Madly bounding,
Then rushing in athwart the floor there

With laugh astounding.

It's a fact, though I did not know it till too late for
the post. If the weather be good I shall remain here,
as in duty bound, till the I5th or i6th. If the snow
continue I shall leave to-morrow and be home, I sup-
pose, on Tuesday to dinner, for the steamer leaves

1846 CHRISTMAS AT HOME 97

Liverpool at seven at night. Therefore air the sheets
and clear out that chest of drawers for a fortnight, for
that's my allowance. What's the use of writing more
when we shall have a fortnight to haver ? With
hurrahs to all, yours affectionately,

ANDW. C. RAMSAY.

These pleasant glimpses of the old home had
always in prospect the inevitable pang of parting at
their close. He had to leave upon his return on the
2nd January. Under that date he records that his
mother and sister ' kept up well by dint of talking of
all sorts of things till starting time came, when all at
once they gave way. I did so also almost. I wish
their hearts were a trifle harder. It almost makes
going home painful, the dread of the leaving day.'

H

CHAPTER IV

THE PROFESSORSHIP OF GEOLOGY AT UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE, LONDON

THE year 1847 was to be a memorable one in the life
of the subject of this biography. The early months
of the year were passed in the usual official and social
engagements, into all of which Ramsay entered with
much zest. Perhaps the most important event in his
London life during the season was his introduction
to the general scientific society of London on the i2th
March, when he gave the Friday evening discourse
at the Royal Institution referred to in the foregoing
chapter. He chose as his subject one which his
Survey work in Wales had now made familiar to
him, and on which he had much fresh information to
convey — 'The Causes and Amount of Geological
Denudations.' In later years he not infrequently dis-
coursed in the same theatre, and usually with some
trepidation beforehand. The success of his lecture
always depended upon the mood he happened to be
in at the time, and he never could tell how he was
succeeding until his task was half done. ' The
Royal Institution,' he once wrote to me, 'is the most
ticklish audience in Britain to lecture before, because
the most critical and refined, and possessing also, in
large and equal shares, so much knowledge and so

HENRY WILLIAM BRISTOW

1 847 FIELD - WORK IN WALES 99

much ignorance.' We shall find in the course of this
biography that the impression made by the young
lecturer's exposition upon the present occasion had
its influence in securing for him the goodwill of the
authorities at University College.

By the beginning of April he had finished all the
indoor work of the winter, and was ready to take the
field. From that time, with the exception of the brief
interval required to attend the meeting of the British
Association at Oxford, where he acted as Secretary of
Section C, he remained all the summer and autumn
in the field.

A few weeks of inspection duty were first spent
with H. W. Bristow among the Jurassic rocks of
Dorsetshire, and a visit was paid to Aveline and his
family near Wrington, in Somerset. By the first week
in May he was once more back in Wales, running
boundary-lines that still needed completion to the
north of Brecon, and revising the volcanic geology
to the north of Builth. His growing experience of
ancient volcanic rocks now enabled him to separate
the * ashes ' from the ordinary sediments, which in the
earlier surveys had been grouped together, and to
introduce much more precision and detail into the
mapping of these rocks. W. W. Smyth, who had
previously mapped part of the district, joined him at
Builth, and the two colleagues re-examined the dis-
trict together. On the 2ist May Ramsay chronicles:
* Out with Smyth over the Carneddau, and on the
traps farther north. Found them so egregiously
wrong, that they will not stand an hour's investiga-
tion in the new style of mapping. Great part of
the work to-day was revising his old work, so that
we are all more or less in the same mess. The day

ioo PROFESSORSHIP OF GEOLOGY CHAP, iv

was lovely, and a splendid full-flavoured Havannah
we did enjoy, where the two brooks meet to the
east of Maes gwyn, reclining on the grass in the
sun with all the trees growing green under our very
eyes. That was a smoke. Continued the lines from
thence all down to Tan y graig, and got home to
two cold legs of lamb at six ; Smyth finished the one,
and I the other. Wrote letters at night.' The com-
missariat of these Survey parties was sometimes apt
to vary a good deal both in quantity and in quality.
A few days after the disappearance of the two legs of
lamb, Aveline joined the party at Builth, bringing with
him a pig's cheek as a contribution to the common
larder. Ramsay records the consternation and dis-
tress of their worthy landlady on discovering that a
dog had got into the house, broken the dish, and made
off with the pig's cheek.

' Zrd June- — Out with Aveline at the traps to the
north to show him my system of working them, that
there might be a unity in the work of the Survey.
Got some capital work done to the north of Llwyn
Madock.

' Ajh. — Wrote my mother on hearing of the death
of Dr. Chalmers.1 He died suddenly in his bed, of
apoplexy, through the night on Sunday, the 3Oth. He
was the greatest and the best man I ever knew. I
am glad I saw him twice within the last two years,
and shall often think of his cheerfulness at the family
breakfasts, when, after the meal, his daughters, he, and
I used to " form the segment of a circle round the fire,"

1 Thomas Chalmers, born 1780, died 1847 ; the most distinguished preacher
of his day in the Church of Scotland. He was for some years minister of the
Tron parish in Glasgow, became Professor of Theology in the University of
Edinburgh from 1828 to 1843, and was the leading spirit in the secession that
founded the Free Church, of which he was the first Moderator. He was on
friendly terms with Mrs. Ramsay and her family.

i847 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE,

when he described his Sunday congregation in the
Cowgate "sitting in all the glory of their rags," and
when, speaking of the Survey, he said, " I hope they
endow you liberally, and do not engraft upon you the
scurvy economics of a Joseph Hume."

' i\th. — Heard from Sir Henry asking me if I
would accept the Chair of Geology at University Col-
lege, London, if it were offered me. Wrote favourably,
but said I would not accept if the trouble were to be
infinite and the emoluments nothing but the honour.
I would accept on the grounds that the position of
professor in one of the chartered Universities is a
good addition to my present honourable position ;
that it would do me good in London scientific society,
besides that a tag is a useful thing to a man's name
anywhere. This is the second time it has been
offered ; the last was before Joyce was appointed.'

Two days afterwards he heard that the number of
students attending the class of geology at University
College had, during the previous five years, ranged
from eight to seventeen, and the emoluments from
^14 : IDS. to ^48. The prospect which these figures
opened out to him could not be regarded as inviting.
Nevertheless he determined to accept the appointment
if the season and hour of lecture could be made to fit
in with his duties in the Survey. Edward Forbes
wrote to him urging him to make his conditions
definite, and particularly that the lectures should be
given in one continued course in January, February,
and March, and he added that * remuneration can
hardly be expected from it, but the position and title
are worth having, and might under various circum-
stances be of much importance to you. I think, too,
you might make a class in the end, and make it worth

102 *' * PROFESSORSHIP OF GEOLOGY CHAP, iv

while. Such a continuous course of lectures would,
at any rate, be excellent exercise. I fancy the dis-
posers of the chair and the advisers of the Senate on
such an occasion would be Greenough, Warburton,
Button, and perhaps Fitton, so that you might be
sure of just judges at least.'

As a mere matter of form he was asked to send in
an application for the appointment, together with any
testimonials he might wish to submit. Among his
papers he has preserved the recommendation he
received from Lyell, with the memorandum written
on it, ' Not used, appointment being completed before
it came.' The letter is as follows : —

KlNNORDY, KlRRIEMUIR, N.B.,

•jthjuly 1847.

DEAR SIR — My residence at a distance from London will explain
the delay in my answer. I am glad to learn that you are a candidate
for the Chair of Geology now vacant in University College, especially
as I hear there are from sixty to seventy students at King's College.
Several weeks ago one of the U. Coll. Council asked me my
opinion in regard to your qualifications for such an office, and I
mentioned your publications, so far as I knew them, from that
on The Geology of Arran (the excellence of which I could test by
my own knowledge of that island) to your last elaborate paper on
' Denudation ' in the Memoirs of the Survey of Great Britain.

I also alluded to your experience in field-work and the applica-
tion of geology to the arts. I was naturally questioned on your
powers as a lecturer, of which I was able to speak as having heard
you at the Royal Institution. I said you were able to express your-
self freely on subjects with which you were familiar without reference
to MS., and that I thought with practice you would make a good
oral instructor.

You may make any use you please of this letter, and I shall be
happy to answer any further queries if required. — Believe me, ever
truly yours, CHA. LYELL.

A. C. Ramsay, Esq.

De la Beche warmly supported the claims of his
colleague, and readily arranged that the duties of the
professorship and those of Local Director of the

i847 BRITISH ASSOCIATION, OXFORD 103

Geological Survey should not interfere with each
other. It was agreed that the lectures should be
given during the first three months of the year, and
in the afternoon, so that he could complete his work
at Craig's Court before going up to University
College. In due course he was appointed to the
chair, and now became ' Professor Ramsay/ the name
by which he is best known, and which he continued to
use for thirty-four years, until knighthood was conferred
upon him at the end of his official career.

The British Association assembled this year for
the second time at Oxford. Ramsay made a hurried
journey to the meeting, and returned to his field-work
in Wales. To him one of the pleasantest features of
the week was the presence of his old friend Professor
Nichol of Glasgow, whose early kindness he was
enabled in some measure to repay by introducing him
to a number of men of science whom the astronomer
had not before met. From his notes of the meeting a
few quotations may here be inserted.

' 2^tk June. — At eleven the business began with
Chambers's paper on Raised Beaches. He certainly
pushed his conclusions to a most unwarrantable length,
and got roughly handled on account of it by Buckland,
De la Beche, Sedgwick, Murchison, and Lyell. The
last told me afterwards that he did so purposely that
C. might see that reasonings in the style of the author
of the Vestiges would not be tolerated among scientific
men.

' 28^. — Prince Albert, the Crown Prince of Saxe-
Weimar, came to our Section while Count Rosen was
reading a paper, Murchison in the chair. This de-
lighted Sir Roderick. Afterwards Dr. Buckland took
the chair. Among others I read a paper on the

104 PROFESSORSHIP OF GEOLOGY CHAP, iv

Contour - lines of Cardiganshire, showing that the
hill-tops in the west formed a regular inclined plane
to the sea. I did not read, but spoke it. It was well
received by all but the Dean.

' 2tyh. — Sir Henry was in the chair to-day. I
spoke twice, and one time for Salter's benefit, showing
how far he was wrong in his conclusions touching
early life.'

As it was now the end of the June quarter, and
the accounts had to be gone through, Ramsay came
up from Oxford to London, and spent two or three
days there, contriving as usual to crowd a good deal
both of work and of amusement into the time.
Let me cite in illustration the diary of only one
day.

1 Zr(t Jufy> — Wrought among the accounts, etc., all
day, and wrote Willie. At three went to Lady Shelley's
breakfast party. There was a most brilliant assem-
blage. I, however, only knew Lady Shelley, Barlow,
and Sir Philip Egerton. I was especially delighted
with the children. There were about fifty of them.
They looked so lovely, and were so elegantly dressed.
A harp and piano were brought out to the green,
and the children danced so gracefully. I left at five
to join the Red Lion dinner. We entertained the
Prince of Canino and several others, Dutch, Russian,
and Danish, making no difference in our ordinary fare
of beefsteaks, kidneys, toasted cheese, etc. We had
two jolly bowls of punch brought in after. Cooke
Taylor was in the chair, Forbes vice. Sir Henry De
la Beche sat opposite the Prince, on Taylor's left
hand. The foreigners of northern nations entered
into the fun with heart and soul, and though the
nephew of the Emperor Napoleon was wondrously

1 847 /. BEETE JUKES 105

good-natured and seemed highly amused, I question
if he perfectly understood the humour of the thing.'

By the 8th of the month Ramsay had joined a
large Survey party assembled at Cerrig y druidion,
from which centre they were working out the structure
of the country to the north and east of Bala. On the
9th he makes the following entry : —

* Held a consultation over some trappy specimens
in the morning. After that went out with Smyth,
Jukes, Selwyn, Gibbs, and the dogs, to look at
Jukes's ash-beds. We had a goodish day's work on
bits of detail. Jukes should have showed me some-
thing larger, but detail seems his forte. He is ever in
doubt, even when nearly convinced, about little things,
and yet grasps the subject so well notwithstanding,
that he produces better work and understands it better
than any man on the Survey.'1 Next day one of the
canine companions of the party, ' Jukes's dog Governor,
amused himself by slaying a sheep, which cost his
master 75. 6d. In the course of a long walk we got
well drenched going, dried again coming back, and
were re- wet before we got home.'

De la Beche was at this time in North Wales with
his daughter, taking a share in the field-work by
tracing some of the boundary -lines of the igneous
rocks of Caernarvonshire. He asked Ramsay to join
him at Beddgelert, and to accompany him in a kind
of prospecting excursion through the country around
Snowdon, and thence into Anglesey. This was the
first introduction of the younger geologist to that
intricate piece of geology, in the ultimate unravelling

1 The reader, as already mentioned, will find an interesting record of the
friendship between Ramsay and Jukes in the Letters of the latter, likewise
glimpses into the life of the Survey men in North Wales.

io6 PROFESSORSHIP OF GEOLOGY CHAP, iv

of which he was to achieve one of the great successes
of his career. He probably never spent three happier
weeks than these. The beauty of the scenery entranced
him, he became more familiar with his worthy chief,
and what he always counted a great additional pleasure,
he passed the time in cultivated and agreeable female
society. On the first day, as they were driving over
to Llanberis, which was to be their chief headquarters,
he notes : ' To my great surprise and delight, Sir
Henry proposed that I should occupy the same
quarters with them — have a bedroom, and all mess
together. Wasn't I satisfied ? The thing was so
unusual, no one having ever penetrated before into
the sanctum of the family.' A few reminiscences of
the tour may be quoted.

' \^th July. — After breakfast we all started for the
top of Snowdon, the girls walking by the road, and
Sir Henry and I cutting a parallel section of the Bar-
mouth sandstones, etc., on the neighbouring ridge,
and every now and then coming within sight and
hailing them. By and by we joined them. It was
a glorious day. First, all the country was partially
enveloped in white fog, which, clearing off here and
there, showed peeps of the country, as if set in a
superhuman frame. By and by it all rolled away,
and from Cader Idris and Plynlimmon to the Long-
mynd all was clear and distinct. Confound the
Cockney tourists, though, that one meets a-top, and
confound the huts and coffee-pots, visitors' books and
guides.

' \$th. — We all started after breakfast for the lake,
and got into our landlord's boat, Sir Henry and I
pulling, and the ladies laughing and chatting in the
stern-sheets. I never enjoyed a day more all my life.

i847 A SPRAINED FOOT 107

We paddled along and admired the glorious scenery
of the lakes, and the Pass of Llanberis, with Snowdon
in the clouds, and that old grey tower below. Then,
ever and anon, Sir H. and I landed to tap the rocks,
chaining the boat with its fair freight to the banks till
our return. We pulled to the bottom of the lake, and
walked a mile farther, picking the ladies up on our
return, as well as a lot of cockles Sir H. had bought.
We loitered to gather a hundred or two of white and
yellow water-lilies. We then tied a shawl to an oar
for a sail and crept up the lake, dragged the boat into
the other lake, and so home at half-past six.'

In descending from an excursion to the top of
Glydyr fawr he sprained his foot — an accident which,
though he made light of it at the time, proved serious
enough in its effects to prevent him from further field-
work for some weeks. Much of the subsequent occu-
pation of the party was done by driving from point to
point, so that the disabled geologist had an opportunity
of taking a general survey of the whole region. In
this way they visited Caernarvon, struck the southern
coast at Pwllheli, crossed to the west side of the
peninsula, drove to the promontory of Aberdaron,
and thence back by Tremadoc to Llanberis. In these
preliminary traverses, favoured by good weather,
Ramsay was enabled in some degree to grasp the
physical features and broad geological structure of a
region into the detailed study of which the Geological
Survey was now about to enter. There is an additional
interest in these excursions, for one of them included
a visit to Anglesey, where Ramsay now saw for the
first time the island about which in after years he was
to think and write so much, where he was to find his
wife, where, wearied with the turmoil of official life, he

io8 PROFESSORSHIP OF GEOLOGY CHAP, iv

was to retire and spend his closing years, and where,
at last, he was to be laid at rest for ever. The party
drove to Beaumaris in an open barouche. The diary
records how they waited half an hour to see ' that
glorious work, the Menai Bridge. Its beauty, sim-
plicity, and grandeur are wonderful. Dined at the
Bulkley Arms, Beaumaris, and after dinner removed to
our new lodgings in Menai Place, which are very nice,
and have a splendid view across the straits.'

This happy time came to an end on the 6th August,
when the De la Beche party left by steamer for Liver-
pool, and Ramsay, still lame, made his way by carriage
to join Selwyn at Ffestiniog. With the help of a pony,
he was able to accompany Selwyn, Playfair, Jukes, and
Gibbs over a good deal of ground, and discuss with
them some of the problems that had been met with
in the course of the mapping. But as the sprain con-
tinued to give a good deal of trouble, he at last went
over to Dolaucothi, and remained six weeks there, to
rest and work at the preparation of his lectures for
University College. Forbes joined him, and the two
friends had long consultations over the general plan
of these lectures. Thus, under date the 25th August,
Ramsay records : ' Arranged with Forbes a plan of
my introductory lecture. By his advice I simplified
and condensed my plan, but I much fear it will be
more than I can well do to make a good job of it, con-
sidering the little time I shall have in London to pre-
pare a good philosophical account of how folks arrived
at their geological conclusions from the time of Strabo
down to our own date.'

The month of September, and nearly all October,
were spent in taking Forbes over some of the sections
that best showed the characters and relations of the

i847 EDWARD FORBES 109

various members of the Silurian series. From Dolau-
cothi the two geologists made their way by Llangadoc
and Llandovery to Builth, where they saw the Car-
neddau, with its unconformability, then by Pen y bont,
Kington, Ludlow, Church Stretton, Bishop's Castle,
and Chirbury to Welshpool. In this tour Ramsay,
still unable to use his foot, was compelled to ride,
while Forbes walked at his side. Being familiar with
the ground, however, he was able to point out all the
salient features of geological structure. * I explained,'
he says in his diary, ' and Forbes believed in all the
geology.' As Forbes had not had any opportunity of
making himself familiar with the older Palaeozoic rocks,
it was of great benefit to him, and of much ultimate
advantage to the Survey, that he should learn his
lesson in such a typical region, and under the guidance
of the best stratigrapher on the staff.

There was not, however, always perfect agreement
between the two travellers. So long as only the facts
of geological structure were concerned, Forbes was
quite content to take them from Ramsay, but when
it came to the interpretation of these facts, and to
theoretical deductions from them, he claimed to use
his own judgment. Notwithstanding the experience
gained in mapping the Cader Idris country, and in
traversing the Arenig chain, Ramsay still retained,
and indeed maintained to the last, his belief in the
conversion of stratified rocks, through the contact
metamorphism induced by intrusive masses of igneous
material, into substances that could not be distin-
guished from true igneous rocks. He supposed that
the sedimentary strata had been actually melted, and
that from this molten condition a gradation could be
traced, on the one hand, into the ordinary character of

no PROFESSORSHIP OF GEOLOGY CHAP, iv

sediments, and, on the other, into undoubted eruptive
material. After spending some time on Caer Caradoc
and Hope Bowdler he went to Bishop's Castle, and
on the first day of the stay there makes the following
entry : ' \st October. — Went out to take a turn on the
traps and altered rocks at Upper Hublast (sic). Found
that they had been injected into and highly baked the
Wenlock shales, and in one place, as I thought, fairly
melted them, so that part of this must be mapped trap.
Forbes and I had a tough argument on this head, for
I fancied I could trace a gradual change from the
genuine baked Wenlocks into melted beds. This he
would not allow, so we both became hot, and neither
gave in. We were doubtless partly both right.'

Edward Forbes was an excellent artist. He could
with great rapidity catch the likeness of any one whom
he wished to portray, while his poetical temperament,
his vivid imagination, and his keen sense of humour
enabled him to convert his likenesses into idealised
portraits or comical caricatures, as the impulse moved
him. At Dolaucothi he made pictorial contributions
to the ladies' albums, in which the various members of
the household figured. His landscape sketches were
likewise often admirable. His artistic eye enabled
him to seize and delineate accurately the general effect
of a scene, while his geological knowledge helped to
guide him in expressing its dominant features. Ramsay,
though not so gifted in this respect, was not without a
measure of artistic capacity. His early drawings of
Arran scenery were remarkably good, and his note-
books contain many characteristic sepia -sketches of
the landscapes through which his official duties led
him to wander. On this tour with Forbes, not being
able to walk, he seems to have consoled himself by

1 847 EDWARD FORBES in

sitting down to sketch. He makes reference in his
journal to these pictorial efforts, but it is generally
in some such form as, * Forbes made some excellent
water-colour drawings ; I spoiled some paper.'

Among the tastes which these two comrades had
in common was a love of antiquities. Ramsay up to the
last was always willing to go a long way round for the
purpose of visiting a ruined tower or crumbling abbey.
He would become enthusiastic as he reconstructed in
imagination the design and details of the architecture,
and traversed every nook and corner of the ruin, while
sometimes the proofs of ruthless destruction would fill
him with sadness. Referring to another part of the
country, he enters in his journal : * Revisited all the
ruins, got to the top of the square tower, and half
broke my heart with the contemplation of such glorious
structures utterly destroyed.' On one of the excur-
sions from Church Stretton his antiquarian soul was
stirred within him as they traversed the old Roman
road, Watling Street, and found it ' now so overgrown
that it is a mere grass walk between hedges and
briars.'

On the 26th October, after a pleasant tour of
five weeks, Forbes went back to London, and Ramsay
started for some weeks of hard field-work in Mont-
gomeryshire. A good deal of that country had
already been mapped, but there were some parts of it
which, from his more recent experience among the
volcanic rocks, needed revision before publication of
the maps. Accordingly, he devoted himself to the
task of re-examining and completing the geological
lines, taking long expeditions, getting over a large
tract of ground, and definitely fixing some important
points in the geological structure of the region.

ii2 PROFESSORSHIP OF GEOLOGY CHAP, iv

On the 6th November he writes : * Out on the hill
south-east of Llandegle Rhos. Could not make a
start without much scenting about and doubling back
and forward. But during this process I lighted on a
glorious sight, proving beyond a doubt all my asser-
tions about the geology of the country. Sir H. and
Smyth ought to have inferred the same when they
mapped these traps. I found Wenlock shale con-
taining rounded pebbles of trap and slate resting
unconformably on Llandeilos on the east side of the
Builth traps. It ravished my soul with joy, and far
more than atoned for the little that was done before/

' i \th December. — A tremendous day's work down
the middle of the traps to the ground above Llanilwidd,
near Builth. Found in Sir H.'s mass of greenstone on
the east lots of fossils ! Ran across the country as far as
Pencerrig, and walked back what is called eleven miles
in two hours and a quarter.' In this traverse he 'put
the finishing touch to the Builth section.'

All the daylight, and sometimes part of the dusk,
in these autumnal days were spent in this active
pedestrianism. But this work represents only a part
of the Director's industry at that time. He kept up
with singular regularity and promptitude a corre-
spondence which, both with his colleagues and with
friends at a distance, was every year growing more
voluminous. He had made some progress in Welsh,
and he used to employ himself in translating Welsh
songs into English rhyme. Nor did he content
himself with mere metrical translation. He had
always been rather fond of turning his thoughts into
verse, and he occasionally penned an ode or sonnet,
or a rhyming epistle. To his good friends at Dolau-
cothi he often chose a metrical way of expressing him-

1 847 SECTION-R UNNING 1 1 3

self. Thus, on one occasion, with the music of the
Spenserian stanza in his ear, he wrote : —

Or if mayhap, with radiance clear and bright,

The morn give token of a goodlie day
To lure the luckless geologic wight

Once more o'er dale and breezy down to stray ;
Then let him walk and work, while work he may,

Forthy eftsoons, though much against the grain,
He by and by, slow wending on his way,

Ah, hapless wretch ! returneth home again

Bemired above the knees, and drenched with pelting rain.

At another time, after section-running in very bad
weather, and getting back ' drenched with pelting rain/
he found consolation in making fun of the discomfort,
and with recollections of Marmion and the Lady of
the Lake, penned the following account of it : —

Dear Emily, two years ago
Methinks I promised to send

Some sunny day a line or so
To you, my trusty friend.

Loud howls the wind across the waste

Sharp falls the pattering rain,
And yet I don my togs in haste,

And take to the hills again.
With compass and clinometer,

And hammer, stout ally,
I tramp away from Rhaiadr,

Adown the winding Wye.
What reck my fellows of the rain,

William and Thomas hight,
Who bear the lengthy legs, the chain,

And the theodolite ?
Stout Thomas was a Builth man bold,

William was reared to wait
On John ap John ; his sire doth hold

His post beside the gate.
But when we came to Rhos-saith-maen

And set to work, I wist,
Our merry toil we scarce began

When the white and curling mist
Came downwards like a mighty shroud,
And wrapt the hills in one vast cloud,
I

ii4 PROFESSORSHIP OF GEOLOGY CHAP, iv

So thick and close, you scarce could see

Within that villain fog,
I vow to good St. Jeremy,

A chain's length o'er the bog.

But hark ! upon the bleak Drum-ddu
The roaring winds rush fast and free,
And the damp mists that hide the day
Upon their wings they bear away,
And up against the cold blue sky
Stands Cefn-y-gamrhiw sharp and high.
' Now to't, my merry men, like fun,
And make your hay while shines the sun ;
You, Thomas, cut along like wind,
And, William, follow up behind :
Run like old Scratch, my lads,' quoth I,
And off we go right merrily
By stock and stone, nor stayed to breathe
Till o'er the hill and o'er the heath
We reached the vale at set of sun
Where wild Cwm Elan's waters run.

Remote Cwm Elan ! well I ween
I never saw a fairer scene.
Thy sparkling waters winding stray
By meadow green and mountain grey,

Beneath whose shaggy crest,
In many a wild romantic nook,
By mossy stone and mountain brook,

Image of quiet rest,
In many a lone and shady spot,
Curls the blue smoke from lowly cot.

Next morning we were boun' to climb
Black Craig-y-foel's cliffs sublime;

So steep this hill, so tight and tough
To speel, it cost a whole hour long ;

And ere we reached the summit rough
It cracked my wind and stopped my song.

Then, O kind-hearted Emily,
Most fervently I beg of thee,
Remember in thy nightly prayer
Thy broken-winded A. C. R.

For some of his old Glasgow friends he chose a
ruder verse, as in the following piece of doggerel : —

1 847 LECTURE PREPARATIONS 115

I am a geologic tramp

(Beef and greens make very good cheer),
Over the country I rove and ramp

(And a pewter quart is the dish for beer).

I run and I ride, I ride and I drive

(Capon and sausage are good i' the mouth),
Come home to dinner at half-past five

(And a glass of stiff grog will quench the drouth). ,

I live in an inn by the turnpike road

(Ginger and pepper will tickle the chops),
In rainy weather a queer abode

(When ye brew, i' the brewst put plenty of hops).

You've got a wife and I've got a hammer

(Brose and butter and porridge and ale) ;
Both at a time can kick up a clamour

(And a joke's a joke, though never so stale).

A wife is better in palace or hovel

(O but a blushing maid looks winsome !)
Than a poke in the eye with a dirty shovel

(But a maid looks best when her pocket is tinsome).

I'm unco vexed that I canna gang down

(Up frae the Broomilaw up in a noddy),
But I maun prepare for the U.C. gown

(Breakfasts and dinner, and O ! the toddy).

But besides an increasing, though often amusing and
interesting correspondence, there were now looming
grimly in front of him the lectures which in a few
brief weeks he would have to begin in London. It is
not easy after eight or ten hours of active pedes-
trianism, followed by a good dinner, to sit down
calmly to serious literary exertion. Ramsay records
now and then with remorse that sleep got the better
of him, and he made no progress with those lectures.
Nevertheless he set himself resolutely to face the
task, and seems to have finished a number of lectures,
or at least the detailed notes from which they would

u6 PROFESSORSHIP OF GEOLOGY CHAP, iv

be delivered, before he returned to London. For the
main part of the course he knew he would be com-
pelled, in a kind of hand-to-mouth way, to work up
on one day the lecture that he was to deliver the next.

Not only were the lecture notes to be prepared,
but the diagrams to illustrate them all required to be
designed and drawn, for there were no appliances of
this kind at University College. Ramsay always
showed much skill, and even what might be called
artistic feeling, in the drawing of geological sections.
He now made drafts of what he would need for his
course, and sent them up to his colleague, W. H.
Baily, at Craig's Court, to be enlarged into proper
lecture diagrams. The occasional wet days that
interrupted mapping allowed more steady progress
to be made with these preparations for the professor-
ship, and once in the full swing of work he would
continue until long after midnight, when sleep, which
overtook him when uncalled for, would not come
when desired, even although he ' read Coimt Gram-
mont for an hour to get rid of the geology on the
brain.'

By the 2Oth December Ramsay was once more
back in London. Survey duty kept him busy all day
at the Museum, and his lectures still occupied him all
evening, and sometimes far into the night. A few of
his jottings regarding the preparation of these lectures
in town may be given here. ' Made a complete ab-
stract of Steno's Prodromus before going to bed.'
' Stuck at Hutton's Theory of the Earth and Playfair's
Illustrations all day (Sunday), and before night read
all, and made a complete abstract of the latter.'
' Wrote a bit of lecture, read The Fortunes of Nigel,
and went to bed at one.' 'Wrote a good bit of

1 847 LECTURE PREPARATIONS 117

my lecture at night. Hutton every day strikes me
with astonishment. Lyell does not do him half
justice.' He had never had any practice in public
speaking, and was uncertain how far he could trust
to notes, or how much he ought to write fully out.
But he possessed the best qualification for a successful
lecturer : he was full of his subject. To wide reading
in it he could bring the priceless advantage of that
personal acquaintance and vivid perception which
years of practical work in the field could alone have
given him.

A professor's first course of lectures is always
the most arduous. The preliminary gathering and
arranging of notes, and the planning and execution
of diagrams and other illustrations, leave him generally
prepared for, at least, the first few lectures, perhaps
for the larger proportion of the series. But he is
probably seldom able to get all his material in hand
for the completed course before he actually begins
to lecture. Most usually he comes to the end of
his arranged notes when there is still a formidable
part of the term in front of him, and when, therefore,
he has to sit late and rise early to get ready for the
prelection of each day as it comes. Then there is
the feeling of uncertainty which arises in his mind
as to his facility of expression, when, for perhaps the
first time in his life, he finds himself addressing that
exacting audience — an assemblage of lads, many of
them much readier to seek amusement than instruction,
careless yet critical, who have to be attracted and
interested before they can be instructed.

With but little knowledge of students and student-
life, with scarcely any previous practice in public
speaking, and with no experience in teaching, Ramsay

n8 PROFESSORSHIP OF GEOLOGY CHAP, iv

looked forward with some misgiving to the fateful
1 4th January 1848, when he was to enter upon
his new educational duties. He chose as the subject
of his Inaugural lecture a sketch of the progress of
geological science, selecting a few of the greater
names in the bead - roll of geology, and dwelling
more particularly upon the labours of the illustrious
Hutton.1 It was a wide theme for a single lecture,
but the author succeeded in giving prominence to
some of the main historical facts in the evolution of
geology, and he reserved for his opening lecture next
year a continuation of the story in its progress from
the time of Hutton to that of William Smith.

On the opening day of his course the new
Professor made the following entry in his diary : —

* \^th January. — Got up betimes and worked at
my lecture till half-past ten. Took a cab to University
College, reading as I went the ill -written passages
of my lecture. By and by Sharpey and Dr. Grant
came in. We then went to the Professor's room,
where Graham and Sharpey introduced me into a
silk gown, and then Dr. Grant introduced me to the
audience, which numbered about a hundred. I was
pleased to see so many. Dr. Fitton was there and
sundry others, Forbes and Oldham grinning at me
from the back rows. I felt a little nervous, but got
through very well, as they told me, in an hour and
a quarter.'

After a month's experience of lecturing he writes :
1 1 suspect the listeners are better pleased with my
matter than I am, and more than that, I daresay

1 Passages in the History of Geology, being an Inaugural Lecture at University
College, London, by Andrew C. Ramsay, F.G.S., Professor of Geology, University
College, and Director of the Geological Survey of Great Britain. London,
1848.

1848 FIRST COURSE OF LECTURES 119

I learn more than they do.' The course came to an
end on the last day of March, on which date the
following memorandum was made. * Got the com-
posing steam well up and finished the lecture by eleven.
Got through it unusually well, and had a round of
applause when it was over.'

We may be sure that in this first course of lectures
the young professor touched on many questions about
which he was able to lay fresh views and original
illustrations before his hearers, drawn not from books,
but from long observation of nature. His treatment of
denudation and the results achieved by it would be
specially full and instructive. His account of igneous
rocks and the manner in which volcanic phenomena are
chronicled among the older geological systems would
be such as at the time could be found in no published
book or memoir. His description of the structures of
the older sedimentary masses would be marked by
graphic detail, arising from minute practical study of
the subject in Wales. Those who remember Ramsay's
lectures in later years may well believe that these
earliest prelections would not be wanting in that sug-
gestiveness and foresight which were so characteristic
of his style of treatment. In one of his letters to
J. W. Salter (2nd October 1848) he remarks: 'Last
winter I confidently lectured that these [Welsh] rocks
were Silurian, and also that the Grampian clay-slates,
etc., would turn out to be ditto, more or less altered.'

During the winter of 1847-48 in London, besides
his lectures, there were various incidents that helped to
enliven the daily routine of the Local Director's official
duty. Sir Henry De la Beche had been elected
President of the Geological Society, and as he now
took the chair at the meetings, the fortnightly reunions

120 PROFESSORSHIP OF GEOLOGY CHAP, iv

had an added interest for the members of the Geo-
logical Survey.

In his anniversary address on the i8th February Sir
Henry took the opportunity of gracefully acknowledg-
ing the cheerful co-operation of the fellows of the
Society in the work of the Geological Survey. The
Society and the Survey were not rival organisations,
but were united in the one paramount object of pro-
moting the cause of geological science. It was a
former president of the Society who had been con-
sulted by the Government as to the propriety of
definitely establishing a geological survey of the
United Kingdom, and had urged the formation of
such a department of the public service, while many of
the members of the Society had cheerfully assisted and
encouraged the efforts of the Director. De la Beche,
on the other hand, had been for years Foreign
Secretary, and was now elected President of the
Society. He was thus enabled to give it the benefit
of his wide experience and his excellent business
habits. The members of his staff, too, took a share in
the affairs of the Society, acting on its council, reading
papers before it, entering into the discussions, and
contributing material to its Quarterly Journal. This
feeling of mutual sympathy and co-operation has con-
tinued to mark the relations of the Society and the
Survey down to the present day. The Society has
freely bestowed its offices and its honours upon the
members of the Survey, who, on their part, have
looked writh pride upon their connection with the
oldest and most distinguished of the geological
societies of the world.

On the present occasion Sir Henry was able to
announce the satisfactory progress of the Survey, both

1848 ERECTION OF JERMYN STREET MUSEUM 121

as regards its field-work and the issue of its maps.
He stated that the maps completing South Wales and
extending into North Wales would soon be published,
and that considerable progress had been made in the
Survey and publication of the maps of Herefordshire,
Shropshire, Somerset, Dorset, and Wiltshire. He
spoke also of the satisfactory advance of the field-work
in North Wales and Derbyshire, and referred to the
commencement of the publication of the maps of the
Irish branch of the Survey now under his direction.
But perhaps the most important announcement made
by him was that in which he stated that the collections
in the Museum of Practical Geology having so greatly
increased, * the Government is now erecting the con-
siderable building, which the members of this Society
may have observed extending from Piccadilly to
Jermyn Street, where these collections, illustrating
both the science and applications of geology, can be
made properly accessible to the public.'1

The planning and erecting of this new edifice
occupied much of De la Beche's time and thoughts for
several years, and many were the consultations which
he had with the various members of his staff on the
subject. His scheme gradually enlarged as he found
he could carry the Government authorities with him,
until, in 1851, he saw the new Museum completed, and
with it the realisation of the bold idea to found a great
educational establishment which he had aimed at so
many years before.

Besides the fact that his chief was now president,
Ramsay had the additional reason for attending the
meetings of the Geological Society, that he had been
elected a member of the Geological Club. This was

1 Anniversary address, Quart. Journ. GeoL Soc. vol. iv. 1848, p. 81.

122 PROFESSORSHIP OF GEOLOGY CHAP, iv

the dining fraternity to which, as already described, he
had been introduced by Murchison on his first coming
to London. Founded in 1824, it consists of Fellows
of the Geological Society, limited in number to thirty-
six, who are wont to dine on the evenings of the
Society's meetings, and to adjourn from the dinner to
the meeting. The Club thus serves a double purpose ;
it brings its members into closer and more social con-
tact with each other than is possible in the Society's
rooms, and it secures the nucleus of an audience at the
evening meeting afterwards. The Society's apart-
ments were at this time in Somerset House, and the
Club met in some restaurant in the near neighbour-
hood. At first the dinners took place at the * Crown
and Anchor Tavern ' until that noted establishment
was closed in 1847. The Club then moved to Clunn's
Hotel, Covent Garden.

Since the removal of the Society's apartments, in
the year 1873, to Burlington House, the old-fashioned
dining-houses in the region of the Strand have been
forsaken for others nearer the place of meeting — a
change still regretted by some who remember affec-
tionately the dingy but cosy dens where they used to
dine a generation ago.

A few memoranda regarding the Society and the
Club occur in Ramsay's diary of this winter. Thus
on the 5th January 1*848 he notes : * Dined at the Geo-
logical Club, Clunn's Hotel, Covent Garden, for the first
time since becoming a member. Selwyn accompanied
Sir Henry, who was in the chair; all the rest were
Horner1 and Prevost, so we were but five. The

1 Leonard Horner, born 1785, died 1864; one of the early fellows of the
Geological Society, and twice elected its President. One of his daughters
became the wife of Sir Charles Lyell.

1848 GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY ANNIVERSARY 123

dinner was splendid and the wine not bad. At the
Geological afterwards we had a paper by Nicol,1 the
new Secretary, which he read in a monotonous, drawl-
ing, school-boy voice, like some of the old scholars I
remember at the Parish School at Saltcoats twenty-four
years ago. The paper was good enough — on the
Silurian and part of the Old Red Sandstone of the
south of Scotland. Lyell, Salter, Greenough, and I
spoke. I rose a little afraid, but got on famously
before I had said a dozen words, and, as I was told
afterwards, gave great satisfaction to Greenough and
some others, who liked the Survey style of treating
such subjects. I took good care to clench two things ;
first, that on analogous subjects some papers would be
read by the Survey ; and, second, giving Selwyn a bit
of laudation to the cheering of his heart.' Next day
Sir Henry told him at the Museum that he had been
' much pleased with the Geol. Soc. last evening, but
said he was afraid I would speak again and remove
the good impression made by my first.'

' i8M February. — Anniversary of Geol. Soc. Did
not get down from my lecture till after the [Wollaston]
medal had been given to, and acknowledged by, Dr.
Buckland. Sir Henry's address passed off very well.
I sat mostly next Darwin. I was elected a member
of council. Anniversary dinner afterwards. Sir Henry
did most admirably in the chair, turning off all his
speeches excellently. Sedgwick made the best speech
of the evening. I was called on to return thanks for
the Survey ; Playfair for the Museum. I got on well,

1 James Nicol, born 1810, died 1879, was appointed Assistant Secretary of
the Geological Society in 1847, Professor of Geology, Queen's College, Cork, in
1849, and Professor of Natural History in the University of Aberdeen in 1853.
His best-known papers are on the structure of the North-West Highlands of
Scotland, the great value of which is now universally recognised.

124 PROFESSORSHIP OF GEOLOGY CHAP, iv

all save one short hesitation, caused by my being so
intent on my first paragraph that I quite forgot the
second. We broke up about eleven, and in the long-
run Smyth, Reeks, Bristow, and I had some supper.
Got home at half-past three.

' 22nd March. — Geological Society night. Dined
at the Club. Sir H. gone, and Moon in the chair.
I sat next Prestwich and Austen, and opposite Forbes
and Lord Selkirk — all pleasant men. The last seems
most agreeable and unaffected.

1 Good night at the Society. Buckland made a
most witty speech. It was about crinoids ; and he
began by saying that the debate seemed to him to
have "more of a gastronomic than a palaeontological
character ; for all that had been said bore upon the
relation of the plates to the mouth and the mouth to the
plates." Forbes spoke well, and to the purpose ; so
did Charlesworth and Carpenter. I was glad of this,
for Emerson, the American, was there.

' $th April. — Jukes and I read papers to-night at
the Geological on N. Wales and S. Wales. Sir H.
was in great alarm beforehand. Jukes read first.
Sedgwick was present, and most agreeable and con-
ciliatory. He made a most complimentary speech
after. Lyell ditto. Buckland was all in favour, but
in attempting to quote Scripture made a great mull of
it, and broke down, greatly to the amusement of all,
especially the Bishop of Oxford. I lectured rather
much, they told me — the natural effect of a three
months' first course of lectures.'

Of the two communications from Survey officers
read at this meeting of the Geological Society, one
was by Ramsay and Aveline, and was entitled a
* Sketch of the Structure of Parts of North and

1848 PAPERS AT GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY 125

South Wales.' It dealt chiefly with the succession of
the stratified rocks which had been worked out in the
country to the south and south-east of the Dolgelli
and Bala district, and pointed out the clear evidence
of the great unconformability and overlap of the Upper
Silurian formations. The other paper, entitled ' Sketch
of the Structure of the Country extending from Cader
Idris to Moel Siabod, North Wales/ was by Jukes
and Selwyn, and showed the relative positions of the
various great stratified groups and their intercalated
volcanic masses.

These papers are interesting in the history of
British geology, inasmuch as they gave the first pub-
lished outline of the results up to that time obtained
by the Geological Survey in North Wales. As their
titles expressed, they were merely sketches ; and even
in that form they were printed only in abstract. The
Director-General, as told in the last extract from
Ramsay's diary, was in a state of alarm as to what
might happen as a consequence of the reading of these
papers. This fear arose from a certain timidity of
nature which, with all his energy and determination,
characterised De la Beche. So anxious was he for the
ultimate success of all his wide scheme for a great
national institute of applied science, that though he
could show fight when occasion demanded, he shrank
from taking himself, or encouraging on the part of
his subordinates, any action which seemed likely to
stimulate opposition. He did not greatly favour the
communication of papers by his staff to scientific
societies giving the results arrived at during the opera-
tions of the Survey. He contended, and with some
show of reason, that these results were obtained by
public servants at the cost of the State, and were the

126 PROFESSORSHIP OF GEOLOGY CHAP, iv

property of the country, and not of the individuals who
made them. Some of the staff, however, angrily
resented any restraint of their liberty in this respect ;
and there seemed at one time the possibility of a serious
rupture on the subject. In the angry correspondence
which took place between one of the malcontents and
Sir Henry, it was asserted that by the course which
had been followed Ramsay had been prevented from
taking the position as a geologist to which the amount
and quality of his work entitled him. • This was a
charge which gave special pain to Ramsay himself
when he heard of it. 'This is too bad,' he wrote in
his diary ; ' for though by reading more papers I
might have stood higher at the Geological Society,
yet, all in all, Sir H. has been my best friend in every
way, private and public.'

The mutiny had been in progress during the
autumn, but as soon as Ramsay got back to London
his tact and sound common sense succeeded in not
only keeping the peace, but in effecting an arrange-
ment which, while it preserved the due discipline of
the service, provided for the officers of the Survey
the possibility of making known their observations in
anticipation of the subsequent publication of an official
account of them. He wrote to Aveline : ' I have
achieved a great point, and got permission for the
Survey to read papers at the Geological Society, on
the approval of the Director-General, when submitted
to him by me. I wish, therefore, you would think
over some of the particulars of your present trappy
country, as I wish much, if you have no objections,
to associate you with myself in a joint paper on the
Stretton, Bishop's Castle, Kington, and Builth land.
It must not deal with details, but be general, and yet

1848 DE LA BECHE'S OFFICIALISM 127

precise in its conclusions. We must not give sections,
but diagrams, such as other folk call sections, showing
the general run of things ; also only a sketch of the
map. The reason is, that as yet the country is un-
published, and matters handed in to the Geological
Society belong to it. It is a great point, however,
to have gained this, for the Survey is not half enough
before the public.'

This was by no means the only occasion on which
the Local Director was able to avert such threatened
ruptures between the * officialism ' of the Director-
General and the ' licence ' of the geologists. De la
Beche was by instinct an official, and he had lived so
long in intimate contact with ministers and depart-
ments that his natural bent of mind was intensified.
If there were two ways of getting a thing done, he
chose the more official and roundabout rather than
the more simple and direct. Probably he was gener-
ally right in his choice, but to those who looked on
from outside, and were not cognisant of all the facts,
he seemed often to be raising needless difficulties and
guarding against objections that were never likely to
be made. Always courteous and pleasant in manner,
he seemed unwilling to give a blunt negative to a
request, and thus sometimes, unwittingly, encouraged
hopes that he did not mean to fulfil.

Ramsay seems to have formed a tolerably just
estimate of the character of his chief, whose weak
points he recognised, while he thoroughly appreciated
his excellences. At the time of the outbreak above

referred to he wrote in his diary that ' has used

harsh and even unjust terms to Sir Henry, and ,

too, is not fair to him. Sir Henry's devotion to the
Museum and Survey sometimes blinds him to other

128 PROFESSORSHIP OF GEOLOGY CHAP, iv

matters. People must make allowance. With all his
little failings, I wish I knew more men I love as
much/

There can hardly be any doubt that the very
' officialism/ which seemed to some of De la Beche's
critics a defect, powerfully contributed to his success
in gaining from the Government of the country sup-
port to his scheme for the national endowment of
applied geology. He knew how to measure and
influence the official mind. He began by trifling
requests, and gradually educated the various depart-
ments to adopt his views and give their assistance
to carry them out, until it became as much a ^point
of honour and credit with his official superiors as it
was a heartfelt desire of his own that his successive
demands should be favourably considered at the
Treasury. Moreover, he cultivated personal relations
with the ministers of the day. He was on special 7
friendly terms with Sir Robert Peel, whom he led to
take interest in the erection of the new Museum an* '.
in the progress of the Survey. He even sounded him
as to his acceptance of the Presidency of the Royal
Society. On the 9th February of this year De la
Beche told Ramsay that he had been on this errand,
and that ' Sir Robert refused on the ground that it
ought to be a scientific man. He (Sir R.) highly
approved of the plan of holding the soirees at the
Society's rooms ; " and then," said he, "if a poor
man, as it might, and often ought to be, held the
Presidency, we could go and pay our respects to
him." '

But the Director-General and his staff at Craig's
Court had other duties to discharge this winter than
had ever before fallen to their share. The proposal

1848 THE CHARTIST SCARE 129

of the Chartists to assemble 200,000 men on Kennington
Common and march to Westminster on the loth April
led to the taking of ample precautions for the security
of public buildings in London. Though the establish-
ment at Craig's Court might have been supposed to
lie almost hidden away from the ken of any rioters, its
officials prepared themselves most manfully to resist
the invasion of their premises. These preparations,
and the eventful day, are thus chronicled in Ramsay's
diary :—

1 %th April. — Got sworn-in to-day a special con-
stable ; got a baton at Scotland Yard. Forbes refused ;
his usual policy. He says there is no cause for alarm,
and yet commends people for taking precautions ! Yet
he takes none. Sir H. also organises, yet does not
swear -in himself. Playfair, Hunt, Baily, Reeks,
J.i A. Phillips,1 etc. etc., plucky.

' <$tk. — Wilson is also sworn-in, and quite ready to
<\o the needful. Quiet enough to-night ; doubtful to-
norrow.

* loM. — Grand row expected to-day. Forbes
called, and we went down to the Museum before ten ;
met Playfair. Sir Henry at the Museum very active
and mysterious, passing through holes into the back
stables of the Scotland Yard Police Office, and bring-
ing out armfuls of cutlasses. Streets full of special
constables. Chartists afraid, and cowed ; all passing
off quietly. No procession took place. However, we
had a jolly dinner in Sir Henry's room for fourteen,
and cigars and coffee in the laboratory afterwards.

1 John Arthur Phillips, born 1822, died 1887 ; received his training at the
£cole des Mines, Paris. At the time referred to in the text he was assistant to
Professor Playfair in an investigation ordered by the Admiralty into the steam
coals best adapted for the Navy. He afterwards became a consulting engineer
in mining and metallurgical matters, and travelled much abroad professionally.

K

130 PROFESSORSHIP OF GEOLOGY CHAP, iv

This was the hardest duty we had to perform. On
public grounds, our men were well pleased that things
went off quietly ; but as private individuals, many
seemed rather disappointed that there was no scrim-
mage, especially Bone and J. A. Phillips, who were very
bloodily inclined. Salter was evidently in a funk, and
kept up his spirits all day by whistling psalm tunes.'

One of the pleasantest interludes of Ramsay's life
this winter in London was a visit paid by him to
Darwin's hospitable home in Kent, when Lyell and
his wife, Owen and Forbes were likewise guests. It
was a brief sojourn from Saturday to Monday, of
which he records :—

' i$th February, Sunday. — Rose betimes, had a
walk in the gardens, and came in to breakfast. Set
to work after, and read and thought over Hopkins's
views as shown in Jameson's Journal, and when found
made a note. After lunch Forbes, Owen, Lyell, and
I had a walk in Sir John Lubbock's park, and saw a
number of things pleasant to look upon, in spite of a
tendency to drizzling. Nice cosy chat, too, before and
after dinner. Darwin is an enviable man — a pleasant
place, a nice wife, a nice family, station neither too
high nor too low, a good moderate fortune, and the
command of his own time. After tea Mrs. Darwin
and one of her sisters played some of Mendelssohn's
duets, etc. etc., all very charming. I never enjoyed
myself more. Forbes came to my room before going
to bed, and gave me a sketch of his coming lecture on
generic centres. Lyell is a much more amusing man
than I gave him credit for. Mrs. Lyell is a charming
person — pretty, lively, and full of faith in, and admira-
tion of, her husband.

' Mr. and Mrs. Lyell told some capital stories about

1848 L YELL ON NE W ENGLAND 131

America, but on the whole all tending to the honour
of America. He is quite enthusiastic about it, especi-
ally in all that relates to the liberal spirit of the New
Englanders. Boston seems in all the world his
favourite city. The worst party in America is the
party that emigrates from Great Britain.'

CHAPTER V

THE SURVEY OF THE SNOWDON REGION

WE have now to enter upon the records of three of
the most active years of Sir Andrew Ramsay's life,
during which he achieved his chief geological triumph
— the unravelling of the complicated history of the
ancient volcanic region of which Snowdon forms the
centre. Though the details of one working season
were closely similar to those of another, the story has
so much interest in the progress of the geological
investigation of the British Isles, that even at the risk
of a certain amount of repetition it will be most appro-
priate to keep the doings of each year distinct.

By the middle of April 1848 the work of the
previous winter was at last happily at an end. It had
been an exceedingly onerous time for Ramsay, and he
confessed now and then that he had nearly reached
the limits of his powers of endurance. Before the
season closed he was fain sometimes to shirk an even-
ing reception or discourse and take refuge in the
reading of Boswell's Life of Johnson, or some other
favourite. It was, therefore, with no little alacrity
that he packed his portmanteau and started for the
field again on the i8th April. From that time till
the middle of December, with the exception of a little
break to attend the British Association meeting, and

1848 A CANTANKEROUS FARMER 133

a few weeks spent in Scotland, he remained in Wales,
working out the geological structure of Caernarvon-
shire.

Beginning his campaign with a tour of inspection
along the south coast, he made his first visit to the
Isle of Wight, and spent some pleasant days with
Forbes and Bristow rambling along the base of the
Dorsetshire cliffs. They had among the incidents
of this excursion an experience of one of the difficulties
in the life of a geological surveyor in the more bucolic
parts of England. They were crossing a farm when
the farmer rushed on them with angry execrations and
violent flourishings of a large spade, with which he
threatened to make an end of them if they did not
instantly move off his land. In vain they endeavoured
to expostulate and to explain their object. The infuri-
ated tenant only became the more defiant. Next day
he had not cooled down, but now swung round a still
more lethal weapon, would listen to no remonstrance,
and had at last to be brought to his senses by a sum-
mons before a magistrate.1

After brief visits to Aveline and Jukes in the
Breidden district, and tracing some new lines there
himself, he passed on to Selwyn at Port Madoc and
Dolgelli. Room may be found here for his memor-
andum of one day in this visit of inspection.

* %th June. — Up again to the hills south-west of
Craig y Cae. Got in some faults and a lot of strange
dykes and spots of squirted traps. Selwyn and I separ-
ated and took different ground, and often met again to
compare and compile. A lovely day, and the effects

1 By the Act 8 and 9 Victoria cap. Ixiii. power was given to enter lands for
the purposes of the Geological Survey, and to prosecute any one interfering with
the work.

134 SURVEY OF THE SNOWDON REGION CHAP, v

over the valley of Dolgellaw and the towering range
of Cader Idris most strange and glorious. At last all
the lower clouds (which long hung like a half-fallen
curtain in the foreground, behind which the sun glori-
ously illumined the distant glens and precipices)
cleared away, and all along the ridge of Cader and the
giant slopes of Aran Mowddy the shadows of scattered
clouds flitted by like the images of huge flying dragons.
I like this plan of separation and meeting. It is
pleasant to get alone among the shattered rocks, where
one can soliloquise, sing, and shout at will without any
man to think you a fool. Home to dinner at six.'

On the 1 4th of the same month he took up his
quarters at Llanberis, for the purpose of himself attack-
ing Snowdon and the surrounding region. The year
before, during the preliminary traverses with the
Director-General, he had been able to take a general
or bird's-eye view of this picturesque district, and had
seen enough of its geology to recognise the extra-
ordinary interest as well as the extreme complexity of
its problems. He had determined to devote himself
heart and soul to their solution, and now at the earliest
opportunity, in full vigour of body and mind, he had
come back to carry his resolve into effect. His life
and work at Llanberis may be best pictured in a few
extracts from his diary.

* zist June. — Out north to Marchllyn Mawr. De-
scended to the lake. While minutely examining this
section, and hammering along, out jumped a trilobite
and a lingula, some 600 or 700 feet down in these
" Cambrians," as we called them. So here at a blow
vanishes the idea, which we all believed, that the rocks
are unfossiliferous beneath the trappy series. There-
fore Barmouth, Longmynd, and Llanberis purple lower

1848 BRITISH ASSOCIA TION A T SWANSEA 135

ground, if one, still do not present the beginning of
life, unless a lingula and trilobite were first called into
existence where now reposes Marchllyn Mawr.

* 30^. — Out after breakfast to touch up part of the
sandstones and make out part of the Snowdon section
on the ridge above the Pass of Llanberis. What with
the interminglings of ash and slate, I see it will be a
matter of extreme difficulty, especially as the rocks are
much rolled.

' ist July. — Stormy and cold. Up the Pass of
Llanberis. Set to work to trace the steep ridge of
Llechog. Up and down twice, and half up and down
several times. Steep work, consequently not much to
show for it. I climbed up and down places that
from the road seemed impracticable.'

These labours were for a brief interval suspended
while Ramsay went to Swansea to attend the meeting
of the British Association. Under the hospitable roof
of Mr. Dillwyn (whose son had married one of De la
Beche's daughters), and with Sir Henry himself as a
guest in the house, he spent a memorably pleasant
week. He acted again as one of the secretaries of
Section C, and read a paper ' On some Points con-
nected with the Physical Geology of the Silurian
District between Builth and Pen y bont, Radnorshire.'
' i \tk October. — Splendid morning. Started at half-
past nine for the hills at the top of the Pass, and sent
Gibbs to search the ridge of Snowdon. Sir H. and
Forbes [who had recently joined him at Llanberis] fol-
lowed about half-past ten for the top. While at work
on the side of Crib goch I heard Selwyn's well-known
shrill shout, and soon discovered him on the top of a
crag on Crib goch. So we joined and compared notes,
and soon put matters straight at Glas lyn. We then

136 SURVEY OF THE SNOWDON REGION CHAP, v

passed on to the top, often standing to discuss, and
just as we got to the bottom of the peak descried our
party coming down. We stayed nearly an hour up,
and then followed. Forbes was making a bad sketch
where the path turns down to Pen y gwryd ; Sir H.
and Gibbs fossilising.

1 2otk. — Gibbs and I started at half- past nine up
Snowdon. Went down to the copper mine at Llyn-du-
r'Arddu. We climbed up the face of the cliff there,
just by the great fault — a fearful place. It was frozen
over in many places with ice and snow. It took us a
whole hour to climb it, and we were frequently obliged
to stop when in a secure position to beat our hands
to warm them. We had often to cut steps in the rock
and ice. Gibbs never for a moment lost his coolness,
but I got a little nervous for two or three minutes.
Once up half-way it was impossible to return ; we
were obliged to go up. Had a foot or hand given
way one or both of us would have been smashed.
Parted on the other side of the ridge. I walked
across Snowdon to Beddgelert. The top was covered
with snow ; fine view. Got to Beddgelert by six, just
before Selwyn's dinner.

* 2nd November. — Out on the ridge on the north-east
end of Crib goch. Sometimes misty, but on the whole
a good day. Finished all that side as far up as the
upper end of the Pass, and to the brook that runs from
Llyn Llydaw. Excellent day's work, especially as it
fairly finished all that side of the Pass.

' 15^. — Up the Pass and up Glyder by the new
path I discovered yesterday opposite Pont y grom-
lech. This mountain begins to be as familiar to me
as Charing Cross, and shows evident symptoms of at
length beginning to be licked into geological shape.

RICHARD GIBBS

1848 FIRST LESSONS IN GLACIAL GEOLOGY 137

Had a grand find of large Or t hides to-day in the ashy
sandstones above the nodular trap. Gibbs and I
climbed to the summit of that huge tower-like precipice,
from which the masses of volcanic breccia have fallen,
misnamed a cromlech. It is a fearful cliff to look
down, but wide and quite secure at the summit.'

To geologists, and especially to those who are
familiar with Sir Andrew Ramsay's name as a writer
on glacial phenomena, and who remember his early
descriptions of the ice-work in the Pass of Llanberis,
it may be of interest to know that he seems to have
been at work for some months in that district before
his attention was arrested by its glaciation. We have
seen how he curtly dismissed Buckland's views when
these were criticised adversely at the Geological
Society. While he makes many notes about other
geological matters observed by him on ground which
he was examining for the first time, or mapping in
detail, he never alludes to the superficial phenomena
which a few years later so fascinated him. The first
reference to the subject in his diary occurs under date
3rd August 1848, on the occasion of a visit of Robert
Chambers1 to him at Llanberis. It runs as follows:
' Selwyn, Reeks, and Smyth up Snowdon ; Chambers
and I out on glacial excursion up the Pass, etc. Very
instructive work.' Next day he remarks that the
party, including Chambers, 'started for Llyn Idwal,

1 Robert Chambers, born 1809, died 1871, best known for his contributions
to general literature, took much interest in science, especially in geology. He is
now known to have been the author of the famous Vestiges of the Natural History
of Creation. He especially studied raised beaches (see his volume on Ancient
Sea-margins'] and the traces of ancient glaciers, and in pursuit of his researches
in these subjects travelled not only over most of Britain, but into Switzerland,
Scandinavia, Faroe, and Iceland. He wrote numerous papers giving the results
of his observations, many of which appeared first in Chambers 's Journal, and
were sometimes separately reprinted, as in the case of his Tracings of the North
of Europe.

138 SURVEY OF THE SNOWDON REGION CHAP, v

and walked across the hills to Llanberis. Splendid
examples of glacial action.' Chambers had come
purposely to see the evidence of glaciers in the Welsh
valleys, and to compare it with what he was now
familiar with in Scotland. It looks as if this visit of
his had really for the first time turned his companion's
eyes from the rocks themselves to the study of the
manner in which they have been worn and striated by
ice. Ramsay seems to have been still much in the
state of mind so well described by himself a few years
later. '.We recollect well the unbelief and ridicule
that greeted the announcements of Agassiz and Buck-
land in 1840-41, that glaciers once occupied the greater
valleys of the Highlands of Scotland and of Wales,
and how sceptics and shallow wits, whose geology
perhaps rarely extended beyond the precincts of turn-
pike roads, attributed the grooving and striation of
the rocks to cart-wheels and hob-nailed boots, and the
ice-polished rock surfaces to the sliding of the caudal
corduroys of Welshmen on the rocks, to slickensides
and sea- waves, and to every cause, indeed, but the true

one.'1

By the i5th November, however, he had been
led to recognise everywhere the peculiar smoothing
and polishing produced by moving ice ; for on that
date, with regard to the summit of the tower -like
precipice referred to in the citation above, he remarks
that this summit ' is, as usual, well grooved with glacial
undulations.' Yet it is noteworthy that these are the
only allusions to glaciation in the jottings of his first
year's work in North Wales. He had evidently not
yet realised the nature and force of the proofs of

1 Review by A. C. R. of fifth edition of Lyell's Elementary Manual of
Geology in the Edin. New Phil. Journ. April 1856, p. 317 (see postea^ p. 238).

1848 GEOLOGICAL DELEGATES FROM ABROAD 139

former glaciers in this country. He had never been
abroad. The revelation which the first sight of a
living glacier flashes upon the mind of a geologist was
still to come to him. And thus we find him passing
day after day up and down the Pass of Llanberis,
heedless of the ice-worn knolls and perched boulders
which he was soon so enthusiastically to visit and
revisit, and so lovingly to sketch and map and describe.
It has been the custom for foreign governments
from time to time to send delegates over to this
country for the purpose of personally seeing how the
work of the Geological Survey is carried on, with a
view to the initiation or improvement of geological
surveys in their own countries, or for other purposes
where a knowledge of detailed geological mapping
may be desirable. During Ramsay's long stay this
year at Llanberis he had two such foreign visits. In
June A. Sismonda, the well-known Tuscan geologist,
accompanied by a young French friend, was awaiting
him in his room one evening on his return, drenched
and weary, from a long tramp on the hills, and they
subsequently accompanied him to his work in the field.
* Sismonda not being much of a climber,' Ramsay
writes, ' preferred the road to the rocky sides of the
hills. He is still of the Iilie de Beaumont school,
believes in prodigious terrestrial actions down to the
end of late Tertiary time, working with a force of
which we have now no experience — earthquakes
shaking, traps heaving, and currents sweeping. At
night I got the Frenchman and him into a hot political
argument, the Frenchman being republican, the other
monarchical. Their animated countenances and rapid
gestures were most unlike anything one sees in an
English debate.'

140 SURVEY OF THE SNO WDON REGION CHAP, v

In August the advent of two bearded Austrians,
with large slouched hats, made some sensation among
the peasants of Llanberis. One of these visitors was
the distinguished Franz Ritter von Hauer, so long
Director of the Geological Survey of Austria, and now
head of the great Museum of Vienna ; the other was
Dr. Moritz Homes, a well-known Austrian geologist
and palaeontologist. They accompanied Ramsay in
some of his tramps over Snowdon, and received much
Survey information from him for a report they were
making to their Government. The diary records the
ravenous appetites of the party at the evening meals
after long days in the keen mountain air, and speaks
of 'ogres devouring fish and legs of mutton.'

Not the least pleasant episodes in the Llanberis
life were the occasional visits of members of the
Survey staff. Selwyn, who was stationed at Bedd-
gelert, would sometimes work over the hills and spend
the evening and night with Ramsay, who in turn
occasionally crossed the watershed, and landed in
time for dinner at Beddgelert. Edward Forbes, who
had recently married, brought his bride to Llanberis,
and Ramsay took a room in their cottage while they
remained there. But no colleague was so welcome
as his worthy chief. On an October evening a car
arrived at Llanberis with luggage, but no traveller.
Ramsay, however, recognised the old portmanteau,
and, sure enough, immediately after up came Sir Henry
'shouting and making as much noise as possible.'
They had long consultations together on Survey plans
and prospects, and one Sunday the Director-General
became specially communicative to his younger asso-
ciate. The conversation is thus reported : * A walk
in the light rain with Sir H., more than usually agree-

1848 VIEWS OF DE LA EEC HE 141

able. He was very kind and confidential, speaking in
the strongest manner about his wish that I should
succeed him, and recommending me to write some
good memoir speedily for our work, to strengthen my
case. " It is not Phillips," he said, "nor any other
man on the Survey you have to fear, but such as
Murchison and Lyell, who would make an effort.
Lyell has so often of late asked me how I did this and
that, that I begin to be suspicious." He further said
he would try to get an increase of pay for me, and that
independently of Oldham, on the ground of my larger
charge. I said I would fain see the others with
larger pay. He replied, "You must have it first."

How cordial the relations were between the chief
and his lieutenant may be gathered from two notes of
De la Beche of this period : —

LONDON, i8M November 1848.

MY DEAR RAMSAY — It is refreshing and a comfort to get
letters from your honest self, instead of some that I do receive,
and from those whom I have laboured to benefit. I even got one
three or four days since, containing a passage which looked marvel-
lous like a charge of impeding your fair fame. At least, I cannot
make anything else of it. But, mind you, this is strictly between
ourselves.

You give a capital account of yourself and your rocky parlia-
ments, making me long to be climbing the hills instead of wending
amid sooty streets. However, I believe I am usefully here for the
good cause; for the new building is getting on famously, and,
among other things, the lecture-room has turned out famously as to
light, sound, and accommodation-space. — Ever sincerely,

H. T. DE LA BECHE.

LONDON, 'jtk December 1848.

MY DEAR RAMSAY — Yours rejoiceth the cockles of my heart.
Those great ' DONES ' of yours were right welcome, as is also the
intelligence that you will be shortly up here. I have much to con-
sult my geological son about — fossil proceedings, etc. etc. . . .—
Ever sincerely, H. T. DE LA BECHE.

142 SURVEY OF THE SNOWDON REGION CHAP, v

As reminiscences of the winter season of 1848-
49 in London, a few jottings from Ramsay's diary
may be inserted here. Besides the completion of
their official map-work and memoir-writing, the geolo-
gists of the Survey were wont to signalise their
assembling in London by a dinner, where they wore
their official buttons and sang songs which were
written by them for the occasion. Of the earliest of
these annual gatherings no continuous record has been
preserved, but from the year 1850 onwards the
original songs have been entered in ' Ye Recorde
Boke off ye Royale Hammereres, off whyche Anciente
Ordere Tooballcane and Thorr were erlie Knyghtes.'
The subjects chosen for these metrical effusions
generally bore reference to some of the work that had
been in progress during the previous year, or to some
incidents in the life of some of the staff. For a
number of years Ramsay never failed to bring his
contribution to the hilarity of the after - dinner
minstrelsy, sometimes producing as many as four
original songs, and singing them with great vigour.
Some of these compositions will find a place in later
pages. The chronicle does not show that De la
Beche ever ventured into rhyme, though he figures
prominently in many of the songs. But his successor,
Murchison, used to write, and, to the best of his
ability, sing his song at the annual dinner ; while
Forbes, Smyth, Jukes, Salter, Baily, and many of the
later members of the staff were frequent rhymesters.

The dinner this year (1849) was held in Covent
Garden, and Ramsay records of it : * We sat down
some twenty, Sir H. in the chair, Oldham vice. A
right jolly dinner ; some capital songs, all original ;
Salter's and Smyth's best.'

i849 GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY AND CLUB 143

The meetings of the Geological Society are briefly
noticed in the diary. Thus under date the 3rd January
we get an amusing glimpse of the Council : ' Geo-
logical Council to-day. Tough fighting about the
Museum Committees. Greenough at five began to
speak, and said he could not speak for less than an
hour. Dismay reigned. However, he was stopped,
and the debate adjourned. Club dinner after ; small
but pleasant party. I sat between Sir Charles Lyell
and Forbes. So-so night at the Society after. I
spoke a few words on the Ridgeway cutting. Sir
Roderick Murchison was there — the first time I have
seen him for nearly two years. He has given up the
wig on the Continent, and looks much better in con-
sequence.'

Sir Henry's tenure of office as President of the
Society would terminate at the anniversary in
February, and Lyell had been nominated as his suc-
cessor. The new President takes the chair at the
annual dinner which is held on the evening of the
anniversary, and it is his part to invite such official or
other guests as he may wish to be present. Lyell had
now this arduous and troublesome duty to discharge.
Ramsay writes under date the loth February : ' Lyell
with us a long time, anxious and waiting. He is beating
up prodigiously for big-wigs to attend the Geological
dinner, and will be miserable unless Sir Robert Peel
be there. Sir R. ran over the new Museum this
morning with Sir H. and Dr. Buckland. He was
(says Sir H.) " charmed." He said the building of it
was an act performed in his administration on which
he could always look back with pleasure.'

The anniversary of the Geological Society took
place on the i6th February, when De la Beche gave

144 SURVEY OF THE SNOWDON REGION CHAP, v

his second and concluding annual address before
vacating the Presidency. In this discourse he
announced his expectation that the complicated dis-
trict of North Wales would be completely surveyed
during that year. In this hope he made rather too
little allowance for the excessive and difficult detail
which the area contained, for it was not found possible
to finish the region until the summer of next year.
He referred to the publication of the maps of Cardi-
ganshire and Montgomeryshire, and to the fact that
those of other parts of North Wales were in the hands
of the engraver. Dorsetshire and Derbyshire were
nearly completed, and the mapping of the Tertiary
deposits had advanced into Hampshire.

Ramsay's account of this anniversary meeting was
as follows : ' Sir H.'s speechifying day — the Geo-
logical Anniversary. Prestwich was awarded the
Wollaston medal. In rising to present it, Sir H.
upset two large oil-lamps that stood on the table
before him and made a prodigious smash. All the
house laughed, and poor P. was a trifle discomposed.
He has a glorious head. Sir H.'s speech was said to
be excellent. I was obliged to run off to lecture.
Went down from College to the dinner at the
Thatched House Tavern. I sat betwixt Playfair and
Captain James. Reeks, Bristow, Smyth, M'Coy,
Tylor, Austen, Forbes, and I were all in a lump.
Lyell made a poor speaker in the chair. Sedgwick
made a magnificent speech, the Archbishop a
goodish one, Van der Weyer a good one, Sir H. a
good one, Buckland a fair, Sir Robert Peel a splendid
one, Murchison an indifferent one, from trying too
much.'

Ramsay continued frequently to attend the Royal

1 849 THE RED LIONS 145

Institution Friday evening discourses. He thus
chronicles the evening of the gih February : * Went to
the Royal Institution to hear Owen on Limbs. I
stood on the steps. The lecture seemed to be admir-
able. Much of it I highly admired, and much of it
I did not understand. The theatre was quite full. I
saw many I knew : Dr. Fitton looking good-humoured,
Sir Roderick looking anxious to keep awake, Dr.
Mantell looking eager, Dr. Macdonald looking jolly
and anxious for a hole in Owen's coat, Sir Henry
looking attentive and queer when Owen came to the
orthodox peroration, Sir Charles and Lady Lyell

looking knightly, Lady S looking vulgar, Nicol

looking Scotch, with a doubt in his eye, and Mrs.
F— - looking at her dress.'

The Red Lions kept up their London dinners,
which were sometimes specially mirthful. Thus on
the 1 9th April Ramsay writes: 'Walked over to
Anderton's with Reeks to dine with the Red Lions.
Capital party, Lankester in the chair. I sat between
him and Sheean, a barrister, and the great original of
the Mulligan of Ballymulligan. He seems a capital
fellow, though, and sang some excellent songs. Turn-
berry sang well, and put the whole table in a roar.
I scarcely recollect a better evening. Owen was
capital, and made a most humorous speech, contrasting
the pleasure of sitting in this snowy night, so cosy and
merry round the table, with the horrors of the Royal
Society then sitting, where the members, on cold
benches, in a room with newly-lighted smoke-belching
fires, sat listening to a dull paper, with the prospect of
one still duller before them. Percy enjoyed himself
in his usual hearty style.'

Of the dinner-parties and receptions, room can be

L

146 SURVEY OF THE SNO WDON REGION CHAP, v

found here for the mention of two only.
February. — Sir Roderick Murchison's dinner at
seven. When I walked into the drawing-room Lady
Murchison came running up to me with both her
hands out, and made me sit down beside her. . . .
Sedgwick was there, Pentland, and Lockhart, Sir
Walter's son-in-law. I was delighted to meet him.
We had a capital evening. Lockhart was most
amusing and interesting. He told a strange story of
Lord Brougham, who, it appears, never goes home
from any party without first going and taking tea with
Lola Montes ! I wish I could recollect half the things
he said. He is a thorough man of the world and of
society, and most gentlemanly, though a trifle abrupt
in manner. I did not altogether like the way he
spoke of my old friend Dr. Chalmers and his
posthumous works.

1 i%rd March. — Went to Barlow's. A crowd there ;
among others Dilke and his wife, Baden Powell and
his wife, Lady Shelley, Miss Grant, Captain and
Mrs. Smyth, Warington and Miss Smyth. Louis
Blanc ! Some ladies made a demi-lion of him. I
was ashamed of them, and wondered Barlow could
ask such a man to his house. I would be ashamed to
have so foolish and mischievous a fellow in mine. He
is a little pragmatical individual, insignificant in person,
and insignificant in any appearance of an enlarged
intellect. Petitesse is the word that expresses him
in all things.'

In the prospect of soon taking the field again, he
wrote to Aveline from London on 27th March :—

MY DEAR TALBOT — My lectures will be over this
week. I shall examine the class on Tuesday, and as

i849 ELECTION INTO ROYAL SOCIETY 147

soon after as possible, that is to say, when I have got
rid of Gibbs and the fossils, I shall fly to the country.
It will probably take me all that week after Tuesday
to finish with Gibbs. Then I join Jukes for a few
days. Thereafter I shall go to the Shrewsbury
country, principally to look at the Silurians and traps
that Smyth traced in, before publishing the map. A
few days should do that. I then purpose taking you
by storm on my way to Caernarvonshire, so that I may
see what sort of strange ground you are on, and also
that we may hold a grand geological palaver. I fancy
it will be well-nigh the end of April ere I can reach
you. Where do you think you may have progressed
to by that time ?

But it was the usual fate of such prospective plans
of work that they could not be carried out within the
specified time. It was the 2oth April before Ramsay
could leave London. He first joined Jukes, who
had been at work in the Staffordshire coal-field, and
who was now about to run some horizontal sections
in the Dudley district. These two friends were
becoming every year more closely knit together in
intimate friendship. Ramsay, for instance, writes :
* Jukes rises daily in my esteem ; he is a noble fellow.'
It was while this Midland work was in progress that the
official intimation reached Ramsay of his election into
the Royal Society. As far back as the 2ist April he
had heard from his kind-hearted chief that he was one
of the fifteen candidates selected by the Council. He
might well regard himself as fortunate in reaching this
honour after not more than eight years spent in the
active prosecution of scientific work.

On the completion of the section -running with

148 SURVEY OF THE SNO WDON REGION CHAP, v

Jukes he once more made some critical traverses
across the Wrekin country, and it was the 2Oth
June before he found himself back at Llanberis to
resume the survey of Caernarvonshire. Some ex-
tracts from his diary and letters will show the nature
and progress of his occupation during the campaign
of 1849.

' 27th June. — A jolly day on Glyder ; clear but
cold. Got a clearer notion of things to-day than I
had in weeks of work towards the close of last year
among the fogs.

' 2£)th. — Y Glyder fawr ; glorious day, but ex-
tremely warm. Scarce seem to have made any
impression on it yet, it is so tough and difficult to
climb.

* ^pth. — Across the hills by Mynydd Perfedd, nearly
to the Ogwen, and from thence making out the section
up to Twll-du — a most rough and craggy walk. A
glorious day, which I perfectly enjoyed. Lunched on
the banks of Llyn Idwal. Then scrambled up to
Twll-du, as far up the gap as I could go — full of
rare rock-plants. Thence I scrambled up the cliff, and
got home by half-past six. Found twelve or thirteen
letters.

' 6tk July. — Took horse and rode to Caernarvon [to
have the accounts sworn-to before a magistrate], and
got them off to Reeks. As I rode home I found them
busy on this side of Caernarvon sinking for coal. I
hallooed to a man to hold my horse a moment while I
ran into the field and talked with the sinkers, etc.
They have gone down seventy yards or so, the first
seven yards in drift. They asked my opinion. I told
them to let me know when they came to the coal, and
I would come down and eat it.

1 849 FIELD- WORK ARO UND LLANBERIS 149

' i \th. — Over the hills tracing the Bwlch-y-gywion
trap, and so back by the felspar stuff up some hideous
banks. It was exceedingly fatiguing, but I got a good
day's work done.'

LLANBERIS, \2thjuly 1849.

MY DEAR TALBOT — At length since Monday last
we have had fine weather here, and I have worked so
hard that I am quite fatigued to-day, and stay at home
to despatch some maps, and knock off the arrears of
correspondence. I think the ground I am at present at
work on is really the most fatiguing I have yet experi-
enced in Wales. It is not merely walking up and
along steep places, but actual climbing, hands and
feet, and on hills so high that it often takes two or
three hours to get to the district in the first instance.
I fancied ere I came I should be done ere this, but I
haven't more than a half or two-thirds finished yet.

' 1 6tk. — Started at half-past ten, and by dint of sharp
walking was at Twll-du by twelve. Down to Llyn
Idwal, and traced all the lines round and through the
lake and down to the lower margin of Llyn Ogwen, and
then up by the Pass-y-benglog and the west ridge of
Cwm Bochlwyd, tracing a line to the top of Y Glyder
fawr. It was dreadfully tough work, and it was past
six by the time I got to the top of Glyder, so that
though I would fain have carried on my line, I was
somewhat tired both in the legs and of the subject,
and therefore deemed it wiser to leave its prosecution
for a fresh day. Overtook a nice-looking young
fellow in the Pass with a knapsack on his back, and
entering into conversation, we walked down together.
It lightened the way a bit. Dined at nine.

* 26tk. — Immediately after breakfast started on a

150 SURVEY OF THE SNO WDON REGION CHAP, v

long tramp round by Capel Curig way, tracing the
outside boundary of the Glyder fawr trap, and intend-
ing to come home over Trefan. But it was too far,
and, besides, the work would lead in another direction.
So I came back down that rough hillside above the
lake and Pen-y-gwryd. It is a terribly stony place. I
got into the Pass about six, and was shortly after right
well pleased to spy a large two -horse return car
coming down the road. Jumped therein. Just about
Pont-y-gromlech heard a shouting, and looking up
the side of Glyder, saw all my fellow-lodgers and
Dent rushing down the hill. They all got in or on
the affair, two hanging on behind like footmen. So
with mickle laughter we drove home to dinner.

' 6tk August. — As I could not sleep quiet in my
grave had I not been up Snowdon, to see that bit on
the Beddgelert side of Cwm-y-Clogwyn that bothered
Selwyn and me so much, I revisited it to-day, and
came back over the top. No one was there but
myself.

' lotk. — Started from Llanberis at nine. Met a
Capel Curig car, and changed into it at the top of the
Pass, and was at work by half-past eleven or twelve
on this side of Y Glyder fach. The mist persecuted
me dreadfully. It came rolling down as soon as
I got up a considerable height, and then, when I
began to descend a little, would partially clear up ;
but rushing down again, I was forced to try the
section on the low ground, and then having made
out a certain amount of that, I traced a line up the
hill. No sooner had the mist got me well up than,
shifting his quarters, he rushed down the valley,
obscured Y Trefan, thicker and thicker, boiling and
seething, and if I but looked at a bit of ground, down

1 849 CLOUD, MIST, AND RAIN 151

he came upon it and enveloped my head in the mist.
At last I was fain to .leave about seven. When once I
was well down in the valley the white clouds all
cleared away from the hills, as far as I could see,
though when once or twice I looked back with a
speculating eye, I could just see the hill-tops suddenly
get partially obscured, as if old Kuhleborn were saying,
"You needn't come here, young man, or I'll be down
upon you in no time." Got home to the inn about
half-past eight, and had a " rough tea."

* \\th. — Started after breakfast and began to trace
lines from Y Trefan up to Y Glyder fach. Just as
I got to the top of the ridge, a gale of wind came on,
accompanied by a deluge of rain and a thick mist. I
couldn't see thirty yards. A compass was nearly
useless, for the ground was so rough that I could not
walk in a given direction ten yards, and the place was
cliffy on sundry sides. By and by, calculating how
the wind blew, I turned my face to it and began
carefully to descend, and after two hours' cautious
work, in difficult rocky ground, the mist suddenly
partially opened, and I found myself just above the
north end of Llyn-y-Cwm. So I descended to the
Pass amid falling waters and sheets of rain, and
trudged down to Llanberis soaked to the skin, with
my boots full of water. Dined at nine.

* \$th. — Out on the ridge of Glyder Fach tracing
round the lines in the direction of the east side of
Cwm Tryfan. Dreadfully wet. Yet I worked on in
desperation, and as there were some intervals between
the heavy storms of rain, I got a good deal done.
Home by seven well soaked.

* 2^th. — Out shortly after nine intending to have
noted the section along the north side of the valley

152 SURVEY OF THE SNOWDON REGION CHAP, v

of the Llugwy. But in true geological fashion, I
got led on and on to the top of Carnedd Llewelyn,
and then taking advantage of the fine day, I walked
all along the ridge to Carnedd Dafydd, and across
Braich-du down to Llyn Ogwen. A glorious day and
magnificent views of the Nant Francon range, with
Snowdon at the back ; also all the country down to
Cader, Aran Mowddy, etc. Home at seven.'

CAPEL CURIG, 30^ August 1849.

MY DEAR AVELINE — I am in despair about getting
away from here. With one clear day I could slash in
a lot of country, all up as far as the watershed of
Carnedd Llewelyn and Carnedd Dafydd, so that I am
loath to leave to see you, lest that very day should
occur when I am away. Clear hill-tops are so scarce
that one day when they are so is worth a fortnight of
foggy weather. I have promised to make a run to
Aber to look for lodgings for Jukes to occupy imme-
diately after his marriage, and if possible I shall work
my way there to-morrow, and next day trace a line
from Bangor to Caernarvon, which would enable me
to colour in a large piece of map, and so make the
work look somewhat more forward. Early next week,
then, I might perhaps manage to see you, for I am
anxious to do so before going to Brummagem, where
I act the swell groomsman to Jukes. It rains to-day
without intermission. — Ever yours sincerely,

ANDW. C. RAMSAY.

Among the letters that came to him in this season
of gloomy weather, the following note from De la
Beche may be quoted : —

1 849 WORK WITH SELWYN AND A VELINE 153

57 ST. STEPHEN'S GREEN, DUBLIN,
August 1849.

MY DEAR RAMSAY — Here I am once again. We had a famous
passage last evening, and to-day I start, with Oldham, to the south^

If you go to the Wisdom Meeting [the meeting of the British
Association at Birmingham], we can talk over some of our matters ;
and if not, I would get down to you afterwards. Matters are in
good train at the Muzzy, and all going right, as it looks now ; trumps
will turn up there, I trust, next spring.

Rattling by the skirts of the Welsh hills last evening, the clouds
seemed somewhat low, and looking up the valley of the Conway, I
thought of the wet bother you have lately had, and of the trouble-
some quarters you are now in. 'Tis very tiresome for you. Once
out of the high grounds of Wales, and we shall rapidly move ahead.
—Very sincerely, H. T. DE LA BECHE.

Ramsay did attend the ' Wisdom Meeting,' making
a rapid journey thither, and acting with Jukes and
Oldham as Secretaries of the Geological Section. But
he was soon back at work again in North Wales.
After carrying his boundary-lines from the Llanberis
district northwards, until he had joined them up to those
which had been mapped from Bangor, he left Llan-
beris on the 3rd September and stationed himself at
Capel Curig, with the view of working out the structure
of the group of mountains rising to the east of Nant
Francon. Mr. Aveline was at work in the district
lying to the north-east, and the two colleagues were
enabled before the end of the season to join up their
lines. Mr. Selwyn, having completed the survey of
the ground lying between the Snowdon range on the
north and Ffestiniog and Tremadoc on the south,
was now at work in the Lleyn peninsula from Pwlheli.
But there were still several portions of boundary to
be settled along his northern limits. Ramsay had
thus occasion to visit both his comrades from the
central station of Capel Curig.

154 SURVEY OF THE SNOWDON REGION CHAP, v

* 6tk September. — Attacked the side of Carnedd
Dafydd ; a hard day's work ; was not home till half-
past seven. I found the coffee-room full ; Quakers in
it who had been botanising.

' 8M. — Started for Carnedd Llewelyn ; glorious
day and glorious day's work. Finished this side of
the hill, all the way to the watershed, and was twice
on the top.

' 2nd October. — To Pen-y-gwryd. Struck up and
had my last rap at old Glyder. I was sorry to part
with him. Many a bright and many a stormy day
have I passed on his sides, and as I scaled his cliffs
many a happy hour have I spent en route home
searching for ferns. The day was glorious, bright and
warm. The world scarcely ever before seemed more
bright and beautiful. I regained my voice and sang.
I perfectly regained the use of my legs, and scaled
the rocks strong and fearless as of yore.'

CAPEL CURIG, 26th October 1849.

MY DEAR AVELINE — . . . What precious weather
since Monday till to-day ! I got a good slash of work
done to-day. In a few more days I must have a meet
with you again to join up west of Llyn Crafnant and
east of Llyn Geirionydd. I met Sir H. on Saturday
at Bangor, and stayed with him till Monday. We
had a short rap at Anglesey at very old rocks — older
than the Cambrian. — Yours ever sincerely,

ANDW. C. RAMSAY.

The last sentence of this letter has a peculiar
interest to geologists. It shows that the first im-
pression made on Ramsay's mind by the older rocks
of Anglesey was that they were pre-Cambrian. He

1849 INDOOR WORK AT CAP EL CURIG 155

afterwards came to regard them as altered Cambrian ;
but his original and unbiassed judgment on the subject
is now recognised to have been the true one.

— -- .

CAPEL CURIG, $\st October 1849.

MY DEAR BILL 1 -•.. , , Winter does indeed
approach, and it often looks sufficiently savage here,
specially when the wind comes roaring down the glen,
driving the rain before it in sheets for four whole
days. Then ho ! to see the rivers burst their bounds,
and the lakes rise up a yard or two ! Then old
Kuhleborn reigns triumphant, and I, the enchanted
knight, fall in love with all the female waiters
and chambermaids, the daughters being lantern -
jawed.

Then besides, I have work to do, and have begun
to read up for the production of a third Introductory
Lecture. What awful stuff the Wernerian disciples
wrote, to be sure ! I am busy analysing Jameson's
(of Edinburgh) old writings. He was a disciple and
pupil of Werner's, a favourite pupil, and by St.
Anthony a Tours, I protest t' ye, it is about as easy
to extract buttermilk from millstones, as to make
sense out of the maze of words in which they lost
themselves. And all that, too, under the guise of
extreme exactitude !

But, somehow or other, o' nights, after a tough
day in the air, I don't feel inclined for that dry work,
or indeed for any serious work whatever. What
then ? Why, I have generally lots of letters to write,
both of Survey import and in the friendly way.
There's the home-circle, Sharpe, his honour Judge
Johnes, Playfair's jewel, Mrs. Forbes, the Rev. W.

1 His brother William.

156 SURVEY OF THE SNOW DON REGION CHAP, v

R. S. Williams, our vicar, Dr. Falconer of Bath, and
many others which (that I may not now weary myself
writing lists of names, and so deprive my mother of
the continuation of that inestimable catalogue with
which, she will be glad to hear, I must fill my next
letter) I forbear to mention. Then I now and then
write verses. And yet again, when these delights
fail, have I not some rare and delectable books, poets,
and historiographers ? For, look ye, how can a man
weary with the choice and truth-telling histories of
Alcofribas Nasier at his elbow, purchased by me at
Birmingham for the small sum of 6s. 6d., and con-
taining more wisdom and erudition than all the
collected works of Hume and Smollet, Gibbon, Hero-
dotus, Titus Plinius, Ferguson, Aristotle, Macaulay,
Justinian (see his Pandects), Aulus Gellius, Avicenna,
Froissart, Mrs. Trimmer, Bishop Stillingfleet, Machia-
velli, Lamartine, Fox of ye Martyrology, Dean Swift,
Phillip de Commines, Jean Paul Richter, Gawain
Douglas, Knickerbocker, Anthony Count Hamilton,
Barbour, the Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, Ruddiman,
Plutarchus, Mosheim, Mrs. Trollope, Thuanus, Rev.
Thomas Burnett, Major Sabine, and many others,
whose names I shall continue in my next letter?—
Yours affectionately, A. C. R.

' 2nd November. — Magnificent day. Got a splendid
day's work done, taking up the Llynbodgynwydd ash,
and carrying it all round nearly to Trefriw, and so
back by Llyn Geirionydd. It was a glorious day's
work, and a glorious day to work in, so still and sunny.
Speaking of peace, I conceived a sonnet on the way
home, when I saw the mountains rise high and solemn
into the sky in the twilight.'

1849 MARTIN LUTHER 157

Peace, vexed soul ! there is a God above.

What though an evil destiny hath blighted
Thy fervent hope, quenching the dawning love

That, like a penetrating sunbeam, lighted
Life's shadowy path ; beyond thy narrow care

The world is bright as ever. Look around !
The earth is strewn with flowers, how passing fair !

The ringing voices of the brooks resound
In the low valleys, moss-grown rock and earn,

And the tall water-reeds reflected rest
On the deep bosom of the mountain tarn,

Telling of peace : the far-off mountain crest,
Piercing the sky, how strong, though tempest-riven !

Calleth aloud of rest, and points the way to heaven.

. — A tremendous day's work with Selwyn,
all across Dolwyddelan, up Cwm Penanmen, and round
by Pwll Francon and Bettws y coed/

CAPEL CURIG, 26th November 1849.

MY DEAR WILLIE l — The lines you allude to are
Cowper's —

Would I describe a preacher, such as Paul,
I would describe him sober, grave, sincere, etc.

You will find them, I think, in 'The Sofa.'2 It is
a fine description. Martin Luther, however, is my
favourite among more modern divines. A man also
' sober, grave, sincere ' ; but not always grave — a
great divine and reformer and eke a great composer
of sacred music, one who was not always grave, but
sang his ballad 'with a full round mouth,' and was
fond of a cask of good beer, as his letter to the
Elector of Saxony (I think) proves, when he thanked
him for one while attending a congress of divines.
It is always worth living in the world while good beer

1 His brother.

2 The lines thus quoted from memory are not quite accurately given, and
occur not in 'The Sofa,' but in ' The Timepiece,' line 395.

158 SURVEY OF THE SNOWDON REGION CHAP, v

remains in it. We may thank our Saxon ancestors
for that blessing.

. — After breakfast started for the hills above
Llyn Bychan on the west side of the fault ; finished
them ; re-mapped Mynydd Danlyn, and crossed to
the other side by the lower end of Llyn Crafnant.
While loitering about, taking a final look, I spied
Aveline coming down anxiously, with his hat pulled
over his eyes, his coat-collar turned up, his gaiters
hanging about his heels, taking long strides and
looking out ahead, but never holloaing, as another
man might have done. So we joined and walked
merrily down to Trefriw together.

* ^th December. — Had a long consultation with
Aveline and Jukes [at Aber] on the maps, and proved
that Snowdon, Glyder, and all are not lower than the
Bala lime and ashes. Jukes and I then started for
the hills, and had a splendid day among the intrusive
traps. Aveline returned to Trefriw, and Selwyn
came up from Clynnog fawr. Joking and making
fun all of us all night.'

The campaign in Wales had thus lasted for fully
six months, and was prolonged even into the stormy
and inclement weather of December. It had been
eminently successful, for a large tract of rough moun-
tainous ground and complicated geology had been
finished, and Ramsay had been able to join up the
boundary-lines of his area with those of his colleagues
on each side of him. And thus, turning his face
southwards, and paying a short visit of inspection to
Bristow in Dorsetshire, he was back in London before
the end of December, to begin the indoor labours of
another winter.

i849 ROYAL INSTITUTION 159

As before, we may take a few extracts from his
diary of these winter months. The Geological Society
continued to offer its fortnightly meeting as a rallying-
point for the geologists in London. The Friday
evening discourses of the Royal Institution, and the
receptions of its genial Secretary thereafter, formed
additional favourite gathering places. On the ist
March Murchison gave the discourse, and Ramsay
records that this veteran geologist ' was quite nervous
in the early part of his lecture, hesitating and leaving
his sentences unfinished. But as he warmed he
improved, and by and by got on very well.' A week
later Edward Forbes occupied the same position, and
his appearance is thus chronicled in the diary : ' The
place was just about full. Forbes never appeared to
such advantage. He lectured in first-rate style, coolly
and boldly. The subject was " The Distribution of
Fresh - water Fishes and Plants," wrhich he treated
certainly in a most masterly manner, showing that it
depended on recent geological revolutions.' The next
Friday is thus recorded : ' Royal Institution at night.
The Astronomer- Royal lectured to a crowded audience,
Prince Albert in the chair. Airy forgot himself, and
lectured an hour and three-quarters ! The Prince fell
asleep.' The following Friday it was Ramsay's own
turn to undergo the ordeal of addressing this critical
and sometimes somnolent assembly. His account of
the evening is as follows : ' I had half an hour's quiet-
ness in the little private room behind the theatre. At
nine I was introduced, the Duke of Northumberland
in the chair, the French Ambassador on his right, Mr.
Hamilton on his left, and in the front row were Lord
Overstone, Sir John and Lady Herschel, Wheatstone,
Faraday, Murchison, etc. etc. It was literally a

i6o SURVEY OF THE SNOWDON REGION CHAP, v

brilliant audience, with many ladies. The place was
full, and they listened with great attention, occasionally
quietly applauding, which gave me encouragement. I
felt I was doing it easily. The praise I got from
Herschel, Faraday, De la Beche, and others was
almost too much to be good for me.' Faraday ran
up to him at the close, shook him by both hands, and
asked, ' Where did you learn to lecture ? '

The subject of this discourse was ' The Geological
Phenomena that have produced or modified the
Scenery of North Wales.' The most interesting
feature in it, considered with reference to the develop-
ment of Ramsay's geological opinions, was undoubtedly
the prominence now assigned by him to glacial action
in connection with the landscapes of this country.
This was the first occasion, so far as we know, when
he made public profession of his belief in the former
existence of glaciers in Wales, and gave at the same
time new and original proofs of their presence, par-
ticularly instancing cases where mountain-lakes were
still held back by ridges of terminal moraine, and
where large blocks of rock were perched on ice-worn
crags, where they must have been quietly deposited
by the ice.

The annual festival of the Geological Survey
took place on the i6th January 1850, and is thus
recorded : ' Anniversary Survey dinner day. Sir
Henry in the chair, Reeks vice. It passed off right
jollily ; lots of original songs from Forbes, Jukes,
Baily, Smyth, Oldham, Hunt, Salter, and myself. I
sang two.' One of his ditties was entitled the
* Song of the Geologues of the Woods,' and the
concluding verse may be taken as a sample of its
style : —

1850 SURVEY SONG 161

The Survey needs no strangers,

No scurvy council's bother ;
We'll work with Daddy De La Beche,

And stick to one another ;
With six-inch sections, maps, reports,
We yet shall see the day

When Carlisle

Shall blandly smile,
And double all our pay,
And every man shall keep his wife when he doubles all our pay.

The last day of April found Ramsay once more
with Selwyn and Jukes at Merchlyn in North Wales.
There were still various unfinished parts of his area to
revisit and complete, likewise sundry lines regarding
which he had to confer with his colleagues. The
progress of the work rendered it necessary that some
of the ground already surveyed should be gone over
again in the light of fresh evidence. And after the
surveys were completed there remained the laborious
task of running horizontal sections across the area,
including the most rugged and mountainous ground.
These occupations, together with occasional visits of
inspection, kept him busy in Wales until December —
a long spell of field-work, only interrupted by a brief
visit to London, the meeting of the British Association
at Edinburgh, and an excursion to Dublin for the pur-
pose of seeing his friend Oldham married. The life
he led during those nine months is told in his diary
and letters.

* Ajk May. — Out on the hills with Selwyn as far as
the cliffs under Carnedd Llewelyn, and down by
Melynllyn and Llyn dulyn. Got some good work
done. Selwyn executed a most perilous feat of cliff-
climbing ; a slip and he would have been slain.

1 I5//2. — Out again by Fawnog du and Carnedd
Llewelyn. Its bald head was powdered with snow.

M

1 62 SURVEY OF THE SNOWDON REGION CHAP, v

Yet the sun shone almost warmly, and having finished
my work, I lay down on a big stone on Cefn-yr-Arrig
and gazed on the deep shadows of Yr Elen and
Ffynnon Caseg, the peaks of Carnedd Dafydd, and
Y Glyder fawr, the great flats of Anglesey, and the
distant outlines of Man and Ireland ; and as I looked
I felt my heart soften, and I arose a better man again.
Came home over Y Foel Fras, probably the last time
I shall be on it.'

On the 1 8th of the same month he wrote to
Aveline asking if he could recollect howr many years
the Survey had been at work in Glamorganshire, for,
said he, ' in six weeks or so all this North Wales will
be done, and I want, if possible, to compare times.'

On the 3ist, in a letter to Salter from Caernarvon,
he writes, ' Selwyn and I are here putting a final touch
to all the difficulties and erst-seeming contradictions
on this side the Straits. Marry, it comes out
smoothly, except in so far that I fell on top o' the Rivals 1
yesterday, and so bruised my right shoulder that even
writing is not a pleasant exercise for the arm. That
is the beginning, I fear ; what say you ? Is it not
terrible to think that now, when just finishing Wales, it
is yet possible that I may this summer be found at the
base of a cliff, with a bloody crown and my heels in
the air ? '

On the 6th June, while still revising with Selwyn
from Caernarvon, he writes thus to Aveline : ' One long
fine day will do for us here now, and a day or two's
drawing. Then hey ! for the sections. But first I
purpose a run to Malvern for two days, to put in some
alluvium left out by Phillips, and without which we
can't publish that quarter sheet. I am a little

1 Or Yr Eifl, a three-peaked hill (1887 feet) in the Lleyn peninsula.

i8so RUNNING SECTIONS 163

bothered, but glad too, as I never saw the Malvern
section.

' Our work here fearfully differs from Sir Henry's,
and the worst of it is that he has, I think, published
his opinion in his Anniversary address. It is about
certain black slates which he puts under the Cam-
brian : they being, in fact, the Lingula (Silurian) beds
brought against it again by a fault. It will be not a
very agreeable job convincing him of this.'

The visit to Malvern and a hurried journey to
London took up only some ten days, and by the 22nd
June he was back once more at Llanberis to begin
the arduous task of running sections. This operation
was conducted with a theodolite and chain, the sur-
veyor having the assistance of two men. The line of
section having been determined in such wise as to
cross the most instructive or important geological
structures, and generally the loftiest summits, was
drawn upon the map, and the surveyor then proceeded
to measure on the ground the horizontal distances, and
fix the relative heights of the various points along the
selected line. These measurements were entered in a
field-book, from which the section was afterwards
plotted on a scale, vertical and horizontal, of six inches
to a mile. When the outline of the ground had in
this manner been correctly drawn, the geological
structure was inserted from the maps and note-books,
and, where needful, a final visit was made to the ground,
and minor details were adjusted on the section.
These operations, it may easily be believed, required
both care and skill. They provided a further means
of checking the accuracy of the maps, and when
successfully completed, they furnished the surveyor
with a valuable additional store of materials for the

1 64 SURVEY OF THE SNOWDON REGION CHAP, v

preparation of the written description of the geology
of the district which he had mapped. How Ramsay
fared with his sections across the Snowdon area he
must be allowed to tell in his own words.

1 2^th June. — Out with my men to begin section
from the top of Snowdon to the sea. Dodged the
cliffs at the top, till from the Capel Curig road,
attempting to make them chain back a bit to Pen
Wyddfa, one of them refused, and I got exasperated,
and discharged him on the spot. The fool was afraid
to go over ground that I had danced over to show him
the way ten minutes before. Home, annoyed at
these Welsh blockheads.

' 2&tk. — Got a new man and began, leaving the cliff
till I had tried them. Came across over Craig du'r
Arddu and found them more daring than myself; this
will do.

1 28^. — Out on the hills in a strong joyous mood.
Did a tremendous day's work, chaining right along
the face of the cliff from the top of Snowdon to the
top of the Capel Curig path, and astonishing the sight-
seers by the strange peaky, cliffy places I planted
myself on with my theodolite. Went to the top after,
and took the angles of all the lakes and principal hills
round. Home at seven. Went up Snowdon in an
hour and a half, and down in an hour.

1 %th July. — Out early. Carried on the section
right down to the sea at Llanfair.'

The section-line that was now being traced ran on
the one side from the top of Snowdon parallel with the
Llanberis valley to the Menai Strait at Llanfair,
whence it was afterwards continued across Anglesey.
On the other side it was prolonged south-eastwards
into the country mapped by Selwyn, and was carried

1850 BRITISH ASSOCIA TION A T EDINBURGH 165

by him into Merionethshire, across Cynicht, Moel
Wyn, and Aran Mowddwy, and was continued by
Aveline across Montgomeryshire. The plotting and
final drawing of his part of the section occupied
Ramsay's time in wet weather at Llanberis. The
section, engraved by J. W. Lowry,1 is one of the most
striking in the whole series published by the Geolo-
gical Survey. The geological structure is portrayed
by Ramsay and Selwyn with a boldness and vigour,
and at the same time with an artistic feeling, which
had hardly been equalled in geological section-drawing.

The meeting of the British Association at Edin-
burgh offered a brief but pleasant break in these
labours, as will be gathered from the following jottings.

' \st August. — Murchison in the chair of Section C.
Old Jameson2 was there, and in the chair for a while.
He looked just like a baked mummy. I spoke twice.
We had some good papers ; Forbes's first-rate, and
Mr. Bryce 3 read a good paper as the mouthpiece of
the Glasgow Natural History Society. What a rough,
strong, clever -looking man Hugh Miller4 is! My
mother was there with Jess, looking very happy and
venerable.

' $rd. — This has been a glorious day. Went down
to Granton at seven and embarked on board the Pharos

1 An admirable engraver and accomplished mathematician, who engraved the
Sections of the Survey for many years.

2 Robert Jameson, born 1774, died 1854; the venerable Professor of Natural
History in the University of Edinburgh. As mentioned previously (p. 155), he
had been a favourite pupil of Werner at Freiberg, and for many years was the
acknowledged leader of the Wernerian school in this country.

3 James Bryce, born 1806, died 1877 ; one of the masters of the Glasgow
High School, and author of some geological papers and a little volume on the
geology of Arran and Clydesdale.

4 Hugh Miller, born 1802, died 1856; originally a stonemason in the north
of Scotland, devoted his attention to the Old Red Sandstone of that region, and
afterwards wrote some excellent popular books on the fishes of that formation,
some of which he was the first to discover.

i66 SURVEY OF THE SNOWDON REGION CHAP, v

steam-yacht, belongingto the Commissioners of Northern
Lights. Dr. Robinson, Strickland, Dr. Johnston of
Durham, Oldham, Allan, M 'William, Williamson, and
many others there, — a most lively and amusing party.
We got into boats by and by at the Bell Rock [Light-
house], and fairly effected a landing. A wonderful
sight that tower, rising direct from the waters, so far
away at sea ! Then we went to the Isle of May and
the Bass Rock, where we landed and saw its wonderful
covering of live birds. There we picked up Lord
Wrottesley1 and his daughter. Then to Inchkeith,
and so home. We breakfasted, lunched, dined, and had
tea on board, and gorgeous meals they were. Some
splendid speeches were made, and altogether it was quite
an event in one's life. Strickland had a gannet knocked
down with a hammer, to take away with him. In the
evening to Robert Chambers 's : a large assemblage.

' 6tk. — Breakfasted at Chambers's. Sopwith very
funny ; he is witty. Opened the Section by giving
a very short abstract of my paper. Sedgwick and
Murchison then spoke of the labours of the Survey.
I spent the rest of the day at the Ethnographical
Section. Latham spoke a splendid paper to the
few gentlemen round the table, Mrs. Latham and I
frequently making the whole audience. Went to the
soiree in the Music Hall. When just over, Forbes
and I, to Sir David Brewster's great disgust, got up
a dance in the Assembly Rooms. We had nice little
partners, but neither of us knew their names.'

After the close of the Association meeting he
spent a few days in Glasgow with the old familiar
faces. One little touch may be quoted from his diary :
* Then the parting. My mother came upstairs.

1 Afterwards (1854) President of the Royal Society.

1850 GLACIAL GEOLOGY IN WALES 167

" Come back as soon as you can, for you'll not have
to come often now," she said, and I was obliged to
break away and retire to my own room for a little.'
By the i6th August he was back once more at
Llanberis, whence he transferred himself to Bethesda,
in order to get at various outlying pieces of ground
around Carnedd Dafydd that remained still incom-
pletely surveyed.

De la Beche, who was never happier than when
he was able to report the completion of a large
number of square miles, began to be fidgety about
the length of time taken by the section-work in Wales,
and the consequent diminution of the area of ground
surveyed. Ramsay complained to Aveline on the
27th August that it was unfortunate to be carrying
on this work 'against the grain with the governor,
for he would fain take us away and leave the thing
unfinished. I shall get away by the middle of Sep-
tember. You will not get off so soon, I suppose.
About a week ought to finish my mapping out of
doors. Two days indoors or three, some bad weather
(as to-day), and a diabolical section from Bettws over
Pen Llithrig-y-Wrach, Carnedd Llewelyn, and the
sea — the thing is done.'

* $th September. — Out by Carnedd Dafydd, tracing
in the drift. Got a good many wrinkles on the
subject. It must have been 2000 feet high at least.
Came down on the Carn Llafa side of Carnedd Dafydd
and corrected these alternations by means of the faults
—a most troublesome bit of work. H ome at half-past six.

' i \th. — Did a glorious day's work with Ho well 1 up

1 H. H. Howell, who joined the Survey in 1850, became District Surveyor in
1872, Director for Scotland in 1882, and Senior Director in 1888, an office which
he still holds.

168 SUR VE Y OF THE SNO WDON REGION CHAP, v

as far as Aber, getting all Jukes's ugly bits of sand-
stone, etc., perfectly explained — a succession of domes
cut off by faults. Home at half- past seven — a long,
long walk.

' i2th. — Up by the coach to Cwm Idwal. At
the top we found a splendid haul of fossils, and I
made a grand discovery respecting the drift. [He
here gives the section across Llyn Idwal, afterwards
published in Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. viii. (1852),
p. 375, showing the drift capping the summits above
the lake and a moraine forming the barrier of the
water]. The moraines of these valleys are subse-
quent to the drift, because, if previous, they would
have been smothered in it. But, as I before proved,
the roches moutonndes are previous to it, because they
are covered by it up to great heights. The drift on
top of Cwm Idwal is 2500 feet high, and it reaches
probably a parallel height on Cwm Llafar, being
thence connected all the way with the drift of the
sea-side.'

By the end of this month he was at Dolgelli,
helping Selwyn to put some finishing touches to the
mapping of the Cader Idris region. On the I2th
October he was able to make to Salter an important
announcement touching the troublesome regulation
as to receipts for travelling charges. ' Henceforth
and for ever you take no more receipts for travelling
expenses, and in place thereof you must make out
a travelling charges bill. I've got it all in right order,
and by a magnificent stroke of genius have got Sir
Henry's formal consent thereto.'

His colleague Oldham had determined to resign
the charge of the Irish Geological Survey, and to
accept the direction of the Geological Survey of

•PI mm

K

THOMAS OLDHAM

1850 THOMAS OLDHAM 169

India.1 As a preliminary step he arranged to be
married, and asked Ramsay to support him on the
wedding day as groomsman. So the Welsh work
was laid aside for a week, and Ramsay for the first
time went to Ireland. He says of his reception at
the house of the bridegroom that he was formally
introduced to the family, including ' Mr. Neptune
Oldham, a big Newfoundland dog, who was sitting
on a chair at table, finally shaking hands with the
dog, who presented me with his paw in the most
courteous manner. We all got at home with each other
at once.' One after another of his colleagues was
thus quitting the ranks of bachelorhood, and he could
not help heaving a sigh now and then, and wondering
if his own time were ever to come. Writing to
Oldham a day or two after the marriage, these feelings
escaped in verse : —

Thomas hath found what he desired,

The maid his heart did fix on ;
He by an angel was inspired

When he popped to Miss Dixon.

Another bachelor hath passed,

And I, for lack of gold, boys,
Ah, woe is me ! am falling fast

Into the vale of old, boys.

Oh, many a sheep's eye have I thrown,

Have cast full many a lamb's eye,
But never yet have chanced on one

That cared to take a Rams-eye.

Would that the gods might yet be kind,

Nor longer try their tricks on ;
Then haply even I might find

Just something like Miss Dixon.

1 On his resignation he was succeeded by J. B. Jukes, who, having joined
the service in 1 846, was transferred from the English Survey, and became Director
of the Geological Survey of Ireland in 1850, retaining that post till his death
in 1869.

170 SURVEY OF THE SNOWDON REGION CHAP, v

The fascination of glacial geology was now at
length beginning to influence Ramsay's geological
bent and to tinge all his views of Welsh scenery.
He had practically finished the survey of the solid
rocks. Their problems, though by no means all
solved, had at least been so far settled as to allow
of the preparation of maps and sections for the en-
graver. The compilation of the descriptive memoir
of the region would be a laborious task, involving
years of interrupted application, and many renewed
visits to the ground. But the glaciation of these
Welsh mountains had all the charm of novelty.
Buckland, Darwin, and others had described some
of the proofs of former glaciers, but no one had yet
attempted to trace the story of the successive changes
of geography and of climate recorded in the various
glacial deposits. We now find in Ramsay's note-books
and diaries frequent reference to the subject. While
stationed at Bethesda he made numerous observations
and compiled many notes relating to the ice-markings
on the rocks, the distribution of the drift, the grouping
of perched blocks, and the position and heights of
moraines. He was in this way gradually accumulating
materials for his first essay on the glacial phenomena
of this country which he communicated a year later
to the Geological Society.

There still remained a portion of Anglesey to be
surveyed before the maps of North Wales could be
regarded as complete and ready to be prepared for the
engraver. De la Beche had himself traced the lines
across some parts of that county, and other portions
had been mapped by W. W. Smyth. Ramsay and
Selwyn early in November crossed into Anglesey
with the object of filling in the unfinished portions

1850 DE LA BECHE ON ANGLESEY GEOLOGY 171

and completing the whole. The following letter from
De la Beche gave them his impressions of the structure
of the ground immediately after they had begun their
work : —

LONDON, nth November 1850.

MY DEAR RAMSAY — Touching the mica-slates, chlorite-slates, and
other matters of the lower ground in Anglesey, they are, of course,
what they can be proved to be ; and no matter what they may be,
let us get at the fact. Pray keep a bright look-out for the con-
glomerates; they are most valuable in such investigations. You
have probably examined that beneath so much of the Cambrians as
is to be seen on the banks of the Menai, near Bangor. The con-
glomerates nearer Llanberis show clearly that the matter of the
Cambrians there is, in part at least, compounded of older detrita
rocks — kinds of quartz-rock being among them. If it be really
right that the Bangor beds are these said affairs brought up again,
probably similar pebbles will present themselves. Here, then, we
have evidence of detrital beds consolidated before so much of the
Cambrians as such conglomerates may form the base of.

I know not how you have attacked the ground, but if I had been
with you, which I very much regret is not the case (there are, how-
ever, matters of more pressing importance now under consideration
here), I should have made you master of the country at Holyhead
Island, and have proceeded across country to Amlwch, though not
quite direct. Taking up the black shales (graptolitic) based upon
conglomerates of variable character, but sometimes containing pieces
as large as one's head, to these succeed a parcel of trappean affairs —
limestones beautifully laminated ; above these, shales and more
arenaceous rocks, sometimes purplish, and so on to the northern
coast, where heavy conglomerates with some impure limestones
cover all. A better section is no doubt to be obtained on the sea-
coast by means of a boat, but such means of conveyance are now
(November) out of the question. The two sections confirm each
other, some beautiful granite veins and alterations near them requir-
ing a little caution.

At Amlwch the sections are capital, on the coast especially;
the Parys mine, a continuation of the graptolitic slates. Near the
place with an unpronounceable name, to which I direct thee, there
are some capital conglomerates. Pray look the pebbles well over.
Henslow called these Old Red ; they are not so.

The upper purple beds occupy a position very like similar beds
in Ireland — the highest of the series there known to us in Wicklow,
Wexford, and Waterford. The date of the granitic intrusions of
Anglesey is clearly that of the Irish country noticed — anterior to the

172 SURVEY OF THE SNOWDON REGION CHAP, v

deposit of the Old Red Sandstone. These upper purple beds will
interest you, not that there is anything in purple and (their common
associates) greenish beds ; they are found of all ages. The upper
purple beds in Ireland, the position of which is undoubted, often
remind one of the Cambrians of Bray Head and other places.

It seems to me, before anything be written or published, it will be
needful for you and self to go over some of the main sections and points.
This you will be the better able to do after your present examinations.

I have not the maps with me ; indeed I am writing away from
the Museum, and therefore cannot point out more distinctly where I
would wish you to look. There are some capital cases of smashing
on the coast from granitic intrusions beyond (southward of) the range
of the rocks holding the Parys mountain mines — really good things ;
so is the whole coast. I believe I have walked or boated the
whole in Anglesey. I should like a run with you in Anglesey, and,
please the small porcines, we will have one, whether the lower rocks
be Tertiaries turned topsy-turvy or superfine elders. I am called
to attend to other things. — Yours sincerely,

H. T. DE LA BECHE.

It will be obvious from this letter that the Director-
General had recognised conglomerates at the base of
the Cambrian series of Anglesey, that he wished to
keep an open mind as to the relations and age of the
rocks underlying these conglomerates (which he seems
to have been inclined to class as pre-Cambrian), and
that he had observed the presence of trappean or
volcanic intercalations among the older Palaeozoic
formations of the island. It was unfortunate that on
all these points, where he was undoubtedly right, his
able lieutenant came to differ from him. Selwyn,
indeed, clearly detected the unconformability of the
lowest Cambrian strata upon an older series of schists.
But on the maps as finally published Ramsay's views
prevailed. No pre-Cambrian rocks were there shown.
The crystalline schists were classed as * altered Cam-
brian/ and the existence of volcanic breccias and other
proofs of volcanic action were not recognised.1

1 See a discussion of this subject in Presidential Address to Geological
Society, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xlvii. p. 81, 1891.

1850 LLANFAIRYNGHORNWY RECTORY 173

Apart from the geological work, there is a peculiar
interest in these few weeks of Survey doings in
Anglesey, for now, unconsciously, Ramsay was ap-
proaching one of the momentous epochs of his life.
During the day he and Selwyn traversed the rocky
northern coast of the island, charmed with ' the cliffy
foregrounds, the white breakers, the great misty plains
of Anglesey, and the snow-covered mountains rising
beyond so still and grandly.' At night they had the
shelter of little inns, sometimes of the homeliest kind.
In the course of their traverses they received an
invitation to make, for a day or two, the rectory of
Llanfairynghornwy their headquarters. The following
notes from his diary convey Ramsay's first impressions
of this hospitable household : ' The house is some-
what characteristic, being full of all sorts of odds and
ends, and not in the highest order, yet everything
telling that they are people who do not exclusively
busy themselves with externals. There is a character
about the family. Mr. Williams is one of the best
specimens of a Welsh clergyman I have met, polished
and conversational, not at all deep, but very agreeable,
and, I should say, conscientious and hard-working.
Mrs. Williams is a remarkable woman. She was
engaged [when the two geologists arrived] enlarging
a map of Palestine for the use of a school her daughter
takes care of. They all assist at wrecks, etc., and she has
made a survey of the Skerries, taking the angles with
a prismatic compass. They [afterwards] made me
explain the glacial theory, and were, I think, interested,
especially Miss Louisa, who is certainly a very clever
girl.'

The geologists were asked to come back and spend
Christmas at the rectory. This pleasant visit is thus

1 74 SURVEY OF THE SNO WDON REGION CHAP, v

referred to in a letter to William Ramsay, written from
Llanfairynghornwy on Christmas Day : * We were
detained at Bangor at work till the last moment, and
when done we threw ourselves into the rail, and fled
away here yesterday evening to eat a Christmas pie
with our jolly friends the Williamses, and eke a goose
with apple sauce. Marry, come up ; I'll stay a day or
two and make myself merry when I am here, for we've
been working extra hard. They (the W'ms.) are
bricks, and no mistake. It is no joke to enter into a
contention with one of the young ladies, Miss Louisa ;
she is so witty that you might just as well cut your
eye-teeth before you begin.' From the very first he
was greatly interested in this bright, clever daughter
of the house. In his diary he makes frequent refer-
ence to her : ' Wit and a sense of the ludicrous is her
characteristic ; sense she has a good deal of, and warm-
heartedness no end of.' * Commenced the year (1851)
dancing a polka in the hotel ball-room, Chester.
Trifling and merry enough, I believe, with the witty
Louisa for a partner ; not ominous, I opine, of future
partnership.' Whether 'ominous ' or not, the acquaint-
ance developed into sincere affection on both sides,
and he found here at last the loving and devoted
woman who a year and a half afterwards was to become
his wife. But these pleasant dissipations, so fitly
closing a long and arduous season of field-work, soon
came to an end ; and by the 5th of January Ramsay
was once more at his post in the Survey Office in
London.

The building in Jermyn Street was now rapidly
approaching completion. The collections at Craig's
Court were being transferred to their new home.
Already the offices of the Survey had been removed.

i8si GEOLOGICAL SURVEY ANNIVERSARY 175

There was, therefore, all the bustle of preparation in
the staff. Moreover, Sir Henry's great scheme for the
foundation of a school of applied science seemed now
at last almost certain to be carried out, and if so, it
would involve considerable change in the positions,
duties, and emoluments of a number of the officers of
the establishment. Add to this that the Great Ex-
hibition of 1851, which would open in a few months,
was the subject of much consideration in several
Government departments, and not least among the
officers of the Museum of Practical Geology. Occa-
sionally a minister would come to inspect progress.
Prince Albert himself went carefully over the building
and its contents, and took much interest in it. Among
the official visits there was one which is thus narrated
in the diary. ' 6tk March. — Lord and Lady John
Russell and two children came here to-day. He, cold
and uninterested ; she, most charming and intelligent.
When I was introduced, he merely bowed coldly.
Ditto to all. Blewitt, the M.P. for Monmouth, he
coldly bowed to. "Who would have thought," said
Blewitt, "that I've sat beside that man and supported
him for fourteen years ; he is a nice man to keep a
party together ! " I had a good deal of conversation
with Lady Russell, and was much pleased with her.'

The Anniversary gathering of the Survey this
winter was the most successful that had yet been held.
It is thus recorded: ' \$>th January 1851. — Busy at
the Museum till nearly half-past five. Then off for a
short walk, and so to the Imperial Hotel, Co vent
Garden, to the Annual dinner of the Royal Hammerers.
And oh, wasn't it a jolly dinner ! We were : Sir Henry,
Forbes, Captain James, Captain Ibbetson, Smyth,
Aveline, Bone, Baily, Bristow, Salter, Reeks, Selwyn,

1 76 SURVEY OF THE SNOWDON REGION CHAP, v

James Forbes, Playfair, J. Arthur Phillips, Hunt,
Jukes, Oldham, and myself. Oldham sat on Sir H.'s
right, and I beside him. After dinner the mirth be-
came fast and continuous. One comical song followed
another, all original. Forbes made me roar with
laughter, chanting something at me about —

' I'll lay my head on a Bala Bala bed,
And wed a parson's daughter.

My songs were, one to the tune of " Trab, Trab " (trap-
trap, rap-rap, map-map), and the other, " O weel may
the Survey speed," etc.' A verse or two of the second
song, which was headed ' 1841-1851,' may be quoted : —

I joined the chief in Tenby Bay,

And shillings I caught nine,
'Twas three for breeks, and three for beer

And shillings three to dine.

When first I left the Land o' Cakes

And took to wearing breeches,
I little thocht that I should join

This corps o' De la Beche's.

There's Forbes's men that work within,

And our field-working laddies,
Including Jukes, that shaved his chin

To please the Irish paddies.1

When age has put our auld pipes out,

By precept and harangue,
New lads will rise without a doubt,

Will gar the hammers bang.

1 Jukes wore a copious black beard, but when, on obtaining the Directorship
of the Geological Survey of Ireland, he became a candidate for the Chair of
Geology at Trinity College, Dublin, he was informed that this formidable facial
appendage would probably create a prejudice against him in the University circle,
so he appeared one morning at the Holyhead hotel with his chin clean shaven,
and so altered in appearance that the waiters took him for a stranger. But, as
he did not get the professorship, he allowed the beard to grow again, and it soon
became as exuberant as before. — See Jukes's Letters, p. 454.

1 8s i THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY 177

The Anniversary dinner of the Geological Society
was this year chiefly memorable for one of the most
wonderful exhibitions of Sedgwick's oratory. 'At
the dinner/ says Ramsay, 'Forbes, Wilson, Aveline,
Smyth, Sopwith, Captain James, Logan, and a few
more of us got together. Hopkins, the new President,
was in the chair. He was slow. Sedgwick made the
great speech of the evening. By turns he made us
cry and roar with laughter, as he willed. His pathos
and his wit were equally admirable. Home at twelve.'

To the Geological Society Ramsay communicated
this winter his first paper on glacial phenomena. For
nearly three years he had been giving increased
attention to this subject. Not only had he met with
many new illustrations of the history of the glacial
period, but his observations, now that his eyes were
opened to the existence and significance of the facts,
led him to perceive the meaning of many scattered
surface-features in South Wales, to which, at the time
he was surveying in that region, he had paid little heed.
His paper was read on the 26th March 1851, and
was entitled, ' On the Sequence of Events during
the Pleistocene Period as evinced by the Superficial
Accumulations and Surface-markings of North Wales.'
His comment on the meeting of the Society runs as
follows : ' Read my paper at the Society. No man
objected but Hopkins, who said little, however, being
President, and he only objected to one point, and
praised all the rest. Sir H. made a capital speech, and
I think made an impression on Hopkins on that very
point that bothered him in my paper. Murchison,
Lyell, and the rest scarce ventured to criticise my
views, though they spoke well for the grasp and
importance of the paper.'

N

iy8 SURVEY OF THE SNOWDON REGION CHAP, v

A week after the reading of this essay the follow-
ing entry occurs in the diary. * Went over my Welsh
glacier-maps at night. Walked up each valley with
my mind's feet, and took Logan with me. He said at
the close that he thought I had proved my case, but
that before publication I had better look at a few
points again.' Whether it was this advice of the
veteran Canadian geologist, or the criticism at the
Society, or his own mature reflection that determined
him, he withheld the publication of the paper for more
than a year, and then issued it with a slightly altered
title.1 The chief point insisted on in the paper was
the fact that the so-called glacial period embraced two
distinct glaciations : one widespread and prior to the
deposition of the Drift ; the other local in valleys and
later than the Drift.

A subsequent meeting of the Society is thus de-
scribed : * Murchison had a paper on the Denudation
and Drift of the Weald of Sussex. When the debat-
ing came, Lyell first spoke indifferently, unable to
overcome the difficulties, but evidently feeling that
Murchison's catastrophic solutions were the greatest
difficulties of all. Then followed Sharpe, who said that
one would suppose from M.'s reasoning that elephants
were marine, instead of terrestrial animals. Then came
Mantell, who, in a most eloquent speech, asked, if the
great mammifers were annihilated by this catastrophe,
how is it that their bones are always found scattered
and in fragments ? Would not the ligaments and skin
keep them at least so far together that we would find
the principal parts of the skeleton near? Then
followed Forbes on the same tack, then Dr. Fitton,

1 < On the Superficial Accumulations and Surface-markings of North Wales,5
Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. viii. (1852), p. 371.

1851 THE RED LIONS 179

asking for more facts and less theory, and then myself,
showing how little dependence was to be placed on
angularity or non-angularity of pebbles as a test of
date. Every one came hard down upon him. . . .
He thought he was to be received with praise, and
every one opposed him/

The Red Lions had a curious experience this
season, of which the diary contains the subjoined
account. * At six went down with Forbes to the Red
Lions at Soyer's. It appeared that he had a great
dinner to the Press, etc., of all nations, and having
made no provision for us, he dodged us into dining
with them in the great hall. His first request was
that we should dine at the same hour to save his
cooks. There were all the Reds of note, including
Owen, Latham, Dr. Smith, etc. etc. He appointed
the best places at table for us, and made his people
ply us with all sorts of good dishes and wine. It was
a splendid joke. In the garden was a huge oven, in
which half an ox was roasted. At a signal the covers
were removed, and it was wheeled on to great dishes
on a hand-barrow. Twelve cooks carried it, and a
brass band marched before playing "The Roast Beef
of Old England," while all the guests came up behind
laughing. The Honourable Captain Fitzmaurice,
Soyer had secured as principal toast-giver and speech-
maker. This man had indicted him [the great French
cook] as a nuisance, with his lights and bands o'
nights. Soyer called thrice, but the Captain would
not see him ; at length he somehow forced himself
into his presence, and lo ! the gallant Captain now sat
by his side, and returned thanks for the Army and
Navy. The whole thing was so cleverly done that,
save Latham, perhaps, all of us took it as a joke and

1 80 SURVEY OF THE SNO WDON REGION CHAP, v

laughed prodigiously. Before dinner, when some of us
looked a little displeased, and Ibbetson and Henfrey
remonstrated, Soyer looked round for the meekest
man, and seizing Van Voorst, " Come," said he, " let us
talk it over," and marched him away arm in arm.

' It was glorious to hear Jules Jamin reply for the
press, so rich was he in French grimace. Forbes I
spirited up to reply for the Lions, which he did in a
great row, but with great humour.'

In spite of the multifarious London duties of this
winter and spring, Ramsay contrived to secure a few
days in the field, inspecting some of the joint work of
Forbes and Bristow in the Isle of Wight and along
the Dorsetshire coast. Of this pleasant but brief
Easter excursion he records as follows : —

1 Easier Monday. — At the railway-station met
Lyell and Bristow. Forbes met us at Southampton,
and so, by way of Lymington and Yarmouth, we got
to Freshwater Gate by half-past six, and dined at
half-past seven. I liked Lyell better ; he was often
anecdotical, but principally geological all day. He
laughed tremendously when Bristow said his portman-
teau was so heavy because it contained De la Beche's
new "Geological Observer."1

* 2$th April. — Spent the whole day at Warbarrow.
Forbes has certainly made a capital story of his divi-
sions of the Purbecks, which we must follow if
possible. We saw a splendid section all along the
coast from thence to Kimeridge Bay, where we got at
five, and came back in the fly.

'We all like Lyell much. He is anxious for

1 The first edition of this portly volume, not being divided into chapters,
was a formidable piece of reading, more especially as Sir Henry's style was not
always of the clearest. The book was sometimes irreverently called by outsiders
*The Jermyn Street Bible.'

i8si LYELL IN THE FIELD 181

instruction, and so far from affecting the big- wig, is not
afraid to learn anything from any one. The notes he
takes are amazing ; many a one he has had from me
to-day. He is very helpless in the field without
people to point things out to him ; quite inexperienced
and unable to see his way either physically or geologi-
cally. He could not map a mile, but understands all
when explained, and speculates thereon well.' ' He
wore spectacles half the day, and looked ten years
older [in consequence]. Logan says it is vanity that
prevents his always doing so. I think it is custom,
and perhaps his wife.'

CHAPTER VI

THE SCHOOL OF MINES AND MUSEUM, JERMYN STREET

THE scheme which De la Beche had so patiently
worked at for some twenty years was now at last
brought to its consummation. He had succeeded in
inducing the Government to build a spacious edifice,
extending from Piccadilly to Jermyn Street, which
was to be entirely devoted to the purposes of Geology
and its allied sciences. The main portion of the
building was arranged for the display of specimens of
minerals, rocks, and fossils, especially to illustrate the
geological formations and mineral products of the
British Isles. A large series of admirable specimens had
been obtained from the mines of Cornwall and Devon,
showing the characters of metalliferous veins and their
accompaniments. Another series represented various
mineral substances employed in manufactures or arts,
with examples of their successive stages of treatment
from the raw material to the finished article. A third
series consisted of various stones employed in building
or for decorative purposes. There were likewise
numerous specimens of mining tools and machinery
and models of mines and pit- workings. In every way
that could be devised the contents were so chosen and
arranged as to justify the name given to the building,
' The Museum of Practical Geology.' The old collec-

1851 THE JERMYN STREET ESTABLISHMENT 183

tions at Craig's Court not only found now a worthier
domicile, but they were augmented by many speci-
mens, which, for want of room, could not previously
be exhibited.

But in keeping the practical application of geology
before the eyes of the public, the claims of pure
science were not lost sight of or held in the back-
ground. A fine assemblage of fossils which the
Geological Survey had gradually been amassing was
now arranged in due stratigraphical order. The
visitor in walking round the galleries had before him
the characteristic plants and animals of each great
period of geological time, all properly named and
grouped. He could thus, text-book in hand, study
the fauna and flora of any particular geological period
with a fulness and ease never before attainable. Geo-
logical maps of different parts of Britain were
suspended for reference. Every effort was thus made
to ensure that for purposes of serious study the
Museum should be as useful as possible. By this
combination of the systematic and the practical it
was believed that an important step was taken in the
development of geological science.

But the Jermyn Street Museum only carried out
more fully and with ampler space what had been
already attempted in the more restricted quarters of
Craig's Court. Though the giving of lectures in con-
nection with the Museum had been sanctioned as far
back as 1839, the want of proper accommodation had
prevented this design from ever being put into execu-
tion. But there was now the possibility of better
things, and the great new departure in the organisa-
tion was the creation of a special teaching staff and
the establishment of a definite curriculum of scientific

1 84 SCHOOL OF MINES AND MUSEUM CHAP, vi

training. Other countries had long had their schools
of mines, yet Britain, with its enormous mineral
wealth, then yielding twenty-four millions of pounds
annually, had never possessed such an establish-
ment. It was known that vast sums of money had
been wasted in fruitless search for minerals, where a
knowledge of geology would have shown that such
minerals did not exist. It was admitted that science,
if consulted in such cases, could direct the search for
minerals in new localities, and aid in the proper and
economical working of those already known. Many
representations had been made to the ruling authori-
ties of the country, urging the great need of scientific
instruction in all branches of science capable of
assisting in the development of the mineral industries
of Britain. But it was not until the early summer of
1851 that the idea was finally launched into practical
accomplishment.

The claims of De la Beche as the originator and
the life and spirit of this comprehensive scheme were
never more forcibly urged than by Murchison when,
four years later, the Geological Society awarded its
Wollaston Medal to the Director-General of the
Geological Survey. ' Then arose,' he said, 'and very
much after the design of the accomplished Director
himself, that well-adapted edifice in Jermyn Street,
which, to the imperishable credit of its author, stands
forth as the first palace ever raised from the ground in
Britain which is entirely devoted to the advancement
of science! . . . It is our bounden duty [as members of
the Geological Society] to cleave closely to our off-
spring, Her Majesty's Geological Museum — nay
more, to use our most strenuous endeavours to have it
maintained by the British Government in that lofty posi-

OPENING OF JERMYN STREET MUSEUM 185

tion to which it has been raised. We must, in short, not
only hold firmly to, but act upon the faith which is in
us, and see that an establishment like this, though it
naturally branches off into highly useful and collateral
subjects of art, be never rendered subsidiary to them,
but be permanently and independently sustained on its
own solid basis of pure science. This, our view, will
also be taken, I feel confident, by every enlightened
statesman who may be placed in a station to provide
for the future well-being of the admirable Museum,
founded and completed by our Wollaston Medallist.' l

The 1 2th May was fixed for the formal opening
of the Museum by Prince Albert. Ramsay thus
chronicles the events of the day : ' Over [to the
Museum] soon, wound up all I had to do, and then
prepared for our opening. Crowds began to assemble
about half-past eleven. I helped to receive below.
By and by the Prince came. We of the Museum,
some of the ministers, etc., sundry Lords once of the
Woods, the Bishop of Oxford, some of the geologists,
etc., followed to the vacant chair. Sir H. read an
address, the Prince read a reply. Then we all walked
round, Sir H. leading, and each officer explaining his
own department. And it was over.

1 A terrible damper occurred which we kept from
Sir H. Faraday told Hunt just before the Prince
came that poor old Mr. Richard Phillips had died
yesterday. It was a shock to me. Strange that he
should have died just at the opening of the Museum.
I find myself unconsciously repeating his jokes. We
shall see him no more toddling about with a joke for
every one.'

As finally adjusted, the subjects to be taught at the

1 Quart. Joztrn. GeoL Soc. xi. (1855), pp. 24, 25.

1 86 SCHOOL OF MINES AND MUSEUM CHAP, vi

newly-instituted * Government School of Mines, and
of Science applied to the Arts,' and the officers by
whom the courses of instruction were to be given, were
as follows : —

President — Sir Henry T. De la Beche, C.B., F.R.S.

Chemistry, applied to the Arts and Agriculture — Lyon Playfair,
Ph.D., F.R.S.

Natural History, applied to Geology and the Arts — Edward
Forbes, F.R.S.

Mechanical Science, with its Applications to Mining — Robert
Hunt, Keeper of Mining Records.

Metallurgy, with its Special Applications — John Percy, M.D.,
F.R.S.

Geology, and its Practical Applications — A. C. Ramsay, F.R.S.

Mining and Mineralogy — Warington W. Smyth, M.A., F.G.S.

His acceptance of the lectureship of geology in
this institution rendered it necessary that Ramsay
should vacate his chair at University College. On
the 1 5th June he sent in his formal letter of resigna-
tion. There was a disposition on the part of some of
the College authorities not to continue the professorship
after he should give it up, but to send the students to
him at the School of Mines. He himself, however,
was adverse to this proposal, and the idea was
abandoned. The teachers of the School did not
aspire to be called ' Professors,' and Smyth used
almost angrily to resent the appellation. But Ramsay
having for four years worn the gown in a chartered
college, the name of Professor continued to be given
to him, in accordance with the northern proverb, * Once
a bailie, aye a bailie.'

The preparation of lectures for the new school was
a much less arduous task than that which presented
itself to him four years before. The course he had
given at University College would suffice for his

WARINGTON W. SMYTH

1 85 1 TRAINING IN FIELD- WORK 1 87

purpose. He had not written out his lectures, but had
only made full notes, and these he used to revise
frequently, so as to bring them abreast of the onward
march of geology. This task had to be accomplished
before the beginning of the next year. But it was not
one which pressed heavily on him, even though it in-
cluded the preparation of a special introductory lecture
designed for the purposes of the School of Mines.

Ramsay had thus ample time for inspecting duty
in the field during the summer and autumn. Much of
the earlier part of the season was spent in the Midlands
looking over the ground mapped by or assigned to
Jukes, H. H. Howell, and E. Hull.1 The two latter
geologists were recent additions to the staff, and he
trained them for their work. Never was there a more
delightful field-instructor than he. Full of enthusiasm
for the work, quick of eye to detect fragments of
evidence, and swift to perceive their importance for
purposes of mapping, he carried the beginner on with
him, and imbued him with some share of his own
ardent and buoyant nature. Laziness and indifference
were in his eyes such crimes that indulgence in them
marked a man out for his wrathful indignation, and
even for ultimate dismissal from the service. He
would take infinite pains to make any method of
procedure clear, and was long-suffering and tender
where he saw that the difficulties of the learner arose
from no want of earnest effort to comprehend. But
woe to the luckless wight who showed stupidity,
inattention, or carelessness ! Ramsay's eye would
flash, his hand would whisk the tips of the curls on

1 Edward Hull joined the staff in 1850, became District Surveyor for
Scotland in 1867, was appointed Director for Ireland in 1869 on the death of
Jukes, which post he held until his retirement from the service in 1890.

i88 SCHOOL OF MINES AND MUSEUM CHAP, vi

his head, he would seize the map and rush ahead,
calling on the defaulter to come on and look. And he
would keep up this offended tone until he felt that his
pupil had at last been made to feel his delinquency.
Then some snatch of a song or line of an old ballad
or fragment from Shakespeare, appropriate to some
phase of the incident, would come into his head, and
instantly it would be on his lips with probably a hearty
laugh, that showed how entirely the cloud had passed
away. If a man had any geological faculty in him, it
was impossible that it should not be stimulated and
educated under such a teacher. And if, unhappily,
there was no such faculty, Ramsay soon discovered
the defect, and after full trial the recruit was advised
to seek other fields of exertion.

The inspecting duty in the Midland region brought
Ramsay into close familiarity with a type of English
scenery which contrasted strongly with what, during
his Survey life, he had been chiefly used to in Wales.
Thus he writes : ' \<$th July. — Up into that fine wild
part of old England by Cannock Chase. It truly gives
an idea of what much of England must have been in
the days of Robin Hood — wild, undulating, unenclosed
ground, covered with heath and bracken, and here and
there sprinkled with oaks, birches, and alders. In the
woods and on the hillsides you may see the wild deer
trooping along, while now and then you raise a lazy
heron, or the whirring grouse and black game.'

* 2$rd. — Out to Maxstoke Priory, etc. [Warwick-
shire], tracing on Howell's fault. What a noble place
that has been, with its piles of building, its great
cathedral-like church, and its perfectly-built encircling
close walls of smoothed stones with buttress and sloping
copings ! I was charmed and grieved at the sight of

1 8s i METRICAL EPISTLE TO S ALTER 189

the stately ruins ; scarcely anything remaining but part
of the great church-tower, the gateway, some of the
smaller buildings, now a farm-house, and these beauti-
ful walls. To-night I heard the Shakespearian word
" pudder " used for the first time in conversation. Old
Mr. Brown of the Colesleys said, " It will be a fine day
to-morrow, if the thunder does not pudder up,'' pro-
nouncing the dd as th. It tells a singular story to
see many of the old farms surrounded by moats in
these parts.'

The weather during part of the time in Derby-
shire was excessively warm, and made field-work
somewhat trying, as the following characteristic letter
will show : —

ASHBOURNE, DERBYSHIRE,
June 1851.

MY DEAR SALTER — Where you may be I know
not, whether above or below ground, recent or fossil.
. . . Here we are burned up with fervent heat, and
our souls are melted within us. Ginger-beer o' days is
the only drink, and we dine at twelve o'clock at night
with bitter beer and soda-water. Our noses are
flames of fire, and our lips breathe smoke as a
furnace. Oh for the dim cellars of the Museum,
and a pint of cool stout with an oyster! Then
should our throats be opened, and our lungs sing
aloud like a game-cock. Hip-hip-hurrah for Lord
S - , who is not quite so bad as he's ugly. With
a shout for Sir Henry, the Gov'nor, and a prayer
that his legs may grow stouter ; Stout as the legs
of strong Samson, who bore off the gates of a city,
Easy as Salter would carry a trayful of shells oolitic
Up the high gallery - stairs, where calamites ever

190 SCHOOL OF MINES AND MUSEUM CHAP, vi

reposing, Rest in their timber-glass tombs, delighting
the eyes of the public ; Telling a tale of past epochs,
a tale of the forests primeval, When mighty batrachians
crawled o'er the mud that encircled their rootlets, And
the convex Productus clung by byssus to stem and to
stump, sir ; Like to the oysters that stick to the
mangroves afar by the Quorra. — Quoth

ANDW. C. RAMSAY.

The approaching completion of all the work in
North Wales, and especially the recent surveys in
Anglesey, where some of the Director - General's
mapping had been revised and modified by his
subordinates, made De la Beche desirous of con-
sulting Ramsay on the ground relative to these
changes. Accordingly, he asked his lieutentant to
meet him at Holy head on his return from Ireland.
The diary thus records the meeting : —

' 2^th September. — Got to Holyhead at half-past six,
and found Sir Henry perfectly jolly, but very feeble
on his legs. We spent an exceedingly pleasant even-
ing together, talking on all sorts of subjects most
unreservedly ; I felt quite filial towards him.

' 2$th. — Wet day. First we had a spread of the
map, with which he was hugely delighted, especially
about the Permian story. Then I wrote sixteen
letters, and then we had a little walk before dinner.
He looked quite feeble, and like an old man in his
walk. It quite grieved me to see him, and I felt my
affection growing stronger for him as we walked along,
he leaning heavily on my arm, and using a stout stick
besides. In the evening we were again very confi-
dential. He talked about his daughters, their abilities,
Kendall, and all his past life.

i8si DE LA BECHE IN ANGLESEY 191

' 26tk. — After breakfast, started in a fly and pair
for Amlwch, round about by Cemmaes, etc. He
yielded the faults I claimed, and also that the altered
rocks were the same as those on the west side of the
island. We got to Amlwch by five, and took up our
quarters at the " Dinorbin Arms." After dinner he
talked of his old friends and acquaintances : Scott,
Byron, Madame De Stael, etc. etc., all of whom he
knew more or less.

' 2*]th. — Out in a car seeing the gneiss, etc., near
the smaller patch of granite. That point I yielded.
They are gneiss, and not granite. He was very
feeble, and could scarcely, with the help of my arm,
crawl along the hillsides, when for a little we put up
the car at a farm and walked. But there was a sort
of childish good-humour about him that touched me,
and I felt as fond of him as I ever did, before he
began to get so dodgy with all of us. We spent a
most jolly evening together again, he being full of
jokes, and making all the servants laugh at his repeti-
tions and kindly talk to them.

1 One thing he said to-day amused me much. We
were sitting on the sea-beach, eating mutton sand-
wiches, and watching the action of the waves on the
pebbles, when Sir H. said: " I'll tell you what the old
gentleman is saying ; he's saying : * Only give me
plenty of time,' ha ! ha ! ha ! "

' 28^. — Left Amlwch after breakfast in a large
car and pair. Beautiful day. Lunched at Pentraith.
Sir H. in a sort of happy, amiable, kindly vein all day.
We put up at the "George," Menai Bridge. While I
am writing he is reading the Bible and commenting on
the Flood and other things in what he calls "that
funny story." The house being full, we are obliged

192 SCHOOL OF MINES AND MUSEUM CHAP, vi

to take to a double-bedded room that opens directly
into the road or yard. Sat latterly in the coffee-room,
an English chatterbox, an Indian-looking dragoon, a
sensible German, and another man being our fellows.
We amused each other pronouncing difficult words
for the others to imitate. My Llanfairpwllgwyngyll
puzzled all of them.

' 2gtk. — Sir H. taken suddenly worse during the
night with English cholera, or something like it. He
was so bad that by and by he got alarmed, and I
jumped out of bed, got a car, drove to Bangor,
roused Mr. Charles, the surgeon, expounded the case,
and fetched him out with the needful medicines.
Miss Roberts in a dreadful way about the bed-room
we were in. I brought in Mr. Charles, and Sir H.
talked and made him laugh so about what he had
eaten and how he felt. . . . The doctor gave him
a dose, which almost on the instant put all right.

1 1 read Sir Roger de Coverley, and thought how
like the two knights are to each other in many points
of character, such as their jollity and harmless humours.

* Between four and six I crossed to Anglesey by the
ferry, and saw that old affair of Selwyn's where the
Cambrians are supposed to lie unconformably on the
older schists. There is every appearance of a fault
there, for there is a good Q-inch quartz-lode between
them.1

' 3O/^. — Sir H. quite well and jolly this morning.
He vowed that I was his guest here, and that I must
not pay any share in the bill, because I would not
have stayed had it not been for his illness, so I took
an opportunity of slipping into the bar and paying my
shot unknown to him.'

1 See anfe,"p. 172, andflvstea, p. 207.

i8si BETROTHAL 193

There were still points of detail and some ques-
tions of interpretation of geological structure to be
settled in the area mapped by Ramsay and Selwyn in
North Wales. Selwyn had gone back to Dolgelli to
look into these, and Ramsay joined him there.

* ijtk October. — Held a council with Selwyn on the
Shropshire sheets, etc. His work there and here is
the perfection of beauty.

' 2\st. — Up in a car as far as the eighth milestone
on the Trawsfynydd road ; then across the country
to Bwlch-drws-Ardudwy. What a magnificent scene !
Had a rough climb over Rhinog fach. Let any one
who wishes to be convinced of the theory of stratifica-
tion with subsequent disturbance of beds go there.
Their bare and unbroken continuity from top to
bottom of the mountains on either side of that savage
pass is the grandest sight in Wales.

' 22nd. — Up to Drws-y-nant by the coach, and
then across the hills behind by Dolnallt, Robell fawr,
and Benglog. Selwyn made out all his points. How
he fights with a bit of ground till he makes it all clear !
Truly an admirable workman !

' $rd November. — Made some good glacial obser-
vations, especially at Capel Curig. Selwyn's semi-
scepticism begins to melt.'

These Welsh peregrinations did not pass without
including sundry detours to the rectory of Llanfair-
ynghornwy. At last, on the I5th November, on a
renewed visit to that remote spot, Ramsay and Miss
Louisa Williams were engaged. Among the con-
gratulatory letters which he received regarding this
momentous and happy event in his life he carefully
preserved that which came to him from his dear old
chief. It ran as follows : —

o

194 SCHOOL OF MINES AND MUSEUM CHAP, vi

LONDON, \Wi November 1851.

MY DEAR RAMSAY — Yours of yesterday I have just received in
time to say, may you be as happy as I wish you, and may your
intended wife value your right sterling honest self as I do. If she
does this last, you will be sure of the first. May God prosper you
in all ways. — Your ever sincere H. T. DE LA BECHE.

Ramsay's yearning for a quiet home, with a con-
genial spirit upon whom he could pour out the full
flow of his affectionate nature, was now about to be
realised at last. A quotation from his letter to Mrs.
Cookman, one of the Dolaucothi family, will best
describe how he came to make his choice, and what
he himself thought of it : —

' From the first setting of my foot in Wales I was
a doomed man. I was fated not to escape from it
free. Only think of it ! I was done for in the last
remaining corner of Wales, where my geological work
was to be done, and just about the completion of that
work, too. It was in the far north-west corner of
Anglesey that I tumbled in head over heels, and was
enchained by a maid of Cymru, as thoroughly Welsh
as you are, for she speaks, reads, and readily trans-
lates Welsh, and, like all Welsh folk, is desperately
fond of her country and people. ... I made their
acquaintance accidentally when on a visit to Mr. and
Mrs. Fitzgerald of Mapperton (Somersetshire) at
Beaumaris. Mrs. Williams asked me to call if I
came their way, which I did. I was staying at a bit
of a public-house some miles off. Being hospitable
folk, they asked me to leave these comfortless quarters
and stay with them. I did so ; have been back sundry
times since, and behold the result ! — a result that con-
siderably surprised both the young lady and myself,
but principally the former, for, as is befitting in such

i8si BETROTHAL 195

cases, I was slain long before she knew it. You ask
for a description. Do you suppose I am to be trusted
with one? I half suspect not. I'll give you a very
little, however, and you can believe as much of it as
you like.

1 First, then, she is not what you would call
pretty, but she is sufficiently pretty to please me.
Age about your own, perhaps a trifle younger. She
can scarcely be called musical, albeit very fond of it.
I mean, she is not much of a player, and but a poor
singer, and she knows it. But what of these things ?
I can vouch for her heart and mind. I have met with
few girls so well read, and with none so witty. Her
love of knowledge is so great, and her memory about
ten times as big as mine, that I do consider myself a
lucky fellow to have caught a wife that takes an
interest in all the pursuits that most interest me, and
who did so long before I knew her. But she is not a
blue. It takes a time to find it out. Then she is so
full of mirth and humour, keeping us all laughing. I
was always fond of laughing, you know. What more
can I say? Her family can't understand how it is
possible to live without her, and all the neighbouring
poor will miss her almost daily visits.

* The marriage takes place in June, and if the
French and Austrians only let the poor Switzers alone,
I hope to carry her up the Rhine to Basle, across to
Interlaken, thence over by the Jungfrau to the valley
of the Rhone, down to Martigny, round Mont Blanc,
and down the Arve to Geneva; not galloping, but
taking it leisurely, and staying at the pleasantest
places for a few days, as the humour seizes us.'

Returning to London towards the end of the year,
Ramsay resumed his old place and his old duties.

196 SCHOOL OF MINES AND MUSEUM CHAP, vi

But everything seemed gilded now by the brightness
that had at last risen upon his domestic prospects.
He opened his course of geological instruction with an
Introductory Lecture ' On the Science of Geology and
its Applications.' The course began on the 6th January,
and consisted of thirty lectures, given on Tuesday and
Friday. To make the Museum and its contents more
widely known, and to diffuse a taste for science among
the people, evening lectures to working men were
organised as part of the educational work of the
Jermyn Street establishment. Each of the six
teachers of the school gave a single evening lecture,
so that the course consisted of six lectures, tickets
being only obtainable by those who could show that
they were truly artisans, and a registration fee of six-
pence being charged for the course. Afterwards each
teacher gave a course of six lectures. The instruction
thus afforded, and still continued up to the present
time, has been eminently popular among the class
for which it was designed, large crowds sometimes
assembling in front of the Museum door at the
hour when the tickets for some specially attractive
series of lectures are given out. In that first winter
of 1851-52 Ramsay chose as his subject 'The Utility
of Geological Maps.' So much were the lectures
appreciated by the working men that they were
repeated later in the spring.

A few jottings from Ramsay's diary of this period
are here inserted. Of the meetings of the Geological
Society he writes : —

' 2Otk February (1852). — Geological Society
Anniversary, Willis's Rooms. President [W. Hop-
kins] pretty well supported — Goulbourne, Sir C.
Lemon, Pusey, Sir H., Lyell, Murchison, etc. I

1852 DISCUSSIONS AT GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY 197

observe our body annually creeps higher and higher
up the table. We are now next the bigger wigs.

* 2^th. — Good scrimmage between Sedgwick and
Murchison on the Lower Silurian and Cambrian
question. It was not an enlivening spectacle. Sedg-
wick used very hard words. Murchison made a
spirited and dignified reply. He appealed to me, and
I aided in a speech giving a history of the survey of
Wales.

' 2^th March. — Logan's paper [On the Footprints
occurring in the Potsdam Sandstone of Canada] and
Owen's [Description of the Impressions and Footprints
of the Protichnites from the Potsdam Sandstone of
Canada1] passed off well. Murchison made what
Sedgwick called a speech characterised by a sort of
bacchanalian joy at the tracks turning out not to
be tortoise tracks, and Sedgwick himself rejoiced that
the old resting-place of his mind was not disturbed by
such a terrible innovation. He did not like to be too
much disturbed. Lyell was disappointed, he said ;
then Forbes followed, and Owen rebuked them in his
reply for entertaining any other feeling than that of
joy at an error being corrected, and a scientific truth
partly elucidated. Mantell proposed that they were
the tracks of great trilobites, but no one seconded him,
or rather every one dissented, Burmeister's paper
having gone so far to prove that trilobites had soft
membranaceous appendages and no true feet.'

One entry regarding the Royal Institution Friday
evenings may be quoted : ' $th March. — Heard Dr.
Mantell give a most amusing lecture on the Iguanodon
and other Wealden reptiles. It was so clever and
witty, that throughout it was greeted with rounds of

1 Quart. Journ. GeoL Soc. viii. (1852), pp. 199, 214.

198 SCHOOL OF MINES AND MUSEUM CHAP, vi

applause. His raps at Owen through that Quarterly
article were very characteristic.'

The field-work done by the Local Director this
summer included the inspection of the mapping of
Worcestershire and adjoining areas. He in particular
traced the boundaries of the Permian breccias between
the Bromsgrove Lickey and the Clent Hills, and had
his curiosity kindled by the extraordinary character of
these rocks. At intervals he renewed his study of
them during the next few years, and came to the
conclusion that they proved the existence of Palaeozoic
glaciers — an announcement which he made at the
Liverpool meeting of the British Association in 1854.

The marriage of Professor Ramsay and Miss
Louisa Williams took place at Llanfairynghornwy on
the 2Oth July, and two days later he found himself
for the first time in his life in a foreign country.
Reaching Ostend, the newly-married pair made their
way slowly through Belgium to Cologne, up the Rhine
to Basle, where they called on Schonbein and supped
with Peter Merian, thence to Zurich, and so into the
Oberland and the western Alps. For the first time
Ramsay now beheld true mountains and actual glaciers.
At the first distant glimpse of the Alps he says that he
' opened his eyes so wide that he feared they never
would close again.' What geologist can ever forget
his first transports at such a sight ! How Ramsay's
eye caught up the points of special geological interest,
while at the same time revelling in all the glories of
mountain form, may be shown in a few citations from
his diary.

' ytk August. — As we crossed [the Lake of
Lucerne] to Weggis, for the first time we saw a
glacier far away towards the summit of the Uri Roth

1 852 HONE YMOON IN S WITZERLAND 199

Stock — I clearly saw the curved transverse crevasses
and a distinct trainee of stones. It was an event in
our lives. From Brunnen to Fluelen the contortions
of the rocks exceeded anything I ever saw in the most
intricate old rocks of Wales. Whole mountains were
reversed, 4000 or 5000 feet high. I got a good
notion of these contortions, but very little of the
absolute character of the rocks, for I had no chance of
touching them.

' \\th. — Were rowed by two men and a woman to
Interlaken. The scenery is so large and grand, the
cliffs so great, the strikes, dips, and contortions of the
great masses of strata so enormous and so grandly
exposed, and the immense slopes of talus below,
scarred with frequent torrents, give such overwhelming
ideas of the incessant effects of atmospheric disintegra-
tion. England, Wales, and Scotland gave me no idea
of it before. At Interlaken we saw descending from
the Breithorn a genuine glacier, not very large appar-
ently, for it was twelve miles off. We had a little
geological scrimmage among the limestones.'

One of the most interesting features of this Swiss
tour was an excursion which Ramsay, leaving his wife
for a couple of days at the Grimsel, made with Dolfuss-
Ausset to the Ober Aar glacier. He gave an account
of this expedition in his article on Swiss and Welsh
glaciers, published seven years later in Peaks, Passes,
and Glaciers ; but the original narrative in his diary
contains a few personal details which may find a place
here.

' \*]th August. — Went with the guide to find the
" Pavilion " of M. Dolfuss. It was perched upon a rock
some miles off. He is a great gaunt man, and stood on
a rock with a blue bonnet on his head, and a veil

200 SCHOOL OF MINES AND MUSEUM CHAP, vi

wrapped round it. As soon as he knew who I was he
hospitably asked me to dine with him, and immediately
after proposed that I should join him in an excursion
to the Ober Aar glacier, which, after a little hesitation,
I acceded to. So we descended nearly to the lower
end of the Unter Aar glacier, whence I despatched a
note to Louisa, saying I had found an opportunity I
had waited for for thirty-eight years, and that I could
not be back till to-morrow. We then climbed up by a
brook with four men, and long ere sunset reached the
Ober Aar glacier. There we had coffee and supper
and buffalo-skins, and by and by my messenger
returned with a delightful note from Louisa. The
men then cut grass and made a bed in the windowless
hut. We spread our buffalo-skins upon it, had a glass
of hot brandy and water, put a pipe in our cheeks, and
speedily fell asleep as jolly as sand-boys.

1 \%th. — Awoke early, long before daylight, a little
damp and sore in the bones. At half-past three M.
Dolfuss roused himself and blew a blast on his horn,
whereupon all the men got up and lighted two fires,
one in the stove indoors, and the other on a flat stone
outside. It was a glorious morning ; I thought I had
never seen stars before. Venus seemed to swim in
the heavens, a ball of light, and not as if a hole had
been punctured in a bluish covering through which
the light shone. It was glorious, too, to watch the
light gradually growing on the snowry peaks of Ober-
aarhorn and the other peaks that enclosed and nursed
the glacier. At a quarter to five we started, and were
soon on the ice, five men carrying the burdens. At
first we were in groups where the ice was solid and
the crevasses distinct. These required some careful
dodging, though there never was any real danger.

1852 IN THE OBERLAND 201

By and by, as we got higher into the regions where
snow had lately fallen, it was needful to be more
cautious. We saw three chamois. We then walked
in a row, following carefully in each other's footsteps,
the foremost man sounding the snow with his pole.
About half-past ten or eleven we reached the snow-
shed where the glacier descends in the other direction
into the valley of Viesch. Then we climbed up on a
flat rock whence Monte Rosa, Mont Cervin, and the
whole of the magnificent panorama of the Alps burst
upon me. The Finsteraarhorn was close at hand,
towering above us in black and white majesty. On
the other side were all the mountains that bound the
valley of the Grimsel, partly hidden by white clouds,
through which the peaks rose as islands. The whole
looked more glorious than I can describe. About one
o'clock we began to descend. On the Grimsel side it
was very rough and steep. [At last from a point 600
or 800 feet above the hotel] M. Dolfuss blew his horn,
and the men gave a yoodle. Met Louisa on the top
of a roche moutonnde opposite the inn. Then came
M. Dolfuss, looking tall and rough. We sat together
at dinner, and were exceedingly merry. M. Dolfuss
seemed a great favourite with the landlord and all his
people, and his gaunt yet stately appearance at table
created quite a sensation.'

At Turtmann they were delighted to fall in with
Von Buch and Merian, who were on their way to
Monte Rosa, and would fain have persuaded Ramsay
to accompany them. But he had promised to be back
at his Survey post by a particular date, and so he
reluctantly parted with them, went round by Cha-
mouni, had a scramble on the Mer de Glace, and
by the 2nd September was once more in London.

202 SCHOOL OF MINES AND MUSEUM CHAP, vi

De la Beche received him with the exclamation,
' Oh, you have come back to the very day ; I quite
thought you would have taken another week ! '

Apart from the general stimulus which a first visit
to the Alps gives to a geologist's appreciation of his
science, in Ramsay's case a special influence was
exerted by the snowfields and glaciers. For the last
four years, as we have seen, he had been getting
increasingly interested in the various problems pre-
sented by the glaciation of Wales. But he had never
before actually seen a glacier. The sight of the Swiss
glaciers, therefore, quickened his desire to renew the
study of the Welsh phenomena, and sent him back
with a far more vivid conception of what the condi-
tions must have been in the Ice Age among the hills
and valleys of this country. Robert Chambers, to
whom, as already remarked, may be assigned a large
share in first directing Ramsay's attention to the relics
of old glaciers in Britain, received a letter from him
soon after he returned from his continental tour, giving
some account of what he had seen. In his reply
Chambers says : ' I am much gratified in hearing from
you at all, and particularly so on account of the late
tendency of your studies. In visiting the Alps, and
looking at what ice now is doing, you have taken the
first step required for the study of ancient glacial action.
I could have wished you to take the second (as I
consider it) in a trip to Scandinavia. Still, even
without that, you may be tolerably prepared for the
consideration of the corresponding phenomena in
Wales. I have read the abstract of your paper in
the G. Proceedings? and am really much gratified by
the progress you have made in this curious investiga-

1 See ante, p. 178.

1852 EARLY WORK IN GLACIAL GEOLOGY 203

tion. Your observations on the drift on the flanks of
Carnedd Llewelyn and Carnedd Dafydd are exceed-
ingly interesting, and indeed the whole article is one
calculated greatly to advance the question.' There
can be little doubt that this first trip to Switzerland
finally fixed the bent of Ramsay's mind in all his later
geological work. Though still busy with the many
problems presented by the structure of the older rocks,
these no longer absorbed his attention, nor exercised
that fascination which they had hitherto done. He
now threw himself more and more into the study of
the origin of the superficial contours of the land, and
among the various agents by which these contours
had been moulded and modified, he specially devoted
himself to the investigation of the work of ice.
Though the bold generalisations of Agassiz in regard
to the former glaciation of Britain had been published
twelve years before, they had met with but small
acceptance among the geologists of Britain. J. D.
Forbes, Buckland, Darwin, Charles Maclaren, and
Robert Chambers had indeed traced the relics of
vanished glaciers in various mountain groups of Scot-
land, the Lake District, and Wales. But a broader
treatment of the subject was needed, and among those
who led the way to this more comprehensive investi-
gation, and who made the Glacial Period one of the
most absorbingly interesting of all the geological ages,
a foremost place must always be assigned to Sir
Andrew Ramsay.

In the course of preparing for the engraver the
various sheets of the map of North Wales, and the Hori-
zontal Sections across the same region, a number of
difficulties presented themselves. In an area of some
complication, and where the survey had been the

204 SCHOOL OF MINES AND MUSEUM CHAP, vi

work of several geologists, it was hardly possible that
it should be otherwise. So that portions of the ground
required to be revisited, sometimes more than once,
and the several surveyors had to meet and discuss the
discrepancies or disputed points on the spot. Much
anxious work of this nature occupied the autumn of
1852. Ramsay took his young wife to Ffestiniog,
and from that centre proceeded to clear off all the
remaining difficulties up to the Snowdon ground in the
north, and Arenig on the east. Whilst there he was
joined by five students from the School of Mines, who
came for some initiation into the mysteries of geologi-
cal surveying. They included W. T. Blanford, who
afterwards rose to distinction in the Geological Survey
of India, and is now an active member of the Royal,
Geological, Zoological, and Geographical Societies of
London ; the late H. F. Blanford, well known for his
able contributions to Indian Meteorology ; and H.
Bauerman, who afterwards became one of the staff of
the Geological Survey of Great Britain.

This Welsh work of completion and revision took
longer than had been anticipated. At the close of
1852 it was not finished. Selwyn left the Survey at
the end of July in that year to take charge of the
Geological Survey of Victoria, so that the task of
getting the Welsh maps ready for the engraver de-
volved mainly on Ramsay himself, with the powerful
assistance of W. T. Aveline. The Director-General
was waxing more and more impatient. ' MORE (! ! !)
examinations in North Wales ! ' he exclaimed to Ram-
say ; ' the very sound of such matters sets me adrift. '
He wished to get rid of Wales, and to have the satis-
faction of pushing on the Survey over England. As
nothing delighted him more than to be able to announce

i8S3 RE-EXAMINATION OF PARTS OF WALES 205

a large area of square miles as surveyed in a year, so
was he correspondingly chagrined that this prolonged
detention of some of the most active members of the
staff in Wales should seriously reduce the mileage
that could be reported. Much of the summer of 1853
was still required for completing details in some of
the Welsh ground, and both Ramsay and Aveline
worked hard, sometimes together, but more generally
apart. Frequent letters passed between them when
they were separate, for Ramsay had set his heart on
getting North Wales satisfactorily completed. He had
himself been engaged in the work, and felt his credit
at stake till he saw the survey finished as fully and
accurately as he could achieve. His views were well
expressed in a letter to De la Beche, not only regard-
ing North Wales, for which he was himself responsible,
but with reference to South Wales, and to all the south-
western part of England which had been completed
and published before he joined the staff, in a more rapid,
less detailed style than had subsequently been gradu-
ally introduced, mainly by his own exertions. Writing
in the autumn of 1853, when Sir Henry's patience was
all but gone, he says (2ist November): 'I cannot
but think that when, by new lights shining out, omis-
sions or errors are discovered, it is better to mend
them, as soon as we know the way, than to leave them
open to amateur carpers. It was anything but pleasant
the other day to hear of errors and omissions in Mal-
vernia, some of which by accidental visits I knew to be
true. You have often spoken of going down to Devon
and Cornwall with me to mend the lines there, and I
heartily wish the Silurian lines in South Wales and
May Hill were mended and brought into harmony
with those in the north, by the now easy addition of

206 SCHOOL OF MINES AND MUSEUM CHAP, vi

the dividing line between Upper and Lower Silurian,
following out what I did years ago at Builth.

' As these maps stand, their authority is in great
part gone, and any one can point out their inconsist-
encies. I do not, however, even now dream of mend-
ing South Wales without special orders, since having
been done by others, and before my time, I have no
actual responsibility in the matter. When a personal
responsibility to you and the public weighs upon me,
I cannot rest till I have done my very best as long as
I am allowed to do it.'

To his colleague, Salter, he was still more out-
spoken about the defects of the maps of South Wales :
'When I joined the Survey in 1841, Sir Henry and
Phillips did the mapping, and I took lessons and
looked on admiringly. I have no doubt that almost
all South Wales is bad, Silurian and all. There was
no system in the work. I suspect my work at St.
David's and Fishguard is pretty nearly the best of it.
I even separated out the Cambrian, but it was not
used. From Builth to Pembroke is a mull, Llandovery
and all. Certain I am that Sir Henry had no ground
for putting my Llandeilos above the Castell Crag
Gwyddon rock. I had nothing to do with it. Sir
Henry began to map it, and left it off unfinished. The
whole is only about ten stages better than Devon and
Cornwall/

Some of the maps and sheets of Horizontal Sec-
tions of North Wales having now been published,
Ramsay took a useful step in the spring of 1853 by
reading to the Geological Society a brief outline of
the general succession of rocks and geological structure
of the region, so far as these had been determined by
the Survey. In this paper he passed over the con-

i853 DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE AND ART CREATED 207

tention of his colleague Selwyn, which, as we have
seen (pp. 172, 192), was also his own original im-
pression, that the Cambrian rocks of Anglesey are
underlain by a far more ancient series of schists. He
now published his belief that these schists are the
metamorphosed equivalents of the Barmouth and
Harlech grits, and the Llanberis and Penrhyn sand-
stones and slates — an opinion which he maintained
to the last. The paper is interesting as the earliest
account of the successive groups in the older Palaeozoic
rocks of North Wales, as finally worked out by the
Geological Survey.

Among the incidents of the summer of 1853 the
most notable in Ramsay's life was the birth of a
daughter on the 3rd June at Beaumaris. It grati-
fied him to think that in Wales, which had almost
become his adopted country, and which, by the ties
of marriage, had now grown doubly dear to him, his
child should have been born.

An important departmental change this year
affected the Geological Survey. Once again it was
transferred to a new set of masters. The exchange
arose in this wise. One of the consequences of the
Great Exhibition was the impulse given to the recog-
nition of the importance of Science in national pro-
gress. In 1853 a comprehensive scheme was carried
out by Lord Aberdeen's Government, whereby a
' Department of Science and Art ' was established
under the charge of the Board of Trade, of which
the President at that time was Mr. Cardwell. The
control of the Geological Survey, the Museum of
Practical Geology, and the School of Mines was trans-
ferred from the office of Woods to this new depart-
ment. Three years later, that is in 1856, another

2o8 SCHOOL OF MINES AND MUSEUM CHAP, vi

change was made, whereby the Department of Science
and Art was transferred to the Privy Council, and was
administered by the Lord President of the Council,
assisted by a member of the Privy Council, who is
called the Vice-President of the Committee of Council
on Education. This arrangement is still maintained.

CHAPTER VII

THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY IN SCOTLAND

THE general awakening of the country, after the Great
Exhibition of 1851, to the national importance of cul-
tivating science for industrial if not for theoretical
purposes, showed itself in Scotland, among other ways,
in an agitation for the extension of the Geological
Survey to that part of the United Kingdom. The
movement never needed to be vigorously pushed, for
the mapping of Scotland had from the beginning been
contemplated as part of the duty of the Geological
Survey of Great Britain. But two serious impedi-
ments had hitherto stood in the way of even making
a commencement of the work. In the first place, the
Ordnance Survey of Scotland was so far behind that the
maps, on which alone a geological investigation could
be properly based, had not been available ; and in the
second place, even if maps could have been obtained,
the staff of the Geological Survey was so small that
it was hardly possible to spare any officers for break-
ing ground in Scotland. In response to the agitation
on the subject, De la Beche instructed Ramsay to go
to Scotland and see for himself the actual state of
affairs. Writing to his lieutenant on the 26th July 1853,
he said : ' The Survey (Geological) of Scotland has
been long ordered (vide votes in Parliament), but we

2io GEOLOGICAL SURVEY IN SCOTLAND CHAP, vn

could never enter upon it, because there were no
proper maps, not enough to continue the work upon
if we had commenced it. Now let us see if there are
the needful maps, and a fair prospect of not being
compelled to break the work off if commenced. You
have been sent in your official capacity to examine and
report to me on this matter, so that it may be seen
how far it may be expedient to commence the Survey
of Scotland next year, your report and other needful
inquiries enabling those who will have to decide on the
subject to obtain a correct view of it.'

In accordance with these instructions, Ramsay
went to Scotland in that year, and spent the month
of August there making the necessary inquiries, and
at the same time visiting some of his relatives and old
friends. He found that in the central part of Scotland,
where upon the coal-bearing formations and among
the great industrial districts it was desirable to begin,
the Ordnance maps were exceedingly backward, but
that there was a prospect of obtaining unfinished
proofs of them in the course of next year. It was
subsequently arranged that he himself should go north
and begin the geological survey in the summer or
autumn of 1854. His letters during this brief expedi-
tion north of the Tweed show how impossible it was
to escape from the pressure of official work. Sir
Henry was getting old and less able than he had been
to keep himself in touch with the field-work, though
to the last he continued his tours of inspection, and
even in the summer of 1854 was down in County Cork
exploring with Jukes the coast-line about Bearhaven.
But it was essential for the progress of the service
that Ramsay should constantly keep himself in com-
munication with his men. Thus he dragged at each

i853 PRELIMINARY INQUIRY 211

remove a lengthening chain of correspondence. A
few extracts from his notes to Aveline, some of them
written when he was really on holiday visits in Scot-
land, may here be given. ' What has become of you ?
What are the prospects of the work ? [Completion of
part of the Welsh ground.] Is it done or nearly done,
or does it look as if it would be done ; and have you
been able to solve your difficulties ? Sir H. wanted
to disturb you. I wrote trying to stave him off. . . .
I have been away a day and night among the islands
of the Forth in a steamer belonging to the Commis-
sioners of Northern Lights, and landed on the Bell
Rock. It is Old Red Sandstone and twelve miles from
shore. I will send your sections, maps, etc., in a day
or two. It is not easy to find quiet here. When I
get to Hamilton I will send you a Cader sheet ; I have
none here. Yesterday I got some fine specimens of
foliated mica and chlorite schists by Loch Lomond
and Arrochar. The glacial phenomena beat anything
I ever saw. It is wonderful.'

At this point of the narrative, when the operations
of the Geological Survey are to be described in Scot-
land, it may be of advantage to look for a moment at
the state of the progress of the work at that time in
England. The whole of Wales had been completed
and published, together with Cornwall, Devon, Somer-
set, Dorset, Wiltshire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire,
Warwickshire, Staffordshire, Shropshire, and Derby-
shire. Portions of some other counties had also been
published, and the field-work was now being pushed
into Lancashire and Yorkshire, north of a line drawn
from Liverpool to Sheffield, and into the counties of
Nottingham, Leicester, Northampton, Oxford, Bucking-
ham, Berkshire, Hampshire, Surrey, Sussex, and Kent.

212 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY IN SCOTLAND CHAP, vn

The staff at this time in England consisted of Sir
Henry de la Beche, Director-General ; A. C. Ramsay,
Local Director for Great Britain ; W. T. Aveline and
H. W. Bristow, geologists; W. H. Baily, J. W. Salter,
H. H. Howell, and E. Hull, assistant geologists ; R.
Gibbs, general assistant ; and J. Rhind. The Irish
staff, under the Local Director, J. Beete Jukes, consisted
of W. L. Willson, geologist; A. Wyley, G. V.
Dunoyer, F. J. Foot, G. H. Kinahan, S. Medlicott,
and J. O' Kelly, assistant geologists ; and James
Flanagan and Pierce Hoskins, specimen-collectors.

The maps and sections of North Wales having
been completed and published, the next labour was
the preparation of a connected description of the
geology of that region. No one but Ramsay could
undertake this onerous duty. He was familiar with
the Principality from Holyhead to Caermarthen; many
square miles of it he had himself surveyed, and he had
inspected at various times almost all the rest of the
ground. Still he could not be expected to know all
the details of tracts which he had not personally
mapped. He accordingly applied to his colleagues,
more especially to Aveline, Selwyn, Jukes, and Salter,
for notes regarding their several districts, and these,
together with the memoranda he had himself made, he
proceeded to weave into a continuous Memoir. This
task continued to be his chief indoor labour for some
years. Ill-health eventually seriously delayed its com-
pletion, and the Memoir did not finally make its
appearance until some twelve years later. To do the
editorial work of this volume satisfactorily it was de-
sirable that he should plant himself for a time in some
central part of the region to be described, so that he
might easily verify any doubtful points by actually

1854 THE MEMOIR ON NORTH WALES 213

visiting the ground. Accordingly he took up his
quarters during part of the summer of 1854 at his old
station, Llanberis. A few passages from his letters
will give a picture of his life and work there. Writing
to Aveline on the 7th June he tells how an illness there
had retarded him, and adds : * If I can walk a mile or
two to-day I shall try several more to-morrow, and if
that succeed, leave this suddenly. I have now got to
that part of the Memoir that deals with the Bala beds
and Caradoc, from Mallwyd all round by Yspytty
Evan to Conway, and am especially hard up for in-
formation in places. Will you turn up your note-books
and copy out any descriptions of the structure of the
rocks, etc. ? Never mind digesting them into regular
description more than you like ; only give me any
notes you have, and I '11 quote them in your own words
when I can. I am at present incorporating what
Jukes gave me about the Bala Limestone and ash,
and of course what I chiefly want is anything about
the rocks above that.' Again on the i6th he writes
to the same correspondent : ' On Monday, after an
early dinner, I took a gig to the top of the Pass, and
then started across the hills for Ffestiniog, in part over
a bit of country I had not been on before. I was
anxious to see it before describing its rocks. I passed
by the lakes called Llyniau, under the west end of
Moel Siabod, and through the upper part of Dolwydd-
elan, and down by Manod-bach. The greenstones are
right. I reached Martha's about ten at night, and got
a hearty reception and supper. Next morning a com-
mercial gent gave me a lift to Trawsfynydd, where I
struck into the country, and went over Craig-y-Das-
Eithen and down by the back of Penmaen and Cwm
Eisen to Tyn-y-groes, where I dined, and went on to

214 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY IN SCOTLAND CHAP, vn

Dolgelli. Next morning Byers and I had a scramble
till 6 P.M., when I got a return car as far as the cross-
roads near Ffestiniog. I slept at Ffestiniog, and next
morning walked up Cwm Orthin and over Cynicht to
Cwm Gwynant, near Beddgelert. I had never been
on Cynicht before, and learned a few things for the
Memoir. I then walked to the top of the Pass, where
I found a return car and reached Llanberis at
half-past eight. It was a day's work that.'

To Salter, on the 28th of the same month, he
writes : ' Though deep in ice ' (he had been preparing
a paper on the Welsh glaciers for the British Associa-
tion), * that was only occasional work ; I am deeper in
the Memoir, and have got a great deal done. In con-
sequence of last year's finishing strokes to the traps,
between the Bala road and Arenig bach, I was obliged
to re-write a good part and to re-arrange the order of
description. That is all done now, and much more,
including, of course, the Lingula Flags, which, however,
I do not consider finished without your advice there-
anent again. Your notes are of the highest value. I
have used them freely, quoting you, but putting them
necessarily into more current or running English.
This will be submitted to you in good time. I have
also used Jukes's notes about the Bala country, alter-
ing and abolishing a little, and adding considerably.
I think I must send you that to read and comment
upon soon, for I repeat that you can give me much
help both there and in the Berwyns. Not a soul has
given me a single note about the latter.'

To the same correspondent, on the i3th August, he
sends thanks for congratulations on the birth of a son
on the 6th of that month, and adds : ' I hope to be at
Llanfairynghornwy for a day by Thursday at latest en

1 854 VISIT TO SOUTH OF IRELAND 215

route to Ireland, where I want to have a touch at the
six-inch maps before beginning in Scotland. . . . This
Memoir I do not mean to say will be done (with so
much at present on my shoulders), but I do hope to
finish it next winter and early spring. . . . Were we
to go down together next spring [into Wales], and
possibly take Jukes and Aveline with us, then putting
all our experience and knowledge together, we might
through the year produce such results as would throw
a strong and steady light on Ireland. I believe that
no man single-handed could do so in two or three
months, and I believe that if you ask Forbes (if he be
in London) he will agree with me, for our opinions, I
have observed, always pretty well coincided in such
matters.'

The journey to Ireland referred to in the foregoing
extract was chiefly for the purpose of personally in-
specting the system of mapping followed by Jukes and
his colleagues. From the commencement of the
Survey in Ireland maps on the scale of six inches to
a mile had been used as the field-maps. In England
and Wales the general map on the scale of one inch
to a mile had alone been available for geological pur-
poses ; but as the six-inch scale was now extended to
Scotland, it was proposed to carry on the geological
investigation of that part of the United Kingdom on
the larger scale. It will be readily understood that
the substitution of a map embracing thirty-six times
the area of that which had been used in England and
Wales would necessitate numerous modifications of the
system of mapping applicable to the smaller scale ;
much more detail could be expressed and abundant
notes could be inserted, which in the case of the one-
inch scale required to be written in the note-book.

216 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY IN SCOTLAND CHAP, vn

De la Beche, though he had consented to the adoption
of the larger scale in Scotland, was rather inclined to
disparage it. But as that scale was to be employed,
Ramsay clearly realised that it was his duty to profit
by the experience of those of his colleagues who had
been using it for years. ' It would be a great mistake
on my part,' he wrote to his chief, 'to omit seeing
what they do, and how they do it, in Ireland. It does
not follow that the same rules should be applied in
Scotland ; but whether or no, I want to see how they
keep, cut, use, and abuse their maps, what their port-
folios are like, how they handle them in the field, and
twenty other things that may save us much time and
trouble in Scotland, and which only eyesight can
instruct upon.'

De la Beche's bodily and mental powers were
visibly failing, though his natural gaiety of tempera-
ment showed little abatement. His declining vigour
appeared more especially in the uncertainty and
vacillation of his official decisions. He had both
verbally and in writing agreed that Ramsay should
begin the survey of Scotland, but afterwards, when all
the arrangements had been made, he was afraid to go
on with the proposal, lest there might be some question-
ing on the subject at headquarters. Ramsay, how-
ever, knowing how fully the matter had been discussed
and approved by Sir Henry, determined to persevere
in the course which had been fixed upon. In pursuance
of that resolution he crossed to Ireland to see Jukes
and his men at work, and at the same time to have one
more conference with the chief, who had joined the
survey party in the south-west of County Cork. The
story of the interview is told in a letter to Mrs. Ramsay
of the 25th August : * Yesterday after breakfast, Jukes,

JOSEPH BEETE JUKES

1 854 VISIT TO DE LA EEC HE AT GLENGARIFF 217

Willson, Kinahan, and I drove in a car to Glengariff;
Mrs. Jukes rode out with us for a mile or two on
Dolly, and two dogs were also of the party, Carlo the
setter, and Tommy the Scotch terrier. We dropped
the other men en route, and Jukes and I drove on to
Glengariff. It is not a town, but a tourists' inn in a
lovely valley. It puts one in mind of Loch Lomond,
only the water is salt and the hills not so high. There
we found Sir Henry, Rose, Kendall, and Carry
Smyth. After shaking hands, " So you've come
here," quoth the Governor. "Yes, I could not help
it!" "I think you might," and then he showed me
how it was impossible to begin Scotland ; he had no
objections to my going down to open the ground (not
to map it), but it was impossible to authorise any one
accompanying me, for Cardwell had said this and that
and the other thing. I asked him the meaning of his
letters urging me to go down and get something
published. Just at that moment a question arose
about Kennedy and Medlicott. Jukes and Sir H. had
a long discussion, during which I had ample time to
quiet all vestiges of rising wrath, and to arrange my
plan of argument, which was so effectively done, that
when Sir H. and I set-to again, I got him to agree
to everything I wanted. I go down when I please, and
get Aveline to follow me ! So far well, with three
cheers for diplomacy and honesty combined ! Sir H.
is more to be pitied than railed against; for his mind
is far, far gone, though you would not think so under
ordinary circumstances.'

The few days spent with Jukes and his colleagues
gave Ramsay a good idea of the way in which
geological mapping on the six- inch scale could be
carried on, while at the same time it presented him for

2i8 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY IN SCOTLAND CHAP, vii

the first time in his life with some vivid examples of
Irish scenery and Irish manners and habits. Writing to
his wife from near Bantry on the 27th August he says :
' The weather still continues splendid. We had a long
walking and car-ing day yesterday through a beautiful
country, wild and rocky. They call it here cultivated
in places ; but to my eye a great part of it is a sad
spectacle. You see as many houses without as with
roofs, and few gates swing on their hinges. But the
people are fine-looking, those of them that get plenty
to eat, tall and stout, with long arms and upright gait.
The women are often pretty, and they can do what few
English women can, they walk erect and graceful, with
long steps. They do not hobble or amble or mince ;
they walk.

' I am just about starting for Glengariff, and to-
morrow will be at Killarney. I bathe every morning,
and am quite recovering all my swimming powers. I
swim right away out to sea on my face, and return on
my back by way of a change.'

After coming back from Ireland he wrote to
Aveline on the ist September : ' I purpose starting for
Scotland next week, and think of beginning about
Dunbar, but am not as yet certain. I shall return
to the meeting of the British Association at Liver-
pool, and some time after that (not very long) I
certainly expect to want you in Scotland, both that
we may make a good beginning, and also that when I
am obliged to leave (going back and forward) I may
have a representative at work.'

The British Association met this year at Liverpool,
and Edward Forbes, who had recently left the staff of
the Geological Survey to succeed his old master,
Jameson, in the Natural History Chair in the

i854 THE SURVEY OF SCOTLAND BEGUN 219

University of Edinburgh, was President of the
Geological section. Ramsay came to the meeting to
support his friend and read two papers. In one of
these he made known the startling conclusion to which
he had come, that in Permian time glaciers existed in
this country, and had left behind them the remarkable
breccias and boulder-beds of the Malvern and Abberley
hills. The progress of the Survey across Worcester-
shire into the central parts of the midlands had given
him ample opportunity of studying these breccias. He
still further elaborated his observations, and com-
municated them in the following February (1855) to
the Geological Society. He was now in the full tide
of glacial enthusiasm. The old Welsh glaciers had
acquired renewed interest from his experiences in
Switzerland, and he had endeavoured to track their
course and measure their thickness by the markings
they had left upon the rocks. He obtained renewed
proofs of the two periods of glaciation he had already
indicated, and now found that at the time of its
greatest extension the ice had actually passed across
some of the larger valleys, such as those of Llanberis
and Nant Francon. He ascertained by direct measure-
ments of the heights of the striation on the rocks that
the ice of the greater glaciers was about 1300 feet
thick.

After much delay the Geological Survey was at
last extended to Scotland in the autumn of 1854, and
the Local Director himself undertook the task of
beginning the work. The state of the Ordnance
Survey county maps on the six -inch scale left little
choice as to the district where geological work should
be started. Ramsay finally determined to commence
on the coast at Dunbar, where he could trace in the base

220 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY IN SCOTLAA D CHAP, vn

of the Carboniferous system, and, working gradually
westwards, might clear the way for the further prosecu-
tion of the work by his staff next year. His rambles
led him into some of the lonely valleys of the Lammer-
muir Hills and along the picturesque shores of East
Lothian. He had had no quiet geological work in
Scotland since his old Arran days, and there was so
much of interest and novelty in thus breaking ground
for the Geological Survey of Scotland that, repressing
his strong desire to be back once more with his
young wife and children, he persevered with the
work until the keen frosts of December drove him at
last southward. A few pictures of this working-
season at Dunbar may be gleaned from his letters to
Mrs. Ramsay.

' The Old Red Conglomerate here [among the
Lammermuir Hills] is the most wonderful deposit I ever
saw, and horribly icy-looking. It is so soft, too, you
might dig it out with a pickaxe. The greater part of it
is almost indistinguishable from Drift. Examine the
enclosed stones and give me an account of their
colours. Merely write me their colours and then throw
them away. Whatever colours they are, it does not in
any way affect my mapping, but it would be a satis-
faction to be certified on the subject. Are they grey
mostly, and is there any purple and green ? * They
are fragments from the stones that make up this
tremendous brecciated conglomerate on which I walked
on Friday all day without any prospect of getting to
the end of it. It forms great wild, heathy hills,
stretching far away south into Berwickshire. It is so

1 In explanation of these directions it requires to be stated that Ramsay was
to a considerable extent ' colour-blind. ' He was often made conscious of this
defect when discussing the Survey maps with his colleagues, for he could not dis-
tinguish between some of the colours, reds and greens being especially mistaken.

1 854 LIFE AT D UNBAR 221

incoherent that it is everywhere traversed by the most
remarkable ravines, deep, steep, and often without
water in them. These have been made by successions
of winter floods, and sometimes in the course of ages,
the drainage having taken a new direction, they have
become permanently dry.'

* Surely this place is " Cranford." I by no means
understand the constitution of its society. Yesterday

the only person besides myself at dinner with the

was a Mr. Combes. He was a stout little gray-haired
man in black, who from his appearance might be a
clergyman with a black neckerchief, a schoolmaster, a
professor in a Scotch college, a physician, a surgeon,
a country gentleman, a retired merchant, a first-class
skipper, or anything you like, not great or noble.
Well, the conversation got animated, and our host made
an occasional mat a propos remark and thoroughly
enjoyed the talking. The little man discussed history,
English, Scotch, and Roman, the styles and merits of
Hume, Smollet, Robertson, Gibbon, and Scott, of the
Pictorial History, of Mackintosh, Fox, and Macaulay,
of the novel-writers, including Fielding, Smollet, Miss
Burney, Misses Porter, and all the moderns, the history
of poetry as shown in the writings of Dryden, Pope,
Burns, Ramsay, Tannahill, Fergusson, etc. And,
besides, he had been in India, and had voyaged about,
that was clear. Well, he and I walked home ; we
shook hands, and he turned into a house in the street,
and I looked above the door, and saw thereon COMBES,
CANDLEMAKER ! ' x

' With a large section of society intellect is not to

1 This story ought to end here ; but Ramsay afterwards found out that his
enigmatical companion had been a surgeon in the old navy of the East India
Company.

222 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY IN SCOTLAND CHAP, vn

be endured, especially if it dare in any way to think a
little differently from the common herd. Do you
know, it costs me no small trouble to keep out of hot

water even with ? Our style of thought is so

utterly diverse that there is almost no chance of our
agreeing on any possible subject. I never heard an
interesting conversation in their house except from
others. But I have a great respect for them and
much affection. How curious is the difference when
one gets away among men of learning and science !
They do not see merely the outside. They reflect
and reason, and whether correctly or not, still it is
reflection and reason. I never saw Goodsir1 but once
before, and that for five minutes. We were at once
friends, and I feel that I love him, for we have a com-
munity of thought, though our sciences are quite
different. He is so unassuming, simple in manner,
gentle, and kind. I have much to learn from some of
these men.'

1 This is a bright sunny day, with a westerly wind
and white waves dashing on the red cliffs and islets
below the Castle. The Castle is the merest fragment
of a ruin — a few walls some three or four yards thick
on a rocky promontory. Lauderdale House looks
upon them, still entire, but deserted by the Earl, the
windows closed up or broken. It faces the sea, and
its back looks down the long street very drearily.
The family left the town when the Reform Bill put an
end to their borough influence. A winged sphinx sits
on the roof, and wonders how long it will be before it
will fall in.'

1 John Goodsir, born 1814, died 1867 ; one of the greatest anatomists of his
day, was an intimate friend of Edward Forbes. He was Professor of Anatomy
in the University of Edinburgh.

1854 GALES AT DUNBAR 223

* The wind is rising strongly from the east. The
sea gets white. The square-sailed fishing-boats come
scudding in for shelter, and two large three-masted
steam-screws are scudding up the Firth with all sails
set forward. I write during breakfast. One of the
boats seems unable to make Dunbar Harbour, and is
running for shelter into Belhaven Bay. The men's
wives are looking out across the walls. . . . That
little boat has beat up to windward after all. She is
now under shelter of the Castle ; down goes the square
sail, off go the oilskins, and out go four oars, and she
will be in dock in a twinkling.

' Heigh ho ! A boat after all has been upset on
Tyne Sands. Three men are drowned and two saved.
I saw a woman pass crying, and afterwards a sailor,
looking very grave. I feared something.

1 The tumult of the waves is wonderful to look at.
They come rolling in, and swallow up the rocky islets
that guard the shore, breaking over them in great
sheets of white water. The roar, the great masses of
spray, and the labouring vessels dimly seen scudding
up the Firth — everything seems to bespeak disaster.'

Before he left Dunbar the Director had completed
about a third of the area he had assigned to himself to
be mapped from that station. The Geological Survey
of Scotland was thus fairly launched. Ramsay, how-
ever, was never again able to find time to resume the
mapping of any area north of the Tweed.1 All that
his increasing official duties permitted him to accom-
plish was to come down year after year and inspect
the work of his colleagues, completed and in progress.

1 The only time that he took the maps himself into the field was some ten
years later, when, while spending a few days with his friend Mr. J. Carrick
Moore in Wigtownshire, he mapped the end of the peninsula which terminates
in Corsewall Point.

224 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY IN SCOTLAND CHAP, vn

While stationed at Dunbar a calamity befell him
which all through the rest of his life he never ceased
to deplore. His cherished friend, Edward Forbes,
who only a few short months before had succeeded to
the Professorship of Natural History at Edinburgh,
and who had presided so genially and actively over
the Geological Section at the recent meeting of the
British Association at Liverpool, was cut off on the
1 8th November after only a few days' illness.
Ramsay thus announces the sad news to his wife : ' I
have just received a brief note from James Forbes
telling me that Edward died on Saturday at a quarter
to five. I can scarce realise it. My grief breaks out
in short fits, and then I struggle to suppress its signs.
O Louisa! what a terrible blow, and how seemingly
inscrutable. In the flower of life, with a dear wife and
children, and in the new opening of another phase of
a great and useful career ! The more I think of him,
the more I feel that, next to you, he has exercised
more influence on me than any other person I ever
knew. He was so earnest and so good. I wish I
may be able in some small degree to imitate his worth.
We had much in common, but, as a man of science,
his station was much greater than mine can ever be.
Forbes never lost a friend. His goodness as well as
his greatness make him so universally lamented.'

On returning to London for the winter of 1854-55,
the various members of the Geological Survey were
concerned to find how greatly their esteemed chief
had altered for the worse since they had last seen
him. Ramsay notes : ' Sir Henry is wofully changed.
He is so feeble now that he has to be carried in in his
chair, and wheeled to his room. He looks shrunk,
and his face is doubly lined ; neither is its expression

EDWARD FORBES

1854-1855 LAST DAYS OF DE LA BECHE 225

improved.' Nevertheless, the veteran stuck to his
post, presided over meetings of the teachers of the
school, had all the latest Survey maps submitted to
him, and took the keenest interest still in all the field-
work. He was specially pleased with the field-maps
on which Ramsay had traced the first beginnings of
the survey of Scotland, and expressed his approval
not only to him, but also to his colleagues. ' Ramsay
is advancing,' he said, 'and showing much official
aptitude.' Not only so, but he manifested much
interest in the Local Director's glacial work, of which
he had previously been inclined to make light. ' He
was delighted,' says Ramsay, ' with the Swiss and
Welsh moraine matter compared side by side, and
actually gave some obscure hints, as if I should be
obliged some day to be over a good deal in Ireland,
apparently meaning that I should by and by have the
charge of both Surveys.'

De la Beche had often previously spoken to
Ramsay on the subject of the next Director-General.
In their more confidential moments he had assured
him that his * geological son ' should succeed him, and
that he had put that wish so definitely in writing that
he felt certain that the Government would follow his
advice. For years, therefore, Ramsay had come to
regard the reversion of the office as secured to him-
self. But during the year that preceded the time at
which we have now arrived various circumstances had
occurred to shake the confidence of his belief on this
matter. Sir Henry's failing powers, mental as well as
bodily, had led him to take, on more than one occa-
sion, a course which Ramsay, feeling strongly that it
would be detrimental to the best interests of the
service, opposed as firmly, though of course as

Q

226 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY IN SCOTLAND CHAP, vn

courteously, as he could. The chief was now apt
to be impatient and somewhat exacting, as well as
inclined perhaps to push official routine and regulation
further than his able subordinates thought necessary or
desirable. Ramsay had an exceedingly difficult and
delicate task to discharge. He sympathised with his
colleagues, and was entirely loyal to the Survey, at the
same time that he had a strong affection for his chief,
and a keen sense of the duty of subordination and
discipline. So long as he could be side by side with
Sir Henry, there was little risk of serious difference.
The veteran's sense of what was just and fitting was
so strong, and his confidence in his lieutenant so
entire, that he soon came to an amicable agreement
when they argued a question together. But Ramsay
had occasion to be much in the field, and his place
was apt to be taken by other counsellors, whose
advice did not always coincide with his. Certain it is
that towards the end of 1854 De la Beche, feeling
that his own days were numbered, and being desirous
of playing some part in the nomination of a successor,
perhaps also somewhat displeased because Ramsay
had recently withstood the promulgation of a vexa-
tious ordinance, fixed his thoughts for a time upon a
geologist other than his lieutenant as the proper
person to succeed him, and there is reason to believe
that he privately communicated his views on this
matter to the Minister in whose hands the appoint-
ment lay.

Up to the very end Sir Henry came to the
Museum, even though he could not leave the chair in
which he was wheeled into the building, and his loud
voice and hearty laugh could be heard all over the
place. He had still his joke for each member of the

i85S DEATH OF DE LA BECHE 227

staff, and his kindly word of inquiry and encourage-
ment for the attendants and cleaners. ' Well, Mr.
, are you happy ? ' he would ask of some new-
comer, as he was wheeled across the Museum floor to
his own room facing Piccadilly. He appeared for the
last time on Wednesday, the nth April. It was
his intention to be back on the following Saturday,
but he became rapidly worse next day, and died on
the morning of Friday, the 1 3th.

From the allusions which have been made in the
foregoing chapters some more or less adequate picture
may be formed of the character and work of this
remarkable man. His scientific achievements placed
him in the very front rank of English geologists. His
kindliness of heart and gleefulness of spirit endeared
him to all who came into close contact with him. The
very failings which have been already indicated did
not alienate the affectionate regard of his associates.
Even Ramsay, who perhaps suffered more than any
one else from these failings, loved him to the last, and
mourned for him as for one of the most leal-hearted
friends he had ever had.

It is not necessary or desirable for the purposes of
this biography to enter into the details of the appoint-
ment of a successor to De la Beche in the Geological
Survey and the establishment at Jermyn Street. It is
enough to say that Ramsay soon saw that the hopes
he had cherished for so many years were doomed to
utter disappointment. He found, moreover, that
vigorous efforts were being made in favour of a most
estimable man of good family, but possessing only a
very slender acquaintance with geology. As there
seemed some possibility that these efforts might be
successful, and that the Survey, Museum, and School

228 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY IN SCOTLAND CHAP, vn

might thus be placed in most incompetent hands,
Ramsay proposed at a meeting of the professors that
Sir Roderick Murchison should be their next chief.
This suggestion being agreed to, was communicated
to Mr. Cardwell, who approved of it. Thereafter, and
apparently with a view of strengthening the applica-
tion in favour of Murchison's appointment, a memorial
urging his claims was prepared by Dr. Fitton, who
obtained numerous signatures to it from leading men
of science, including Sedgwick, and this document was
sent in to Government. Within less than a month
from De la Beche's death Murchison was appointed
to succeed to the office, and he entered on his duties
on the 5th May. Ramsay did not allow even his
intimate friends to know how bitter was his dis-
appointment at the loss of the prize which his own
chief had taught him to believe would certainly be
his. It was one of the most trying episodes in his
life. But to the distinguished geologist who now, as
it were, supplanted him he brought the most un-
swerving loyalty, and remained his faithful colleague
up to the last.

Before this important matter was definitely settled
Ramsay had started once more for the field. There
were two departments of the surveying now in progress
in which he took a special interest — the Permian
mapping of the midlands and the revision of parts of
Wales. He first went over the recent Permian work,
and while so doing sought for further light upon the
question of Permian glaciers, which he had brought
fully before the Geological Society on the 2ist
February in this year. The subject had been rather
laughed at by De la Beche, who said, 'As to the
scratching of breccia fragments — " 'tis their nature to''

i855 PERMIAN ICE 229

— a tumble-down house will give plenty of them ; and
then as to old localities for the fragments, independ-
ently of not having cakes which have been eaten, who
the dickens, in such places, can say what rocks are
beneath the sprawl of New Reds?' Lyell, however,
took a much more serious view of the matter, and with
that eager enthusiasm so characteristic of him, threw
himself into it, and endeavoured to master all the
evidence. He asked Ramsay to go over the ground
with him, and the request was readily granted. ' Lyell
is brimful of these Permian glaciers,' Ramsay wrote to
Aveline ; and after taking the author of the Principles
of Geology over the ground, he tells in his diary how
at dinner Lyell, who had been ruminating on the
subject for some days, at last declared that to his mind
and eye the breccias told of river-ice rather than of
glaciers and icebergs. This dinner took place on the
eve of another continental journey, which Ramsay had
planned for the purpose of comparing some of the
more notable breccias of Germany with those which
he had been studying in England. Starting with
Mrs. Ramsay at the beginning of August, they made
their way by Heidelberg to Eisenach, spent some
ten days there examining the Rothliegendes and other
formations of Thuringia, and made a brief visit to
Berlin.

The revision of some of the Survey work in Wales
was a subject that had lain very near to Ramsay's
heart for some years before the time at which this
narrative has arrived. We have seen how imperfect
he knew the maps of South Wales to be, owing to the
want of any proper subdivisions among the older
Palaeozoic formations. At the time when that ground
was mapped the importance of such subdivisions had

230 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY IN SCOTLAND CHAP, vn

not been recognised. It was enough, in Sir Henry De
la Beche's opinion, if these ancient rocks were dis-
tinguished on the maps by some one common colour.
But as the work advanced northwards, and the true
significance of the labours of Murchison and Sedgwick
began to be perceived, it was seen to be eminently
desirable to separate at least some of the larger groups.
The great break between Lower and Upper Silurian,
which Ramsay had detected near Builth, was one of
which he early saw the importance. Sedgwick and
M'Coy had shown in 1852 that rocks which had been
grouped by the Survey with the Caradoc sandstone in
the Lower Silurian series contained such an assemblage
of fossils as linked them rather with the Upper Silurian.
Hence it was that Ramsay, who felt himself responsible
for the mapping of Shropshire and the adjacent tracts
of Wales, and was anxious that the Survey maps
should be made as accurate as possible, deputed W.
T. Aveline and J. W. Salter to re-examine that region,
The result of the labours of these two members of the
staff was to establish beyond any doubt that the break
between the Lower and Upper Silurian series of
formations in that part of Britain was complete, and
that the so-called ' Caradoc ' of Murchison and ' Bala '
of Sedgwick were palseontological equivalents, the one
of the other. It was then evident that the boundary-
lines thus established, and which were put on the
Survey maps, would need to be carried into South
Wales, where hitherto no attempt had been made to
show any stratigraphical subdivisions in the series of
formations below the Wenlock group. And this
southward extension became all the more necessary
after Aveline had separated out the ' Tarannon shales '
below the Wenlock group, and had shown what a

i855 REVISION OF SOUTH WALES 231

persistent zone they formed in North Wales. Hence
at last, and after much objection on De la Beche's
part, who, as we have seen, was weary of these re-
peated re-examinations of Wales, Ramsay obtained his
chief's authority in 1855 to send Aveline into South
Wales for the purpose of inserting the more glaring
omissions on the maps and improving the representa-
tion of the associated igneous rocks. How keen was
the interest that Ramsay took in this work is shown
by the voluminous correspondence which he carried
on with his colleague in Wales. For weeks together
every second or third day he would write to Aveline
when at work in North Wales, commenting on the
last report received from him, and suggesting localities
for re-examination or points to be kept in view. Two
of these letters may be cited as examples.

LONDON, 1 2 th April 1855.

MY DEAR TALBOT — I have Sir Henry's consent for
you to have a turn in Pembrokeshire when you have
done with the Wenlock line. The business will be
first to do the Cambrian line, and secondly to walk
across each bit of trap in the country, tap it and
note down whether it is hornblendic or felspathic,
melted or felspathic ash. Except errors stare you in
the face, don't bother about them ; but of that more.
This job is urgent now, because Sir Henry has decided
to change the colouring, and to colour all greenstones
green, and all felspathic traps and granites shades of
red. I am glad of it, for it gives us a good oppor-
tunity of improving the Pembrokeshire maps, and with
Sir H.'s determination about the colouring, there is no
escape from the necessity of looking at it. I suspect,
indeed I know, there will be mapping to do in the

232 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY IN SCOTLAND CHAP, vn

great St. David's lump of trap. There are all kinds
there, unseparated and only indicated by one colour.
Once you get to Llandovery I think you will rapidly
finish the Wenlock line. But don't neglect to map
such sandstones as are needful. — Ever sincerely,

ANDW. C. RAMSAY.1

ASHBY DE LA ZOUCHE, \^th June 1855.

MY DEAR TALBOOTS — The Pembrokeshire fragments
[of map] will follow this by to-morrow's post. The
plain green [colour on the map] is intended to repre-
sent greenstone, and the striped green, felspathic trap.
In the parcel are fragments drawn by me on an
enlarged scale for the purpose of mapping when on
the ground. / know that all the traps between St.
David's Head and Pen-berry are intrusive greenstones,
and you need not visit them unless you like. I fear
that the trap on which St. David's stands will want
looking to and separation into kinds all the way from
east to west. I think you will find most of the long
strips greenstone, but I recollect that some of them
between Aber - pwll (four miles north - east of St.
David's Head) and Mathry are felspathic ash. I once
stayed a week at a public-house at Mathry.

St. David's Island is mostly greenstones, but
some felspar ; Lower Solva and Whitchurch, felspar
and quartz, I think ; in fact, a granite without its mica.
I think Trefgarn is greenstone, but am not sure. I
suspect there are both kinds near St. Dogwells. At
Wolfe's Castle there was a public-house, where I put

1 A melancholy interest attaches to this letter, for it intimates the last official
act of De la Beche's life. He had been at the Museum the day before, and
given the consent above referred to ; but before the letter could reach its destina-
tion ' our dear old governor, whose like we shall never see again,' as Ramsay
wrote, had passed away.

i855 REVISION OF SOUTH WALES 233

up a horse daily. Sir Henry did most of the Preseley
traps. You will find remarks of his on the maps that
may help you a little.

Are the Cambrians coloured on the copy of the
Map you have with you ? On Nos. i to 5 you will
find some useful hints about them near St. David's,
and on Nos. 6 and 7 you will find them mapped in
some sort of way pretty carefully. You must judge
for yourself whether it will now and then be needful to
cut it fine and alter old lines. I have a notion that
most of mine are good, viz. all those west of St.
Lawrence and Mathry ; all between Little Newcastle
and Trefgarn ; also those between Fishguard, New-
port, and the River Gwaen. The rest I know little
about, though I did some of them.

Finally, do not spare horse-flesh or car-hire to do
it quickly.

As soon as it was possible for him to join his
trusted colleague, Ramsay made his way into Pem-
brokeshire. He had not been back there since his
early days in the Survey. The inspection had thus a
double interest for him. To Mrs. Ramsay from Dale,
on the 1 3th November, he writes : ' We were to-day at
West Angle Bay in a sailing boat, which I had the
satisfaction of steering — a thing that always gives me
supreme delight. I have a passion for steering boats
in a good breeze, and we had one. The only alloy

to Talbot and myself was 's stupidity with the

sailors ; he gave them so much good advice ! ' On
the 1 8th, having reached St. David's, he announced
to his wife that ' no guests being expected, the pro-
vision was rather scarce, consisting of four very brown
and dry mutton-chops. However, with the help of

234 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY IN SCO TLAND CHAP, vn

two apple-dumplings, some cheese, bread, and butter,
we felt that we had in truth nothing to complain of.
It was dark when we got into the town, but I recog-
nised the old houses, especially the first on the road,
Captain Propert's, who in old days took the first
French prisoner when Pembrokeshire was invaded
[in 1797], and tying him to his saddle-bow, rode with
him to Haverfordwest. This morning [Sunday] after
breakfast I walked down to the Cathedral, and sat in
my old stall on the right of the bass vicar-choral, and
sang bass just as I used to do fourteen and a half years
ago. Mr. Richards preached. He was then a curate,
and is now a canon. He was the only clergyman in
the church. The congregation consisted of about ten
or a dozen women, four or five men, and some boys.
The church looked so old, older than any church you
ever saw, and though something has been done to it,
it still looks sadly neglected. . . . When I came here
I had just entered the Survey a month or two before.
Sir Henry sent me alone to this extreme corner of
South Wales. Except one or two slight acquaintances
in the English part of Pembrokeshire, I knew no one
in Wales then. Truly, I did not see in a vision that
in eleven years I should progress from this igneous
and Cambrian county to the extreme northern igneous
and Cambrian county of Wales, and there find my
mate. I was then twenty-seven, and thought every day
a holiday, and nothing about marriage at all, except
that I thought if a man were rich enough it would be
better to be married than single.

* From St. David's I went to Fishguard, and stayed
there all the winter of 1841 and spring of 1842. Mr.
De la Beche, Kendall and Rose, and Aveline and
Rees were all at Fishguard till the autumn of 1841.

i8ss REMINISCENCES OF SOUTH WALES 235

In the spring of 1842 I joined Sir Henry De la
Beche at Caermarthen after three weeks spent en
route at Cardigan and Newcastle Emlyn. From
Caermarthen in the same summer Sir H. went to
Llangadoc, and I to Llandeilo to join little James,
whose bones are now bleaching in the deserts of
Australia. From thence Sir H. and I went together to
Llandovery. In a fortnight I was sent to Pumpsaint,
when Johnes called on me next day to invite me to
a picnic given in one of the caves of the Gogofau.
There was a ball in the evening. That autumn I
spent at Ross and Mitcheldean, and returned to
Dolaucothi at Christmas. I think, were I to go on,
the association of ideas would carry me on all through
my life up till the day of our marriage, which (except
some that have succeeded) was, I think, the best
day in it, for (as I know, and by the consent of my
relatives) it procured me the dearest little wife in
Christendom.'

As the Survey was now creeping eastward across
the southern English counties, the Local Director
could compare the scenery and associations of that
district with those of the more ancient rocks of other
parts of the country, and send home descriptions to
his wife. Thus, while travelling through southern
Hampshire with Bristow, he writes : ' What a strik-
ing country we came through to-day to an eye like
mine, which delights in raking up images of the past !
Far-spreading brown heather and moors, with little
mosses and marshes and marshy -banked streams,
broken up with grassy swells covered with native
oaks and other trees, make a true piece of old
England. Wasn't it William Rufus who is said to
have laid all the New Forest waste and depopulated

236 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY IN SCOTLAND CHAP, vn

it to turn it into a hunting ground ? I scarcely believe
that, in its full extent, for the district forms as a whole
one of the worst soils in England, and it is not likely
ever to have been thickly populated in these early
times. I think its villainous flint-gravelly soil is the
reason why it has remained forest-land so long.'

From Lewes, in Sussex, he wrote : 'It is here,
you know, that the Russian prisoners are. I have
not seen any of them. The soldiers are kept in
prison, but allowed to walk out under guard. The
officers live in lodgings about the town. I have not
told you what a beautiful town it is, clean and airy,
such as you see nowhere out of England. The
houses are built of brick or of chalk-flints. The
streets are hilly, and gardens and trees are scattered
about the town. A grey old castle, built by the
son of William the Conqueror, stands in the middle
of it. The River Ouse runs through the town.
The surrounding valleys are full of pretty hamlets,
snug farms, and well-grown trees, and the sweeping,
green, bare chalk-downs swell all around, from the
tops of which (800 feet) your eye ranges far across
the lower undulations of the Weald of Sussex to
the northern escarpment of the Chalk hills twenty
miles off.'

The preparation of the great Welsh Memoir was
still Ramsay's chief indoor employment. During
wet weather in summer-time, when field-work was
impossible, he sat down resolutely to his note-books,
maps, and manuscript. In winter he was able to
work more continuously on the subject. With the
view of securing undisturbed quiet, so unattain-
able in London, he used to take quarters with his
wife and children in some place where one of the

1855-1856 CORRESPONDENCE WITH J. W. SALTER 237

surveyors was at work, so that he might have the
relaxation of an occasional day in the field. Thus
part of the winter of 1855-56 was spent at Chelten-
ham, where Mr. E. Hull was at that time stationed,
and where Ramsay saw much of his valued friend,
Thomas Wright, so widely known for his admirable
labours among the Jurassic echinoderms and ammon-
ites. In later years he pitched his autumn camp
in Scotland.

Among the colleagues with whom he had to
consult continually and in great detail was J. W.
Salter, whose remarkable knowledge of Palaeozoic
fossils was of essential service in working out the
stratigraphy. But with all his knowledge, it was
not always easy to obtain from this palaeontologist
the definite information which the field-men required.
In particular, there was at this time a struggle to
get him to draw up tables or lists of the fossils
actually named from each locality and horizon.
Without these it was clearly impossible to make
progress either with the revision of the field-work,
or with the preparation of the Memoir. Many
were the remonstrances and entreaties addressed to
him by Ramsay on the subject. The following
letter may serve as a sample : —

CHELTENHAM. $vth January 1856.

MY DEAR SALTER — I shall be up to the Anniversary,
and shall hear your paper.

I have not lost my interest in the South Wales
question. Quite the reverse ; for it occupies most of
my Silurian thoughts. I have thought much over it,
and latterly talked over it with Talbot, and formed my
conclusions, which, in many respects, are not dissimilar

238 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY IN SCOTLAND CHAP, vn

from yours. But I do not consider my conclusions
yet conclusive, nor do I yours, nor Talbot's, and he
knows more about it than any of us. However, we
are in a fair way. Lists, Lists, Lists, are what we
want, and what you want, and without lists the fight is
not two-thirds done. You nearly shook us about these
Bwlch Trebannon beds being Upper ; but not quite,
for we could not reconcile it to our consciences that
they could be anything but Lower. However, by
help of lists and physics, we'll purge the whole
question, and have it all straight next spring. As to
unconformities I say nothing, and wink my mental eye.
Therefore let us have lists. I shall be up in a week
or eight days. — Ever sincerely, A. C. RAMSAY.

In London it was difficult to carry on continuous
literary labour, so many colleagues had questions to
ask, and so many callers were desirous of a chat or of
information. Nevertheless, he contrived to send off
to the editor of the Edinburgh New Philosophical
Journal a review of the fifth edition of Lyell's Manual
of Elementary Geology. This article appeared anony-
mously, but its authorship was manifest. It was
obviously written by a man of wide practical acquaint-
ance with geology, who could speak familiarly of the
geological features of many parts of the British Isles
of which no account had yet been published ; who
could appeal forcibly to evidence of glaciation in
central Scotland, mentioning localities that had never
been cited before ; who could refer to places all over
Wales from Anglesey to Pembrokeshire, some of which
no geologist out of the Survey had ever visited ; who
knew Charnwood Forest, had rambled across Shrop-
shire, Cheshire, Staffordshire, and Derbyshire, had

1856 CRITIQUE OF LYELL 239

extended his observations into Switzerland, and had
studied the drifts of the Oberland. There was only
one man in Britain who had this range of personal
experience, and that was A. C. Ramsay. Lyell had
no difficulty in at once recognising the writer. At a
party at Dr. Fitton's on the 2nd April Ramsay met
Lady Lyell. ' She told me/ he says, ' that to-day Sir
Charles had received a review of his Elements which
bore internal evidence of its authorship, and which, he
said, was the best thing that had been done, being the
only good review that had ever appeared of any of
his works since Poulett Scrope wrote one. ' x So pleased
was Lyell that a few days afterwards he sent the
subjoined letter : —

53 HARLEY STREET, LONDON,
6th April 1856.

MY DEAR RAMSAY — I have had time since I saw you to read
over more carefully your article in the New Phil., which gives me
much pleasure, independently of what is said of my book, for it is
no small satisfaction to find a younger man of wide experience, and
one who has explored different regions, arriving at similar con-
clusions on many theoretical points still controverted here, and more
so on the continent.

The opinion at p. 313, that neither the Silurian nor Cambrian
rocks show traces of a beginning, is one of those useful confessions
of faith ; also, that the greater the age of a formation, the less
chance is there of its deltas being preserved, p. 314 ; also that the
present margins of old formations are the result of denudation, ibid.,
etc. ; but, above all, p. 306, Titanic agency, etc.

I agree with Dr. Hooker that this article in its style is extremely
good, apart from scientific depth. He says it is so thoroughly
English. But for that matter I always maintain that your first paper
on Arran left nothing to be desired.

The small number of the fresh-water formations prior to the
Tertiary cannot be too much insisted upon, and you have brought
it out well. The ' Letten-kohle ' of the Trias near Stuttgart is a
near approach to an estuarine deposit, to say no more ; and it is

1 Alluding to the article written by G. P. Scrope which appeared in the
Quarterly Review for April 1835.

240 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY IN SCOTLAND CHAP, vn

near that coaly deposit that the Microlestes or Triassic mammifer was
found in a bone-bed, the exact circumstances of which I examined
last year, and will tell you about some day.

Your O opposite the ' Upper Cretaceous ' is too often forgotten
when the progressive development advocates reason on the absence
of Upper Cretaceous mammalia.

In regard to the Carboniferous delta, I would rather accept the
idea of many contemporaneous rivers debouching in one sea, than
suppose the coal-fields of the United States to have been all once
united, as H. D. Rogers supposes. Assuming these coal-fields to
be deltas, it is no doubt strange that we have so few terrestrial
fossils ; that it should have been left for me and Dawson to discover
the first land shell, and in America the first reptilian bones. Land
snakes may have existed on the then continents, even without
offending against the laws of progressive development, but when we
find them, and helices, and other signs of land creatures, the time
will come for speculating on the absence of higher vertebrata.

The four O, O, O, O, or cyphers, opposite the four lowest
Palaeozoic groups, are significant. It was also well to insist on the
numerous subdivisions of the Oolitic period, and of others, each
separately equal to the ' Glacial and recent epochs.'

If I did not take for granted that the condensed essay on the
glacial phenomena of Wales and other parts of the world was
to appear even more full and expanded in your ' Survey Memoirs,' I
should grudge its being given in an anonymous shape to any scientific
journal. The distinctness of the molluscan fauna on the opposite
shores of the Isthmus of Panama is well adverted to, and I suspect
unanswerable. Notwithstanding the upraised marine deposits in the
N. Polar regions, there is much low land, and so much sea, that
we have only to suppose a few such peaks as now lift themselves
up in the Antarctic regions (Mount Erebus, etc.), and I believe we
have the required cold.

The quantity of reading and original observation adduced,
quite naturally and without parade, in the last eight or nine pages,
is prodigious, and not more than one in a hundred of the readers of
the Mag. will know how to appreciate. The few will do justice to it.
I am glad you paid a passing tribute to the ' illustrious ' one who
boldly led the way against the ridicule and scepticism of the ordinary
crowd in regard to Welsh glaciers.

I am rather afraid, I confess, of D. Sharpe's paper, although in
the Elements I led the way before Murchison in transporting Alpine
blocks to the Jura by floating ice. But D. S. requires twice the
upheaval that I asked for as having occurred since the Glacial
Period. To raise mountains 9000 feet has probably required more
than a part of one geological period, and Studer and others have in
vain looked for marine shells in the Swiss drift. Fresh -water

1856 SURVEY ANNIVERSARY DINNER 241

remains and extinct mammalia I believe they have discovered near
Berne, but never at very high levels.

But I must conclude with thanking you for what would have
been a treat had the Manual of Phillips instead of my own been the
subject of your Essay. It has scarcely ever, in the course of twenty
years, been my lot to be reviewed by writers who had any practical
experience as original observers in the field, and I therefore value
your criticism the more. — Ever truly yours, CHA. LYELL.

At the Anniversary Survey dinner in the spring
of 1856, the first presided over by Murchison, who
entered heartily into the merriment of the evening,
Ramsay produced three new songs and a glee on
geological topics. One of the subjects selected by
him was his Permian boulder-clay, to which reference
has already been made. The style of the composition
may be inferred from one or two verses.

Few, few believe what I have told,

Men say that I am overbold.

What then ? they sneered that Welshmen's tails

Had polished Buckland's rocks in Wales.

And when I'm dead, and these poor bones
Lie underneath the turf and stones,
The home of worms and churchyard mice,
Men then will swallow Permian ice.

Then, then I trust the old Survey,

Young hands and these, my friends, grown grey,

Will rear above my mouldering bones

Four monstrous Permian boulder-stones.

And, on a slab by ice worn smooth,
Record that in their early youth
The poor old boy beneath that lies
Loved well to walk and talk on ice.

The best of the Survey songs ever written by
Ramsay was one which he produced next year (1857),
and which may be conveniently inserted here. It
refers to the geological expedition made some years

R

242 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY IN SCOTLAND CHAP, vn

previously by Murchison, Keyserling, and De Verneuil
across Russia to the Ural Mountains, and was such a
favourite ditty at the Survey anniversaries that its
author was often asked to sing it.

THE LAY OF SIR RODERICK THE BOLD AND THE EMPEROR OF
ALL THE RUSSIAS

Am—' The Auld Wife ayont the Fire '

The auld rocks ayont the sea,
The auld rocks ayont the sea,
The auld rocks ayont the sea,

That rise upon the Ural.
There was a doughty Scottish knight,
A hammerman o' mickle might,
The Laird o' Taradale he hight,

Gaed singing ' Tooralooral,
The auld rocks ayont the sea,
The Russian rocks ayont the sea,
I'll map the rocks ayont the sea,

That rise upon the Ural.'

To Petersburg the knight he gaed ;
The Czar cam down and to him said,
' Ye're welcome here to mak a raid,

Out ower as Tar's the Ural.
Frae west to east in ilka hole
Ye'll cast an ee, and 'twill be droll
But you will find a bed o' coal,

And I'll sing Tooralooral.
The knight he cam across the sea,
The Scottish knight cam ower the sea,
To whack the Russian rocks for me,

Right out across the Ural.'

The knight he took a working squad —

De Verneuil and another lad,

Count Keyserling, and scoured like mad

(All singing Tooralooral) —
Silurian rocks and guid Auld Red,
Wi' fish and shells baith in ae bed,
And Permian strata overhead,

Right up against the Ural —
These auld rocks ayont the sea,
Wi' Oxford Clay ayont the sea,
Erratics o' the Glacial Sea,

Choke up against the Ural.

1 856 MURCHISON IN THE FIELD 243

Then hame he cam, and left his mates,
And wrote a book wi' maps and plates,
And sections o' the Russian states

Frae Baltic Sea to Ural.
The Emperor he scratched his poll, —
' 'Tis bravely done ! but by my soul ! !
I wish we had some beds o' coal ! ! !

Oh ! Tooralooralooral ! ! ! !
There's auld rocks ayont the sea,
There's British rocks ayont the sea
Hae lots o' coal, the worse for me,

There's nane beside the Ural ! '

(Weeps).

In the summer of 1856 Ramsay had an oppor-
tunity of seeing his chief in the field, for they spent
some weeks together in a series of geological pere-
grinations in the west of England and the borders of
Wales. He thus notes his impressions to Mrs.
Ramsay : * I am very glad to have been with Sir
Roderick, and to have seen him for many days in his
genuine field -phase, of which I had no idea before.
The impression he makes is most favourable. First,
he is a very early bird ; and secondly, he is always so
good - humoured, mirthful, and almost boyish, for
though awfully apt to deliver lectures and to talk far
too much geology, yet he will often tell many queer
anecdotes, and sometimes even talk nonsense. An-
other thing you will highly approve of — he is always
anxious to get letters from his wife, and very frequent
in his letters to her. I am certain they are very fond
of each other.'

After attending the Cheltenham meeting of the
British Association in August of this year, where
he was President of the Geological Section, Ramsay
took his wife and family to Scotland, and settled for
some months in a cottage at Dalkeith, in Midlothian,
where he could work at the Welsh Memoir and have

244 GEOLOGICAL SURVE Y IN SCOTLAND CHAP, vn

an occasional day in the field with his colleagues,
Mr. H. H. Howell and the writer of this bio-
graphy,1 who at that time, and for some years later,
constituted the whole staff of the Survey in Scotland.
There could not be a more charming companion in the
field than he. So long as the surveyor was untrained
the Director would spare no pains in going over his
mapping, sometimes spending almost as much time in
the inspection as had been occupied in the original
survey, and never resting satisfied until he saw that
the structure of the country was adequately grasped
and correctly mapped. In such educational visits the
day passed almost wholly in geological conversation
and discussion. But when once he recognised that
his subordinate was a careful and conscientious worker
and could be trusted, his confidence in him showed
itself in many agreeable ways. He would then touch
lightly on details, contenting himself with a look at
some of the more important sections, and getting a
clear notion of the general structure. He would
launch out into disquisitions on theoretical questions,
more especially on those which had recently been
engaging his attention, and would astonish his young
companion by the mass of information which he dis-
played, much of it not obtainable from books. He
had a singular gift of conversation, which enabled him
to draw out of a man who had any special knowledge
to impart such information as served to elucidate
geological questions. He not only ransacked books of
travel, but he questioned the men themselves who had
travelled, and stored up in his memory the facts,

1 I had joined the staff in October 1855, and after some months of field-work
with Mr. Howell in continuing the Director's mapping in East Lothian, began
the survey of Midlothian in 1856.

1 856 RAMS A Y IN THE FIELD 245

allusions, or suggestions which he thus obtained. It
was this wide range of knowledge and broad view of
geological principles which gave so much interest and
value to his lectures, and which made the long talks
with him in the field so inexpressibly instructive to
those who were privileged to take part in them.

But where Ramsay met with a congenial spirit in
those country rambles, geology formed only a part,
and sometimes, if the rocks were not particularly
difficult or attractive, only a small part of the conversa-
tion of the day. English literature was to him a vast
and exhaustless garden, full of alleys green and sunny
arbours, where from boyhood he had been wont to
spend many a delightful hour. When he found among
his colleagues one whose talk was not always of stones,
but who had ranged like himself far and wide in literary
fields, he opened out his inner soul, and his conversa-
tion glowed with an animation and power as well as a
gleeful exuberance which astonished and charmed his
companion. As the writer pens these lines, he re-
calls many a happy day spent with his Director among
the hills and valleys of southern Scotland, when the
discussion of the geology and the mapping were inter-
spersed with endless comments on favourite authors,
disquisitions on style, analyses of characters in fiction,
and quotations of parallel passages in illustration of
some thought that had arisen in the course of the talk.
Ramsay had his favourite authors, for whom his
affection increased every year. He knew Shake-
speare so well that he would every now and then flash
some apposite phrase or line from him to lighten up
the sentence he was uttering. Among novelists his
acquaintance was wide and varied, but he always put
Scott far away at the head of them all. He had read

246 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY IN SCOTLAND CHAP, vn

the Waverley Novels so often, and remembered them
so vividly, that their characters served in his memory
as personages whom he could almost believe that he
had actually known. How earnest he would grow
as he discoursed on the plot of Ivanhoe and its
relation to the known historical events of the time to
which it was referred ! His extensive knowledge of
English scenery enabled him to picture vividly the
surroundings of Gurth and Wamba, and to enlarge
on Scott's marvellous power of seizing the dominant
features and local characteristics of a landscape, which
perhaps he had only seen casually, and straightway
colouring them with a vivid glow of human interest.
Among English poets one of his greatest favourites
was Keats. He would sometimes speak as if he would
rather have been the author of Hyperion than of any
other poem in the language. The quaint conceits in
the Ode to a Grecian Urn delighted him, and
various lines in it were often on his lips — ' for ever
piping songs for ever new,' 'heard melodies are
sweet, but those unheard are sweeter,' 'beauty is
truth, truth beauty.' How often have we been re-
quested to proceed with a statement by the quotation,
' Therefore, ye soft pipes, play on ! '

There was yet another feature of Ramsay's mind
which made these excursions singularly pleasant.
Though not in any sense an antiquary, he knew a
good deal about the history of architecture, and as has
already been remarked, took a keen delight in visiting
ruins and trying to form a mental picture of what they
must have been before the gnawing tooth of time had
dismantled them. Whatever, indeed, linked him with
the past had a charm for him. He never willingly
missed an opportunity of seeing a ruined castle or keep,

1856 FIELD-WORK IN SCOTLAND 247

a mouldering abbey, a grass-grown encampment, or
a lonely cairn. If tradition or song invested any spot
with a living interest, he would not consider his
geological inspection complete if it had not included a
visit to that site.

In Scotland, where so many ruins are scattered
over the southern counties, and where tradition,
legend, and ballad have given celebrity to so many
localities, there was during the annual visits of inspec-
tion abundant opportunity afforded to the Local
Director to indulge to the full his love of the memorials
of a vanished past. His letters, written usually either
when more or less wearied after a long day of walking,
or when hurried in the morning by the preparations
for the start, give only a faint glimpse of the enthusi-
asm which these old associations kindled in him on
the ground, as, indeed, they convey a most imperfect
picture of the bright sparkle and vivacious earnestness
of his best conversation. The wild lonely tract of
Lammermuir which he had partially explored from
Dunbar afforded him exhaustless materials for indulg-
ing in his antiquarian tastes. In some parts of the dis-
trict every prominent eminence has its circular earthen
grass-covered ramparts of ancient Celtic forts, like
the Maiden Castle, where Marmion had the nocturnal
encounter with the Palmer. Legends still tell of foray
and feud, and tradition faithfully points out the scenes
of the incidents. After a ramble with the writer
through this region, Ramsay wrote to his wife (27th
September 1859): 'We have had to drive eighteen
miles by a hilly road from Lauder to Duns, and to do
as much work as we could upon the hills by the way.
We came across a fine wild country growing into
cultivation between the southern slopes of the Lammer-

248 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY IN SCOTLAND CHAP, vn

muirs and the English border. We passed a hill-top
on the left, crowned with two cairns, where two
brothers met and slew each other, unknowing who they
were. And far away lay the dark field of Flodden,
where Scotland bit the dust.

'Grieved was I to hear of Dr. Nichol's death.
He was my first scientific friend when growing into
man's estate, and but for him I might never have been
such as I am.'

On the west side of Scotland historical and tradi-
tional associations enlivened not less the inspecting
tours of the Local Director. In Ayrshire he could
enjoy himself to the full. The geology had so much
variety and interest that it furnished ample material
for the most solid talk. The scenery embraced the
hills of Kyle and Carrick, with the deep ravines of the
Ayr and the Doon, while westward the whole
panorama of the Arran mountains rose out of the
blue firth. The light of song glowed all over the
region. Every parish had its old castles, its legends,
and traditions. I have never seen my friend more
thoroughly happy than when he was rambling over
that part of Scotland. Each day was full of new
surprises and delights for him. In the morning we
might be tracing out the sites of old Permian volcanoes,
or following the succession of lava-sheets in the Old
Red Sandstone, but before evening we were pretty
sure to get into old ballads and traditions, suggested
by the associations of the localities through which our
work led us. The old castle of Auchendrane, perched
so picturesquely in the ravine of the Doon, with its
charming family circle and its hospitable host, so fine
a sample of the antique world, filled him with raptur-
ous delight, and formed many a time in later years the

1856 FIELD-WORK IN A YRSHIRE AND NITHSDALE 249

subject of his thoughts and his conversation.1 He was a
welcome guest too at Dalquharran Castle, in the Girvan
valley, where his love of the past was amply gratified,
where his host could retail many reminiscences of men,
manners, and customs that had long passed away, and
where his hostess threw over the household the inexpres-
sible charm of her own gentle and gracious presence.

In the eastern part of the district where the
infant Nith turns southward into the dale which
bears its name, he was much struck with these
local associations, as may be seen in the following
passages from a letter to Miss Johnes : * The low bit
of country in which I now write [New Cumnock]
is 700 feet above the sea. "The wind is howling in
turret and tree," or would do so if there were either
turrets or trees here for it to howl in. We are in a
great plain, once a lake, now filled with peat-moss,
through which slowly flows the winding Nith near its
sources. Great rounded green hills rise all around,
some of them more than 2000 feet in height, and
beyond and among them are vast moors and mosses,
swelling and undulating for miles and miles, amid
which " the hill-folk " took refuge in the days of Claver-
house and the " bluidy Dalzell." Two days ago I was
at Kirkconnel, on the Nith, some six miles from here.
Old Kirkconnel, now desolate, is but a ruined church,
mere foundations, with a churchyard full of mouldering
tombstones, at the foot of the desolate hills. I
searched them all, and removed the grass and moss
from some, in hopes of finding thereon " Hie jacet
Adamus Fleming," but in vain.2

1 Auchendrane was the prototype of a sketch of ' Balbraith ' which he after-
wards wrote for The Saturday Review.

2 There is another Kirkconnel farther south, on the Kirtle Water, which
claims to be the true scene of the ballad, and where Helen's grave is pointed out

250 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY IN SCOTLAND CHAP, vn

' I wish I were where Helen lies,
Night and day on me she cries ;
O that I were where Helen lies,
On fair Kirkconnel Lea !

'Another theme of interest in these parts to
human mortals is the aforesaid wide dreary mosses,
where in old times the steadfast covenanting hill-folk
used to bide the weather with Bibles in their bosoms
when fleeing from Claverhouse, Dalzell, and the
rampaging dragoons. Many a spot where after
''testifying" they were shot and buried in the moss
has been pointed out to me in my geological rambles,
for even geologists have human interests.'

Until the year 1867, when the Geological Survey
of Great Britain was divided into two, and a separate
establishment was given to Scotland, Ramsay used to
visit his staff in the north each year, inspecting the
field-work, and enjoying a renewal of his acquaintance
with his native country. After that year his visits
were few, and ceased to have any inspecting duty
connected with them.

with a decayed trunk of an ancient thorn rising above it, from the roots of which
a young sapling has sprung up.

CHAPTER VIII

FOREIGN TRAVEL

DURING the six years from 1857 to 1862 Sir Andrew
Ramsay spent a part of each summer but one abroad.
It was in this part of his life that he accomplished
almost all the work in foreign geology which he ever
did. There will therefore be some convenience in the
treatment of the subject if we group the tours together
in one chapter.

From what has been stated in the foregoing pages
it will be clear that the ice-fever in geology had now
got full hold of him. He had seen a little of Swiss
glaciers, but not nearly enough to enable him to answer
all the questions which the glacial phenomena in Britain
were continually putting to him. He therefore deter-
mined to devote as much time as he could spare to the
study of ice and its work outside the narrow limits of the
British Isles, while neglecting no opportunity of in-
vestigating the subject within these limits. By a happy
accident he was soon able to carry out this determina-
tion in a far fuller manner than he could have dreamed
to be possible. How this came about is told in a
letter to his brother William. ' Certain of the great
steam-boat companies, at the solicitation of the
Canadians, have put a few free passages to America
and back at the disposal of the leading scientific

252 FOREIGN TRA VEL CHAP, vin

societies to [enable delegates] to attend a meeting of
the " American Association for the Advancement of
Science," which takes place at Montreal on the i2th
August [1857]. Failing Sir Roderick, the Geological
Society have deputed me to represent them, so I go
in an honourable position.' Taking Mrs. Ramsay
with him, he sailed on the 2Qth July.

This was by far the most enjoyable and instructive
of all his foreign expeditions. His friends, Sir William
Logan and Professor James Hall of Albany, spared
no pains to ensure his seeing everything that he
wished to see, or which they thought it important from
a geological point of view that he should visit. His
time was thus economised to the utmost. He was
taken from point to point, so that in the course of
exactly two months he had travelled over a large
extent of country, and had been conveyed over those
tracts which were specially of service to him in
reference to the problems in which he took interest.

From Montreal Logan carried the two travellers to
Ottawa and up the St. Lawrence by the Thousand Isles
and Lake Ontario to Niagara, thence to Lake Huron.
At Sarnia, Hall met them, and brought them into New
York State by Genisee to his hospitable home at
Albany, from which centre they made excursions to
Schoharie, the Helderberg, and Catskill Mountains.
Descending the Hudson to New York, they found
there that almost all the persons to whom they had
introductions were absent on holiday. They therefore
passed on to Newhaven, and paid a short visit to
Professors Dana, Silliman, and Brush, thence to
Boston, where they were delighted to meet Agassiz,
and so back to Montreal and Quebec for the voyage
home.

1857-1858 CANADA AND SWITZERLAND 253

The chief geological fruits of this expedition were
given partly in a discourse to the Royal Institution,
but more fully in a paper read before the Geological
Society. Ramsay had not yet realised the massiveness
of the land-ice of the Glacial Period. Like most of the
geologists of the day, he still regarded the 'drift' as
the result of transport by icebergs, and to the same
agency he attributed the striae on the sides and summits
of the hills. He recognised the remarkably ice- worn
character of Canadian topography, but he did not
yet associate that character with a former extensive
glaciation by land-ice. Nevertheless he now beheld
the effects of this glaciation on a far grander scale
than he had ever before seen them, and unconsciously
he was accumulating material that would enable him
to get rid of the paralysing idea that the land must
have been submerged beneath the ocean as far as the
highest striations or drift deposits could be traced.
He was not, however, able entirely to divest himself
of the old error until the summer of 1861.

In the summer of 1858 Ramsay and Tyndall made
an expedition together into Switzerland for the purpose
of studying the phenomena of glaciers and ice-action.
The results of their conjoint observations on this
occasion are to be found in the writings of each
explorer. Tyndall had not specially examined the
proofs of the former greater extension of the glaciers
of the Alps, and Ramsay, to whom this was a matter
of supreme interest in connection with his inves-
tigations in Britain, took pains to direct his com-
panion's attention to the subject during the course
of the excursion. Arriving at Grindelwald, they
undertook some preliminary climbing among the ice-
filled valleys of that district, and Ramsay proved

254 FOREIGN TRA VEL CHAP, vin

himself so expert a pedestrian that Christian Lauener
deemed it quite practicable to proceed on the proposed
series of ascents with only himself as guide. They
crossed by the Strahleck Pass over to the Finsteraar
and Unteraar glaciers, spent some time at the Grimsel
studying the marvellous evidence of the vast dimen-
sions of the ancient Alpine ice, went to the Rhone
glacier, and then to Viesch, the ^Eggischorn and the
Marjelen See, where they remained some days taking
measurements of the thickness of the ice and the depth
of the glacier-lake, and making observations of the
temperature of the air. Ramsay had here the great
satisfaction of watching the origin and movements of
icebergs. Descending the Rhone valley to Visp, they
walked up to Zermatt with the intention of ascending
Monte Rosa. The ample details of geological observa-
tions in Ramsay's note-book of these rambles were
afterwards condensed by him in his essay on the Old
Glaciers of Switzerland and Wales. They show how
continually his experience in Britain enabled him to
interpret the phenomena in the Alps, and, on the other
hand, how the existing snow-fields and glaciers of the
Alps gave new clearness to his conceptions of the
vanished ice-sheets of his native country. One or two
citations from the note-book may fittingly find a place
here.

' Viesch, 30/7? July. — Started at nine for the ^ggi-
schorn. On the partial clearing of the mist, ascended
the mountain. Tyndall and Lauener pushed on before
me, and were at the top twenty minutes or so earlier
than I was. The day is not far past when I was at
least a match for either of them. Tyndall cannot
believe that at forty-four and a half years my best
days, as regards strength and agility, should be gone,

1858 WITH TYNDALL AMONG THE SWISS GLACIERS 255

and he makes no allowance for my having reached the
top of the curve, and begun to descend on the other
side.

' The summit of the peak consists of piled blocks
of gneissic rocks, rent by frost and weather, and heaped
on each other in wild confusion, like the summits of
the Glyders, or Y Try fan, above the passes of Nant
Francon and Llanberis. The view from the summit
was, indeed, grand. Below on the north and west
lay the Great Aletsch glacier, seemingly as much
larger than all the other glaciers I have yet seen, as
the St. Lawrence is larger than the Severn, Thames,
or Seine. There it lay below us, broad, smooth, and
sweeping, although crevassed and somewhat crumpled.
The moraines looked small upon it. On the left it
descended into the valley, and on the north it was lost
in the far recesses of those Alpine giants, the Jungfrau,
Monch, and Finsteraarhorn. On the north-west the
glacier is joined by two great tributaries, one the Ober
Aletsch glacier, the other the Middle Aletsch glacier,
stretching up among the snows and awful cliffs of the
Aletschhorn, the peak of which rises more than 13,000
feet above the sea. This summit is higher than the
Jungfrau. White sunny mists were seething round it,
half veiling and adding to its majesty.

' Seemingly close below lay the Marjelen See, with
the glacier branching into it, and breaking off in large
masses, which floated away eastward as tabular bergs
before the wind, and grounded on the desolate shores.
Clearly the glacier once sent off a branch down this
valley, for besides that it partially does so still, the
rocks on the hills by the lake are mout ounces high up
on either side. The glacier must then have sent off a
branch that united with the Viescher glacier, and at a

256 FOREIGN TRA VEL CHAP, vm

certain period of its history it sought the valley of the
Rhone by two channels, that of the Aletsch and that of
the Viescher glacier.'

On reaching Zermatt he found letters telling him
that his mother had had a serious attack of bronchitis,
but had somewhat rallied. Next day he made the
following entry in his note-book :—

'Zermatt) <$th August. — Found at the post office a
black-edged envelope, which at once told me that my
mother was dead. I merely read the first few lines,
and then ran up the mountain after Tyndall, towards
the Riffel Hotel, but he had gone to the end of the
Corner glacier, and I outstripped him. When half-
way up, exhausted with my speed, I turned and saw
two figures far below by the glacier, whom I guessed
to be Tyndall and Lauener. During the half-hour
they took to come up to me I had leisure to read my
wife's letter, and my grief found a little vent. Tyndall
came up, and I marched down to him with my hat
drawn over my eyes. We arranged that Lauener
should go down and countermand the guide, who
next day was to accompany me up Monte Rosa, and
Tyndall persuaded me that instead of starting so late,
it would be better to remain with him and go next
day. So we ascended to the Riffel.'

He started homeward early next day, and walked
the rough thirty miles of valley down to Visp to
regain his portmanteau, and catch the diligence for
Bex. Finding when there that he could reach
London almost as soon by sleeping at Bex as by
going on to Geneva, he remained to have a look
at the famous blocks of Monthey. He 'wandered
among them half a summer's day, pleased and amazed
by their beauty and great size, and the evidence of

1858 DEATH OF HIS MOTHER 257

power conveyed to the mind while reflecting on the
agency that bore these ponderous masses and left
them perched on this hill, from 500 to 600 feet above
the Rhone. The largest, twenty-two paces in length,
and nearly equally broad and high, has on its flat
summit a good - sized summer - house with a small
garden containing cherry-trees.'1

On reaching England, and realising there amid all
the old familiar surroundings the blank that had now
fallen upon his life, with the rupture of his oldest and
tenderest associations, he made the following entry in
his diary : —

'On the 29th July 1858 my dearest mother died
at the Bridge of Allan. She had been a few days
ailing, a little breathless, and in bed. William had
gone to Glasgow, and was telegraphed for ; when he
got back at six o'clock all was over. There may have
been many as good, but none better than our mother.
She died in her eighty-fifth year, surrounded by love.
She truly lived all her days, in health and cheerfulness,
in peace, love, and honour, with her faculties and
cheerfulness clear to the last, loving books and mirth,
and writing a good letter in a clear hand to the very
end. When my father died she must have been fifty-
three years old. I was then thirteen. She had but
^1000 and a house. Then came a time that would
have crushed a weaker spirit. But she battled for us,
and keeping college and other boarders, brought us
all up respectably. William was apprenticed to Napier,

the engineer, and I went at that early age into 's

counting-house, and passed through many battles ere
I emerged from mercantile life and got launched in
the world of science. These times, which I look on

1 Old Glaciers of Switzerland and Wales, p. 30.
S

258 FOREIGN TRA VEL CHAP, vm

as hard, though I was when young merry enough, my
mother never grumbled at, but doing a duty was
happy in it, and when we began to do well and made
her give it up, she almost missed for a time the
employment to which she had been used for eighteen
years.

' Ere her death she had thirteen years of peace
and quietness, and every year endeared her more to
those who knew her best. My wife loved her like a
veritable daughter, and all the children that approached
her loved her also. Her memory is so pleasant to me,
and all her deeds, her courage, kindness, charity, and
goodness ; she lived her time in the world so well, and
so completely fulfilled a good woman's mission, that
though I miss her, and every now and then think " I
must write to my mother," yet my sorrow is tempered
by a thousand pleasant reflections. She lived to the
last happy and contented, beloved by all, happy in all
her children, and she scarcely seemed to die, so easy
was it to pass from one world to another.'

On returning to England from this Alpine excur-
sion Ramsay had to address himself to a long course
of arduous labour. Partly from the necessities of his
official position, and partly from his own voluntary
act in undertaking various pieces of work outside the
claims of the Survey, he was now involved in a greater
pressure of mental toil and accompanying worry than
had ever befallen him before. The inspecting duty in
the field was every year becoming more exacting, as
the staff of officers increased and the area of survey
augmented. But had that been his chief or only
occupation, he would have made it in some measure a
kind of holiday employment. But there was now a
large and growing amount of literary work thrown

1858 ROCK-CATALOGUE OF MUSEUM \JERMYN STREET 259

upon him which was unknown in the older days of the
Survey. Sir Roderick Murchison had arranged that
each of the one-inch maps, as it was published, should
be accompanied with an explanatory memoir, so that
the public might be put in possession of the chief data
used in the construction of the map, and of the infor-
mation needful for its proper interpretation. These
memoirs were to be edited by the Local Director from
the manuscript notes supplied to him by the officers
who had surveyed the ground. He sometimes had to
furnish additional material from observations of his
own, and the amount of editorial supervision was thus
often exceedingly heavy. Then the great Memoir on
North Wales still dragged its slow length along.
From various causes, but chiefly from the want of
sufficiently full notes by one or two of his colleagues,
Ramsay had been unable to make rapid progress with
this large and detailed volume ; though it had been for
so long his chief indoor employment, and though he
again in the autumn of 1858 took a house in Scotland
for three months, this time at St. Andrews, in order to
push it forward.

Another task occupied some part of his thought
and time. He had planned a descriptive catalogue of
the rock-specimens in the Survey collection in the
Jermyn Street Museum, and while assigning certain
portions of it to three of his colleagues, had kept the
main share of the work in his own hands. As ulti-
mately published, this volume formed an excellent
compendium of British geology. In particular, the
account of the successive volcanic episodes in the
Palaeozoic period in Britain was by far the best which
up to that time had appeared, and it was mainly the
work of Ramsay himself.

26o FOREIGN TRA VEL CHAP, vm

But over and above these official labours his hands
were full of work. He at this time condensed the
information on the published Survey maps, and
produced a geological map of England and Wales on
the scale of twelve miles to an inch, which is still the
most serviceable general map of the kingdom. He
prepared a Friday evening discourse for the Royal
Institution on the geological results of his Canadian
excursion, and wrote out a fuller statement of the
subject for the Geological Society. He drew up for
the well-known volume, Peaks, Pqsses, and Glaciers,
a chapter on the old glaciers of Switzerland and Wales.
This essay, full of original observation, and suffused
with the charm of freshness and enthusiasm, is one
of the most important and delightful which he ever
wrote. It was reprinted as a separate little volume,
and has long taken its place among the choice classics
of glacial geology. He now began to write for the
Saturday Review, and for a number of years con-
tinued to furnish occasional articles to that journal,
chiefly on geological topics, but without the techni-
calities of the more formal communications to learned
bodies.

His habit at this time, when in country quarters in
the autumn, was to write during every available hour
of daylight, and only to go outside for exercise when it
was too dark any longer to see his manuscript. In
the end the strain proved too great both on his brain
and on his eyes. In the summer of 1859 he accom-
panied Murchison into the North-West Highlands of
Scotland, and assisted him in the preparation of his
discourse for the British Association at Aberdeen. He
seemed tolerably well and merry at that meeting, but
afterwards, when out among the hills in the south of

1859-1860 SERIOUS ILL-HEALTH 261

Scotland, he complained of weariness.1 The symptoms
of mental exhaustion increased during the autumn.
He had for the first time taken a permanent house in
London, having hitherto only occupied furnished
rooms. But hardly had he settled in the new home
when it became evident that he was in no fit condition
for London life, and more particularly to undertake his
usual course of lectures at the School of Mines.
Towards the end of December it was arranged that
the lectures should be given by his colleague Jukes,
while Ramsay himself went to the house of his helpful
and sympathetic friend, Dr. Wright of Cheltenham,
under whose care, with entire cessation of work and
worry, it was anticipated that speedy convalescence
would be secured. But the recovery was not to be
so easily effected. He was ordered to abstain from
all work for a time, and in order to obtain com-
plete rest and change, he and Mrs. Ramsay with
the children went abroad. He wrote to me just
before leaving (3ist March 1860): 'I sail on Tues-
day with bag, baggage, fishing - basket, rod, flies,
sketch-books, Shakespeare, and the musical glasses
in the shape of sundry minor authors. I am to be
away, if nothing specially intervene, for six months,
but I think the less we say about that the better ; and
if any one by any chance asks you anything about it,
several months is a convenient word, with the addition
that I join the Scotch geologists as soon as I come
back, and also that Sir Roderick says he will pay

1 During one of these rambles with me in Fife our conversation turned on the
Boulder clay and the mysteries of its origin. We both felt how unsatisfactory
was the received explanation of iceberg action and submergence. I was thus led
to study this deposit, and to reach thereby the conclusion, at which Ramsay also
simultaneously and independently arrived from a consideration of other evidence,
that the great glaciation was the work of land-ice. This change of view was
completed before the summer of 1861.

262 FOREIGN TRA VEL CHAI>. vm

you a visit during my absence. Gossips have been
exaggerating my illness, and I know that, both on my
own authority and that of the doctor, you will do me
the friendly turn to give a flat, blunt, sharp, plain,
broad, profound, high, and indignant denial to any
statement that I am seriously ill. I am even now so
wonderfully better that I can do a good hard day's
work at the office, albeit I am tired at night, and
therefore to set me up alike by day and by night, an
entire cessation for a while is needed.'

Nearly two months were spent in Bonn, and of
this sojourn Ramsay used always to talk with much
enthusiasm. He loved the great river, and delighted
to sit quietly smoking and watching the ' breast of
waters' as it swelled beneath him. He made some
pleasant friends, among whom he specially counted
Von Dechen, the venerable Noggerath, and young
Ferdinand Zirkel. Professor Zirkel has sent me a
letter with his reminiscences of Ramsay, which is here
inserted : —

My first meeting with the never-to-be-forgotten Ramsay was in
the spring of 1860, in Bonn, so far as I remember, towards the end
of April or beginning of May. One day my fatherly patron and
official chief, Von Dechen, sent for me and told me that an English
geologist, a man of great importance, had come to Bonn with his
wife, to spend some time there for the sake of his health, and in order to
make some geological excursions in the neighbourhood. As Dechen
himself had not time, I was asked to accompany and guide the
stranger in these rambles. No request could have been more agree-
able to me. Although I was then only twenty-two years of age, yet
I knew the nearer and farther environs of my native town as well
as anybody. I was at that time a pupil of the Prussian State-
Mining Institute.

So I waited on Ramsay, who was staying at ErmekeiPs Grand
Hotel Royal on the Rhine, and then began a series of blissful days.
Sometimes for the whole day, sometimes in the afternoon only, we
rambled in the Siebengebirge, to the Roderberg, to the Laacher See,
to the Devonian Eifel-limestone at Bensberg, and many other places.

1860 PROFESSOR Z IRK ELS REMINISCENCES 263

When we got back Ramsay would usually have me to sup with him
and his wife in the hotel. I conceived at that time an enthusiastic
admiration for Ramsay, both for his amiable, simple, and straight-
forward nature, and for his acuteness and his range of acquirements in
geological matters. I remember in a gully in the trachyte-tuff he
suddenly made a couple of steps forward, exclaiming, ' There is a
dyke ! ' and there, sure enough, was a dyke of solid trachyte, which
nobody had ever noticed before in this well-frequented path.

I think Ramsay spent a happy time that season in Bonn.
Dechen once gave an evening party in his honour. His intercourse
with old Noggerath would have been greater, had the latter not been
utterly ignorant of English. I got on extremely well with Mrs.
Ramsay.

In the summer of 1860 I made a journey to Iceland, and as,
on my return, I spent a short time in England, I then saw Ramsay
again. During the first days of my stay in London he was in the
country, but I met him on the last day in the Museum, Jermyn
Street, in company with Lyell. I told him a good deal about my
tour in Iceland, and he presented me with several books.

In 1868 I once more saw Ramsay, both before and after my
visit to Scotland. He lived at that time in Upper Phillimore Place,
in Kensington, where I spent an evening, and met Howell and Hull.
As I left London he gave me a letter to you, and this letter I
presented to you in Largs on Monday, 8th June 1868 (according to
my diary). That was the day when I had the good fortune to make
the personal acquaintance of my friend Geikie.

The last time I saw Ramsay was at the meeting of the British
Association at Sheffield in 1879, when I was staying with Sorby.

From Bonn Ramsay and his family moved up the
Rhine, and then ascended the Moselle to Alf and
Bertrich. There he established himself for a while,
and spent his time fishing in the river, exploring the
Eifel volcanoes, and gazing with ever - increasing
interest upon the great tableland and the valleys cut
out of it by the Moselle and its tributaries. From
that quiet life he journeyed to Treves, then back to
Heidelberg, and into the Black Forest. He attended
the tercentenary celebration of Basle University, and
even got as far as Munich. But in October he was
once more back in England.

264 FOREIGN TRA VEL CHAP, vm

The following portion of a letter to Mrs. Cook-
man (4th July) from Bertrich gives a picture of
how the time passed there. ' Having stayed seven
weeks at Bonn, and excursed and fished, we steamed
up the Rhine to Coblenz, slept one night there, and
next morning steamed up the Moselle to Alf, where
we remained a fortnight, walking and idling, and
fishing again. I assure you I can throw a fly as
prettily as need be. But who shall describe the
glories of the Moselle with its unutterably tortuous
windings, its vineyards, its quaintly -gabled towns,
and all its castles, so stately in decay ! I am going
to buy one for 50 or 100 thalers (£7 : IDS. or ^15),
and in memory of my late illness, take my title from
it — Baron Beilstein.

' Bertrich is a pretty little village, with two or
three hotels, baths, and gardens with music in them
twice a day. Gaiety there is none, but peace and
quiet and a billiard table. The village is set in a
deep valley, and three extinct volcanoes crown the
tableland above, for hills proper there are none. I
have been on foot with a Dutchman (whom I lamed) all
over the Eifel, and have seen lots of extinct volcanoes
— most interesting. The structure of the country, its
physical geography in fact, is most curious — a great
tableland, about 1200 feet high, through which the
Moselle and other rivers run in deep valleys. On
this tableland are perched old volcanoes of Miocene
(that is, of Middle Tertiary) age. The valleys are
of older date than the volcanoes, for sometimes you
see a lava-stream that has run from the mouth of the
craters into the valley below. The Devonian strata
of the tableland are awfully disturbed, not by the
volcanoes, but by far older forces. It was a great

1860 77V THE EIFEL 265

plain, so to speak, with valleys scooped out of it long
before the lava began to flow.

' We leave this soon, but, before doing so finally,
will pay a visit to Treves, to see the northern capital
of the Emperor Constantine.'

Though these months on the Continent were
spent as far as possible in idleness, Ramsay could
hardly find himself face to face with new scenes
without being led to notice and reflect on the
features in them which bore on any of the ques-
tions in geology and physical geography which had
always been with him such favourite subjects. His
excursions among the Eifel cones and craters
gave him fresh material for his work among the
old volcanoes of Wales, and for his lectures at
the School of Mines. His rambles over the great
tableland of that region, and among the streams
which have so deeply trenched it, furnished him
with illustrations of river-action of which, though
he perhaps hardly realised at that time their
significance, he was in a few years to make excel-
lent use.

The sojourn in Germany, and the idleness enjoined
upon him, had one effect, which was the first to strike
the eyes of his friends when he got back to England.
He had buried his razors when he left home, and
returned with a bushy beard, which he continued to
wear during the rest of his life. But though much
better in general health than when he went abroad
in spring, he was still far from having regained his
old vigour and power of work. Indeed, it is doubtful
if he ever again was capable of enduring the same
mental and physical strain as he had been before his
illness. He had again to be assisted in his lectures

266 FOREIGN TRA VEL CHAP, vm

during the winter,1 and was still unable for much
literary exertion. The Welsh Memoir had to stand
aside. Once or twice in the course of the summer
of 1 86 1 he amused himself with writing a paper for
The Saturday Review, including one of the best of
his contributions to that journal, on ' Lyell and
Tennyson' — an essay which, with its humour, its
poetry, its geological aroma, and its literary deft-
ness, is an excellent sample of his fugitive pieces.2

Later in the summer he^went once more with Mrs.
Ramsay to Switzerland for more mountaineering, and
to cross over to the Italian side, in order to see the
great glacier moraines of Ivrea. The general outline
of this expedition is given in a letter to his sister,
written from the Stachelberg on the 4th September :
' Ever since we left home we have had perfect
weather. We have only had two half rainy days in
all, and generally there has not been a cloud in the
sky. Louisa and I travelled as far as Cologne together
without stopping. I then went direct for another
day and night to Teplitz, in Bohemia. Thence,
after three days' rest and light work, I descended
the Elbe to Dresden, across Saxony and Bavaria
to Lindau, on the Lake of Constance, and having
travelled two days and nights, reached Berne at ten
o'clock at night, not a bit tired. Next morning
after breakfast I joined Louisa and Mr. and Miss
Johnes and Mrs. Cookman at Thun — the most lovely
spot in the universe. I stayed there from Friday
till Monday, and then left them by steamer on the
lakes for Meiringen. There I shouldered my knap-

1 I took this duty, and thus came to have an intimate knowledge of his
lecture materials and his methods of preparation and illustration.

2 Saturday Review ', 22nd June 1861.

1 86 1 AMONG THE SWISS GLACIERS AGAIN 267

sack at four in the afternoon, and marched alone up
the long, rough valley of the Hasli Thai to the
Grimsel, which I reached well tired at half-past ten.

* I met Tyndall there and some other friends, spent
a day on the Rhone glacier, and ascended the Seidel-
horn alone. Next day, Tyndall not being very well,
I walked to Obergestalen, and the day following
crossed with a guide over a famous pass called the
Ober Aar Joch to the ^Eggischorn. It took thirteen
hours, ten of which were spent on the ice. The pass
is about 11,500 feet high.

1 In the meanwhile Louisa and the party came round
by the Gemmi Pass, great part of which can be done on
horseback, and the second day after my arrival joined
me at the ^Eggischorn. We took them up a moun-
tain over 10,000 feet high, and on the Great Aletsch
glacier, which is the longest in Europe. Thence
we went to Visp, in the Rhone Valley, and next morn-
ing at six they rode and I walked up the valley to
Zermatt, which we reached about six o'clock at night.

' We stayed at Zermatt six days, on one of which
I, with some others, ascended the Lyskamm, 14,891
feet high. There were eight of us, with five guides
and two porters to carry provisions. Having slept
at the Riffelberg, which saves a climb of some 2000
or 3000 feet, we started at twenty minutes to two in
the morning and crossed the Great Gorner glacier by
the light of a full moon. At dawn we were at the
foot of Monte Rosa on the snow, and by 11.40 we
reached the top of the Lyskamm. We went in two
parties, all roped together. The final ascent was
excessively steep, all on snow and ice. Sometimes
we had one leg in Italy and the other in Switzerland.
That part took nearly three hours. The descent

268 FOREIGN TRA VEL CHAP, vm

proved nearly as difficult as the ascent, but we all got
back to the Riffelberg by 7 P.M., and down to Zermatt
by a little after nine, having been nearly twenty hours
on foot. Several previous attempts had been made
to scale this mountain, but all had failed.

' From Zermatt we all crossed the Theodul Pass
(about 11,000 feet) into Italy. The ladies rode up to
the ice of the glacier, which they reached at seven in the
morning. They had then three hours walking on the
ice and snow, and by twelve o'clock we were at Breuil,
where we rested and slept. Next day they rode on
asses to Chatillon, a beautiful old Roman and Italian
town. Next day with Dr. Sibson we drove to Ivrea,
where we stayed a day, and then on by Chiavasso,
Milan, and the Lake of Como to Lugano, where we
stayed two days, and left the Johnes. Sibson, Louisa,
and I came across the St. Bernhardino Pass in a
diligence to H inter Rhein, near the sources of the
Rhine. There we halted three days, and Sibson and
I scaled two mountains among the glaciers, one of
which took fourteen hours. Thence we came by the
Via Mala to Glarus and Elms, " did " another splendid
pass, and came on here. To-morrow is our last day
on the ice ; on Friday we shall be in Zurich, and on
Monday evening at our own house in Kensington.'

So far as his physical powers were concerned,
Ramsay seems to have returned to England invi-
gorated by his Alpine exercise. But he had not re-
gained his old elasticity of mind, and soon began again
to complain of the weariness of work. Nevertheless,
he braced himself for the duties of the winter, and
succeeded in getting through his lectures to the
students at the School of Mines without help. He
likewise found himself able at last to sit down to a

1861-1862 GLACIAL THEORY OF LAKE-BASINS 269

congenial task, and to commit to writing the thoughts
and conclusions which had been shaping themselves
in his mind for several years past regarding the origin
of lake-basins. This problem in physical geography
had never been seriously attacked, and no tenable
solution of it had yet been proposed. It was his
experience in Canada, and the sight of the lake-
sprinkled surface of the ancient gneiss of that region
which first definitely called Ramsay's attention to
this subject, though he had returned from America
still in the belief that the older and greater glaciation
was accomplished by floating ice during a time of
submergence. But the recognition to which he had
now come, that that glaciation was the work of the
grinding action of stupendous sheets of land-ice, gave
an entirely new turn to his thoughts regarding the
terrestrial contours of glaciated regions. In his jour-
neys in Wales, Scotland, and Switzerland he was now
always on the watch for facts bearing on the con-
nection between the traces of ice-movement and the
contours of the ground over which the ice had moved.
He had at last come to the conclusion that the pro-
digious abundance of lakes in the glaciated regions
of the northern hemisphere could not be accounted for
unless they were connected in some way with ice-
action, and he inferred that in a vast number of cases,
where the lakes lie in rock-basins, these basins have
actually been scooped out by the grinding power of
land-ice. These observations and inferences he now
proceeded to elaborate as a paper for the Geological
Society.

Before the paper was ready, however, the presi-
dency of the Society was vacant, and there was a
general feeling that it should be offered to Ramsay,

270 FOREIGN TRA VEL CHAP, vm

if the state of his health would allow him to accept it.
The President usually confers with former presidents
of the Society in regard to his successor before actually
proposing a name to the Council ; but on this occasion
the President, Leonard Horner, was in Florence, and
unable to take any personal part in the negotia-
tions. Lyell strongly favoured Ramsay's nomination.
Murchison was afraid of the strain upon his colleague,
if he accepted the duties of this office in addition to
all that he already had to discharge, and urged him
to consult his medical adviser. On the 3rd February
1862 Ramsay's diary received the following entry:
* Sir R. in a great fuss because I had not seen Haden
[his doctor]. Drove out to Haden's at one o'clock.
He vowed by Jove that he would not stand between
me and the presidency. So I drove back and told Sir
R., and he said that that settled the matter.'

So at the Anniversary, on the 2ist February, he
was duly elected President — an honour well earned by
twenty-one years of continuous devotion to geology,
and the large part taken by him in the work of the
Geological Survey. In the evening he began his
duties by presiding at the annual dinner of the Society,
where, with the Duke of Argyll on his right, and Lord
Ducie on his left, and most of the leaders of geological
science around him, he had the satisfaction of seeing
a company of nearly ninety assemble to celebrate the
foundation of the oldest geological society. Those
of that company who still survive will remember the
admirable way in which the new President spoke.
Never before had he so distinguished himself in the
difficult art of post-prandial oratory. In returning
thanks for his health he showed a quiet dignity and
simplicity, with touches at once of humour and pathos,

1 862 HIS PAPER ON LAKE-BASINS 271

which went straight to the hearts of the listeners, and
called forth many rounds of applause.

At the very next evening meeting of the Society
the President gave his paper on lake-basins. Its
conclusions were so startling a novelty in geological
physics, and were based on such a mass of detail,
requiring careful study, that they could hardly be
adequately discussed by an audience which heard them
for the first time. Ramsay did not read, but spoke
his paper, and being full of the subject did full justice
to it. ' Lyell/ as he said afterwards, * damned the paper
with faint praise, and Falconer vigorously opposed
it. It was admirably defended by Huxley. The
meeting was so lively as to remind us of the old days
of Buckland and Sedgwick.' Some account of the
theory propounded in this paper will be given in
a subsequent chapter of this biography. It was
attacked by various writers, notably by Lyell, Murchi-
son, Falconer, and Ball, and to some of the onslaughts
made on it its author replied in the pages of the
Philosophical Magazine and The Reader.

The following letter, written towards the end of
this year, gives a picture of the reception of the paper,
and the ferment that arose from it : —

LONDON, gth December 1862.

MY DEAR MRS. COOKMAN — By this post I send
you the other pamphlet on the origin of Alpine,
Welsh, American, Schwartzwald, and Scandinavian
lakes. The smaller one I sent you the other day
was a pendant to it, and was written a propos of a
paper by Tyndall in the Phil. Mag.,1 in which he ran
the theory of what ice has done to a wild extreme.

1 November 1862, p. 377.

272 FOREIGN TRA VEL CHAP, vm

It was published in The Times also, and I thought it
a pity to let it be supposed that my theory led to such
extravagance.

I do not suppose you will find fault with the
paper on the ground that it wants boldness. When
it was read Dr. Falconer of Indian-fossil-elephant
celebrity made an onslaught on it of forty minutes. I
observe that most of the men older than myself re-
pudiate it, while most of the younger bloods accept
it. Lyell rejects, but then I have Darwin, Hooker,
Sir William Logan, Jukes, and Geikie. When I ex-
plained the theory to Sir William before it was read,
he said : ' If you don't publish it for America, I will.'

So strong was the opposition among the older and
more staid fellows of the Geological Society that
Ramsay used to assert that had he not been the
President, and thus in a manner privileged, the
Council would have voted against the publication of
the paper, except in briefest abstract.

Before the end of the first week in September
1862 Ramsay was glad to escape once more from
London to Switzerland. There were various geo-
logical matters which he longed to investigate more
fully, and as he went this time with only his friend
Dr. Sibson, an accomplished mountaineer, he was free
to arrange his route as the work to be done might
require. Making straight for Geneva, the travellers
first went to Bex, and rambled once more among the
blocks of Monthey. The weather proved most un-
favourable for mountain-climbing, and after waiting
some days in rain and mist, they resolved to move
into the sunnier clime of the Italian side. Crossing
by the Sanetsch Pass from Gsteig to Sion, they were

i862 IN THE OBERLAND AND NORTHERN ITALY 273

fortunate to find the clouds clearing away. 'Ere we
reached the watershed,' he wrote to Mrs. Ramsay,
' there was no mist, except in some of the great
corries and up on the highest peaks. The sun shone
brightly. We diverged a little from the road to see
the end of the Sanetsch glacier. The pass is 7123
Paris feet high. There is therefore no snow on it.
While lunching on the moraine we said : " Let us
leave our baggage here, and go up the glacier to the
Tour de St. Martin and see the great cliffs that over-
look the Valais." So at twelve we started, well roped
together ; but the glacier proved so easy that there
was no real occasion for the rope. In two hours and
a half we were across the glacier, and saw those noble
cliffs 1000 feet and more plump down. We also saw a
flock of more than twenty-five chamois not far off, and
all the great range across the Valais, from Mont Blanc
to Monte Rosa, clouded in places. In an hour and a
half we were back at our baggage, and started for
Sion at five o'clock. In two hours it was dark, and the
guide being nobody, I went ahead, and on a true Swiss
road, by torrent and in forest, piloted all safe to Sion
by instinct. We got there at half-past ten, having
walked fifteen hours.'

Once more in the valley of the Rhone, they
ascended to the Bel Alp and the ^Eggischorn to
make further observations on the great Aletsch glacier
and its surroundings. Then retracing their steps,
they made their way by Turtmann over to the
Italian side, and so down the Val d'Aosta to Ivrea,
and thence to Turin. Once in the capital of Pied-
mont, Ramsay called on his friend Quintino Sella,
known abroad as an able geologist, but to the mass of
his own countrymen familiar only as their distinguished

274 FOREIGN TRA VEL CHAP, vm

Minister of Finance. Of the short time in Turin
Mrs. Ramsay received the following pleasant narra-
tive : ' From the post office I went to the Ministry
of Finance. The attendant in the ante-room, doubtful
of a stranger in a wideawake, said the Minister was
engaged with the Minister of Home Affairs, and would
be so until late in the evening. I sent in my card, and
he came back with a changed countenance and ushered
me in. Sella shook me by both hands, and said he
was uncommonly glad to see me, and that if I would
wait till he wrote a note, he would himself take me to
Gastaldi. . . . Gastaldi received me like an old friend,
and he has been almost constantly with me ever
since. . . .

' I have just come back from the Ministry a
decorated man, with white and gold cross and green
ribbon ! The royal letter and decree are to follow.
. . . I leave to-night, and cross Mont Cenis,
arresting myself perhaps at Macon for the second
night.'

The knighthood thus conferred through the in-
strumentality of Signer Sella was that of the order
of SS. Maurice and Lazarus — a distinction offered,
not only in recognition of the scientific attainments of
the Local Director of the Geological Survey of Great
Britain, but also as a mark of the appreciation of his
services to Italian officers sent at various times to
England on missions of scientific inquiry.

The end of this month of Alpine rambling con-
cluded Ramsay's journeys abroad as an active geologist.
For eight years he did not again leave this country.
He had now practically accomplished the foreign travel
of his life, and though he was able in later years to
revisit some of the scenes which he had traversed in

1862 CLOSE OF ACTIVE WORK ABROAD 275

the full vigour of manhood, it was rather with a view
to rest and change, or, where any scientific work was
attempted, it was more for the purpose of testing
conclusions already made than with the view of fresh
exploration and new deduction.

CHAPTER IX

THE PRESIDENCY OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY RE-
ORGANISATION OF THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY.

THE period of Ramsay's life on the history of which
we now enter embraces a space of about ten years.
During that interval he was mainly occupied in the
duties of the Geological Survey, finding time and
ability for fewer extra-official labours than he had
been able to accomplish before. His routine work
was not relieved and enlivened by the inspiration of
Swiss mountaineering ; but he continued to perform
it with faithful persistence, and to superintend his
staff with the same firm and friendly hand.

It is one of the duties of the President of the
Geological Society at the end of each of the two
years of his tenure of the office to read an address,
which may either deal with the general progress of
geology during the previous twelve months, or may
treat of some special branch of the subject to which
the writer has particularly given his attention. For
some years past Ramsay had been brooding upon
what Darwin had so well enforced — the imperfection
of the geological record. He was struck by the
extraordinary gaps in the succession of organic re-
mains, even where there was no marked physical
interruption of the continuity of sedimentation. And

i863 ADDRESSES AND LECTURES 277

he connected these gaps with geographical changes of
which no other trace had survived. He had made a
communication on this subject to the American Asso-
ciation at the Montreal meeting, which had attracted
considerable attention among those present. He had
afterwards made it the subject of one of his evening
lectures to working men at Jermyn Street. But no
full exposition of his views had yet been made public.
He therefore chose ' Breaks in the Succession of the
British Strata' as the thesis to be worked out in
his two successive presidential addresses, taking the
Palaeozoic systems in the first year (1863), and the
Secondary and Tertiary systems in the second (1864).
Some account of these essays will be given in the con-
cluding chapter of this volume.

In the months of January and February 1863 Ramsay
gave a course of six evening lectures to working men in
the Jermyn Street Museum on the Physical Geology
and Geography of Great Britain. These lectures were
taken down at the time in shorthand, and were shortly
afterwards printed and published as a small volume.
Unfortunately, the lecturer's state of health at the time
prevented him from correcting the proofs with ade-
quate care. The book consequently appeared full of
inaccuracies. But the nucleus of a valuable handbook
was there, and in later years its author was able to
revise and enlarge it, and it now forms his well-known
and admirable treatise on the Physical Geology and
Geography of Great Britain. Even in the original
tract the geological reader can perceive the outlines
of many deductions regarding the growth of the sur-
face topography of the land, which the author was able
subsequently to work out more fully. The publication
of this book marks a distinct epoch in its writer's

278 PRESIDENT OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY CHAP, ix

scientific career. Thenceforward, while he continued
to take interest in all geological problems, and more
particularly in those which were engaging the attention
of his colleagues in the mapping of the Geological
Survey, it was the origin of scenery which had for
him the supreme attraction. The history of lakes,
river -basins and valleys, the influence of geological
structure on landscape, and the effects of that structure
and of its accompanying topographical contours upon
the people of the country — these were the themes
which now engaged his thoughts, and on which he
loved to speak and write.

The old elasticity of mind which in the past had
enabled him to get through so much mental as well
as bodily work still refused to return, and though in
congenial society he could once again be the liveliest
and brightest of a party, he was apt to suffer from such
weariness as made even the simplest duties irksome.
Writing to me on the 5th May 1863 from Dolaucothi,
whither he had gone for a little rest, he says : ' I had
begun to consider recovery doubtful, but I now think
" there's life in the old dog yet." All the while I could
eat, laugh, sing, fish, and walk a little (three or six
miles), but still I had misgivings. Oh the charm of
this country and its pleasant friends ! Since break-
fast I have been at a magistrates' meeting, seeing two
affiliation cases disposed of, and then engineering a
brook with the young ladies. This country is full of
drift, with scratched stones and erratics going up to
600, 800, or 1000 feet, maybe higher. But I have
seen no clear section of it, and do not know if it is
stratified. I considered it so long ago, but I would
like to confirm it.'

The improvement in his condition was not main-

i863 ASKS TO BE RELIEVED FROM LECTURING 279

tained during the summer, and he looked forward with
dismay to the winter, when the necessity for lecturing
would once more meet him face to face. As his
lectures were not written out, but were delivered
merely from notes, which he changed and brought up to
date from year to year, he always felt that the success of
a lecture depended almost entirely on his condition at
the time when he had to speak. Even up to the end,
though the subject was quite familiar to him, and he
could have discoursed for hours about it to a group of
friends, the formal lecture to a miscellaneous audience,
and still more to a company of students, was a severe
mental strain to him. When it was over he would come
out of the lecture-room sometimes so weary that he
could only go home and rest. The prospect of the
winter session of the School of Mines was, therefore,
at this time so dark to him that he seriously pro-
posed to resign his lectureship, if that could be done
without pecuniary loss. He felt that if relieved from
all teaching duty, he could devote himself with more
undivided energy to his duties in the Survey, and
that the change would be better for the Survey as well
as for himself. * If the Treasury throw out my pro-
posal,' he wrote to me, 'then I am where I was; and
as I do not intend to die, I suppose I must put on half-
steam. I wish they could be, consistently with official
etiquette, a little more liberal in the matter, for it is
hard to begin to go back when one has served twenty-
two years and more, and is half a century old, especially
when one's Survey work has been well trebled/ After
some months of suspense, 'the everlasting No' of the
Treasury was duly received. * So there it is,' he wrote
again, ' and I suppose when February comes I shall
try [lecturing]. I feel, I am glad to say, even better

28o PRESIDENT OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY CHAP, ix

than when you saw me last, and it may, perhaps, not
be too much for me.'

The field-work of the Survey was now in full march
through the remaining tracts of the southern counties of
England, and Ramsay took an active interest in it, and
in the fascinating problems of physical geography
which it elucidated. On the 7th November he wrote
to me : ' The deevil a holiday have I had since I saw
you. I have been I don't know where, but at Welling-
borough of late, and Sittingbourne and Tunbridge.
On Monday I go with Hughes and Whitaker to look
at and arrange about Tertiary mapping between Folke-
stone and Dover, and then to Lindfield to see the last
of the Weald, that is to say, of the solid rocks there.
... By the way, I think I have given up the marine
denudation of the Weald. Atmosphere, rain, and
rivers must ha' done it. I'm coming to that, I fear
and hope, and hoping, fearing, trembling, regretfully
triumphant, and tearfully joyous with the alloy of
despair at my heart, and the balm of a truthful Gilead
spread upon the struggling soul, bursting the bonds of
antique prejudice, I yet expect to moor the tempest-
tossed bark of Theory in the calm moral downs of
Assurance.1

The second presidential address to the Geological
Society was read on the igth February 1864. At the
Anniversary this year the Wollaston medal was be-
stowed on Sir Roderick Murchison for his great services
to the science of geology, and it fell to Ramsay's lot
as President to present it. Briefly and gracefully he
summed up the work of his chief, and added a little
personal touch that gave a special charm to the
incident. * Perhaps on this occasion,' he said, f I may
be pardoned for recalling the memory of a time I well

RODERICK IMPEY MURCHISON

1 864 CONTROVERSY ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF LAKES 281

remember, when of all the geologists of weight, you,
Sir, were the first who held out the hand of fellowship
to me, a'young man, when four-and-twenty years ago
I was struggling to enter into the ranks of geologists/

With the close of his second Anniversary address
the reign of the President of the Society came to an
end. Ramsay vacated the office, and was now re-
lieved of duties which, though not onerous, impose
sometimes considerable strain on the occupant, and
consume not a little of his time.

His views on the origin of lakes involved him in
controversy which at this time he was little fitted to
wage. Murchison, in his presidential address to the
Geographical Society, had vigorously opposed the
glacial theory of lakes. Ramsay had refrained from
replying to other criticisms, feeling that if his views
were correct they would prevail, and that if they were
not, no amount of partisanship on his part would save
them from dissolution. But when his own chief put
out ' an exceedingly authoritative protest ' against his
theory, he felt that it would almost be uncourteous on
his part to remain silent. Accordingly, he wrote a
temperate but cogently-argued reply, which appeared
in the October number of the Philosophical Magazine.
His letters about this time are full of reference to the
subject, showing that though he published little, he was
following with the most lively interest what was said
on the subject by others.

He wrote to me on the 1 5th May : ' Altogether I am
quite pleased with the rapid progress the lake-theory
has made. Lyell amazes me in the matter. He told
me the other day that it must be wrong, and he be-
lieved that the hollows were due only to the disturb-
ance of the rocks. . . . Have you brooded patiently

282 PRESIDENT OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY CHAP, ix

for six months without ceasing over that passage at
the end of Jukes's memoir on the Irish rivers, in which
he discusses the valley of the Rhone above the Lake
of Geneva? It is admirable and true, and by'r lakins !
he never saw the location ! Tell me not where is fancy
bred, but after my Frankland change of climate article
comes out,1 if any other good sound argument occurs
to you that I have not used. Bauerman has drawn
a wheel so true that Best has to put a heavy weight
on it to keep it from running away ! '

BEAUMARIS, 30^ July 1864.

MY DEAR GEIKIE — I am as busy as man can be,
and am really getting fast on with that big Memoir,
which I trust will be for fifty years a text -book to
the Silurian geology of North Wales. I have read
Sir R.'s counterblast in proof [above referred to], and
I told him I must reply to it. How on earth can he pit
Dawson against Logan ? Does he remember also that
' he always thought ' that Switzerland was another case
of water-drifting ? *For his protest and Lyell's I care
not a rush. Lyell for years scarcely believed Agassiz,
and used to have a special anti- Darwin chapter till
after the great book [Origin of Species] came out. He
is afraid of time now, and none of them know any-
thing about denudation and the true physical behaviour
of rock-masses. I lately had a very satisfactory letter
from Hooker on the subject. The worst of it is that
one can scarcely hope to convince them, or the old
geological world generally. You can't make a colour-
blind man see colours. None of them ever mapped a
country, as we have done, and disturbed countries to

1 Dr. Frankland's paper on the « Physical Cause of the Glacial Epoch ' will be
found in Phil. Mag. May 1864.

i86s PUNCH ON THE GEOLOGISTS 283

them will still owe their mountain features to disturb-
ance alone. — Ever sincerely, ANDW. C. RAMSAY.

In the sixth edition of his Elements of Geology,
published in January 1865, Lyell noticed the theory of
the glacial origin of lake-basins, and adduced various
arguments against it. Ramsay once more broke
through his resolve not to get into controversy, and
replied to these arguments in a paper contributed to
The Philosophical Magazine for the following April.
These controversies among the geologists were
cleverly indicated in good-humoured caricature by an
artist in Punch, who portrayed some leading charac-
teristic of each combatant. Murchison sits in front
cross-legged throwing up three globes like an Indian
juggler. Lyell to a rapt audience of hammers illus-
trates the origin of terrestrial features by breaking
open a globe and lifting up a large fragment of it.
Ramsay, on the other hand, is busy by himself in a
corner sitting astride his globe, and digging out his
valleys and basins with a big spade.1

But though these disputes seem to bulk large in the
scientific work of the day, they really occupied a very
subordinate place, and certainly in Ramsay's daily
work they were not allowed to take up much time or
thought. While he remained in London, the editorial
supervision of maps, sections, and memoirs left him
but little time for extraneous work. His health being
now rather better, he could once more push on the
completion of the bulky Memoir on North Wales.
His part had been finished, but the palaeontological
appendix by J. W. Salter was still incomplete. That
able but uncertain and procrastinating naturalist had

1 Punch, 23rd September 1865.

284 PRESIDENT OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY CHAP, ix

resigned his appointment in the Survey during the
summer of 1863, and it was difficult thereafter to
secure his continuous services for the completion of
his part of the Memoir. But at last, towards the end
of 1865, Ramsay could write and date his preface, and
the work was finally issued to the public early in 1866.
It was the most detailed piece of writing which the
Geological Survey had yet published, and it contained
deductions and speculations of the greatest interest in
theoretical geology.

The work of the Royal Commission on Coal, of
which Ramsay was an active member, demanded a
great deal of time during the five years from 1 866 to
1870. Besides the numerous meetings of the Com-
mission and of its committees, he undertook much
additional labour in preparing, with the help of the
staff of the Survey, maps, sections, and other data for
the use of the Commissioners. Now and then, how-
ever, some less technical application of geology would
arise to enliven the routine work of the office, as when
Dean Stanley asked whether the geologist could
throw any light on the history of the Coronation Stone
at Westminster, round which so many old legends
hang. Ramsay wrote to me about this request as
follows : ' Yesterday I was at Westminster Abbey
with the Dean, specially to examine the Coronation
Stone from Scone. It is a reddish-grey sandstone,
with three pebbles in it, one quartz and two dark ones
of a doubtful substance, which may be Lydian stone.
It is a hewn stone, with chisel-marks on it, and looks
like a stone originally prepared for building purposes.
Macculloch says it was taken from Dunstaffnage to
Scone by Kenneth II. I see according to your map
Dunstaffnage stands on Old Red Sandstone. What is

1 866 THE NEILL MEDAL AND DOCTORATE OF LAWS 285

its colour and character there ? Macculloch says the
stone is calcareous, and so it is. I am going to write
a short report for the Dean, so please let me know
soon.'

On the 2nd April 1866 the Royal Society of Edin-
burgh awarded to Ramsay the Neill prize ' for his
various works and memoirs published during the last
five years, in which he had applied the large experi-
ence acquired by him in the direction of the arduous
work of the Geological Survey of Great Britain to the
elucidation of important questions bearing on geolo-
gical science.' The presentation was made by the
venerable President, Sir David Brewster, and Ramsay
attended in person to receive it. The ceremony was
fixed to take place at the same time as the visit of
Thomas Carlyle to Edinburgh as Rector of the
University, when he delivered his memorable address,
and when the degree of LL.D. was conferred on three
distinguished teachers of the Jermyn Street School —
Tyndall, Ramsay, and Huxley. One of the features
of this visit, which Ramsay remembered with special
pleasure, was the dinner of the Royal Society Club.
The Royal Society of Edinburgh, like its sister societies
in other parts of the United Kingdom, has its dining
club, limited in number of members, who comprise
the leading resident fellows. But the distinguishing
feature of the northern fraternity is that, while it per-
mits few toasts and no speeches, its proceedings are
always enlivened with songs, often written for the
occasion. For many years it has boasted a succession
of song-writers, one or two of them gifted with great
humour, some of whose songs are known far and wide
beyond the limits of the Club. The post -prandial
efforts of Lord Neaves, unmelodious but infinitely

286 PRESIDENT OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY CHAP, ix

witty, belong to a rapidly -vanishing past, but Sir
Douglas Maclagan remains to delight his privileged
listeners. His ' Battle of Glen Tilt ' will be popular
in Scotland as long as cultured conviviality holds a
place in the country. Ramsay heard that and other
famous ditties, and used to speak enthusiastically of
the way in which the philosophers of the north play
their 'high jinks.'

There was another gratifying presentation a fort-
night later. The staff of the Survey gave their
esteemed Local Director a handsome gold watch
as a mark of their appreciation of his long and
devoted exertions in the cause of the Survey,
and of his personal kindness and helpfulness to
themselves.

At the meeting of the British Association at
Nottingham in 1866 Ramsay again led the geologists
as President of Section C. Since his previous tenure
of the office, ten years before, a custom had crept in
that the presidents opened the business of the sections
with a specially composed address. He had been
called unexpectedly and rather late in the day to
occupy the chair, and had not had time to prepare
such an address as he could have wished to deliver to
his brother geologists. He therefore discoursed to them
generally upon the influence of geological structure on
external topography, and more particularly upon the
influence of igneous rocks. He introduced, but with
some hesitation, his views of the origin of some so-
called igneous rocks, such as granite, from the action
of heat, 'with the aid of alkaline waters.' He also
found a place for his doctrine regarding breaks in
succession of life, and proclaimed himself once more
a thorough uniformitarian.

i866 BRITISH ASSOCIA TION A T NOTTINGHAM 287

After the meeting he sent me the following
account of it : —

MY DEAR GEIKIE — I had a week in Anglesey after
the British Association meeting, and yesterday brought
up wife and bairns. I shall stay for a Coal Commis-
sion meeting on the iith [Sept.], and if nothing come
of that to interfere, shall immediately take the field
thereafter. The British Association meeting was a
good one, and I stayed at Newstead Abbey, and slept
in the poet's bedroom !

In the poet's bed I slept,

And out o' the bed i' the morn,
Out o' the bed I crept,

And blew my sounding horn ;
Then down the turret stair

I winded in my glory,
And light winds raised my hair

As I entered the refectory.
And oh for the muffins and tea,

Beef, ham, and venison pasty,
The jam and the honey o' bee,

The marmalade so tasty !
And ever at dinner again,

I swear by heaven and hades,
We quaffed the bright champagne,

And jabbered with the ladies ;
And the lights shone overhead,

And the coats of mail they glinted
On the wall o' the hall where we fed}

Nor meat nor liquor stinted.
No more have I to say,

Though the words could come by milliards,
I presided in C all day,

And all night I played at billiards.

Yours ever more,

ANDW. C. RAMSAY.

The general tenor of his life among his colleagues
in the field during the years up to the end of 1871
can best be gathered from his letters, from which a few
selections are here given :—

288 PRESIDENT OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY CHAP, ix

KING'S ARMS, SHEFFIELD,
13^ August 1865.

MY DEAR GEIKIE — - ... I have been all about
the universe ; at Rowsley with Dakyns ; there and at
Hathersage and the Snake Inn with Green. That
country beats cock-fighting, for it has no drift, is 2000
feet high, and otherwise ought to have ice, and has
none. Then I have been at Todmorden, the deadly-
lively, with Hull. I made two speeches at Man-
chester, and have also been at Kirkby and Dent and
Kendal, and am now here with Tiddeman.

See the last Reader, yesterday's, and expire. At
least Sir R. will, when he sees what I, being in my
right mind, have bequeathed him in my last will and
testament. When I leave this I want to see my wife
and babbies a little. They have been in Anglesey a
month, and I have not seen them for considerably
longer. ... I sent my review of Campbell [' Frost
and Fire'] to Edmonston and Douglas [for North
British Review].

THE CITY OF THE DEAD, VEL DURHAM,
October 1866.

MY DEAREST WIFE — Luckily it rained to-day
when we got to this City of Silence, and therefore,
instead of starting for the hills, I had time to see it,
which I have been doing for three hours and a half,
and yet have left a deal unseen. You can concentrate
your energies on the architecture, for there are no
people for certain to look at. Here and there a
ghostly figure comes out of a corner and as
suddenly disappears, but whether these shapes are
'human mortals' or not, I am unable to guess. To
wind up with, we have just come from church, where

i866 DURHAM 289

certainly we did hear some sort of angelic melody.
But oh ! the grandeur of the Cathedral, all Norman
from end to end, excepting a sort of Lady Chapel of
very early English on the east, and, what is more, the
whole is almost unaltered Norman. Three towers
hath it, one grand central one, and two at the west
end, which take away your breath with a sense of
beauty. The great interior columns are marvellous to
behold, and the roof is grandly groined. The vast
pile overlooks the river, and the west front extends far
down the bank, so that a wonderful dignity of height
is given to the building. Then the bishop's palace
(now, alas ! a seedy college) — a vast pile, castle and
palace in one, partly Norman, and the cloisters, the
close, and lots of other things, which I must see
another day when I can make the acquaintance of
some local antiquary, if such there be in Durham.

DUNFORD BRIDGE, SHEFFIELD,
2>jth November 1866.

MY DEAREST WIFE — This is a bad place to write
from. The reason is, that the post comes in at break-
fast-time, and in these short days we are in a great
hurry to get out, and when we come home again
across the moors the post has gone. After dinner no
human being writes letters if he can help it. The
above gives the reason why I did not write yesterday,
and may be the reason why I will not write to-
morrow. But to-day I have received several letters
so important that I must stay in a couple of hours to
answer them. . . . The letters of most importance
were from Sir R. and Best. The Duke [of Bucking-
ham] and My Lords are making sweeping changes, to
which I must reconcile myself, and I believe I can do

u

290 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY REORGANISED CHAP, ix

it without grumbling, and possibly even with tolerable
satisfaction.

First, Scotland is to be raised to a special branch
like Ireland, and Geikie is to be Director. Second, I
am to get another ^100 a year, to continue in charge
of England and Wales, to drop the * Local ' before
Director, and to be ranked as Senior Director. I am
to have two * District Surveyors ' under me, who will
be Aveline and Bristow ; two first-class senior
geologists, eight second-class, and the rest as before,
except that we shall have a large addition to the staff.
There would be no use objecting to anything, even if
there be anything to object to, for the Duke and My
Lords have ruled it, I believe, without reference to Sir
Roderick. ... I think I have written Sir Roderick a
very good letter, without any grumblings at all. I
have only compared myself to the Emperor of Austria,
losing not Venice, but his German native dominions,
and increasing his revenue thereby, and I have
approved of all the other details.

HAZELHEAD, SHEFFIELD,
Atth December 1866.

MY DEAREST WIFE — This is an awful day of
wind and rain, and this is my tenth, and I hope my
last letter.

From a very official letter Sir R. wrote me, I was
afraid he had taken amiss the way I took these
changes. But to-day I have had a very long and
pleasant letter from him telling me that that was by
no means the case, and that he wrote the short official
simply because the subject was strictly of that nature,
and he was communicating a copy of Cole's official
bearing My Lords' pleasure. He also tells me that

i866-i867 RAMSA Y BECOMES SENIOR DIRECTOR 291

the importance of my position is very much raised,
seeing that I shall have three times as many men to
command as Jukes, and four times as many as Geikie.
To this I reply, not satirically, that I feel the compli-
ment of being considered able to do four times the
work of other people, and hope it will be duly con-
sidered when pension time arrives. . . . The gale is
tremendous, and the rivers are flooded.

The changes in the organisation of the Geological
Survey referred to in these letters were the most
important that had been made since the foundation of
the service under De la Beche. The staff in Great
Britain was divided into two, Scotland being made a
distinct branch of the Survey under a separate
Director. The title of Local Director for Great
Britain being abolished, Ramsay became Senior
Director for England and Wales. Jukes remained as
before Director for Ireland, and the corresponding
office in Scotland was given to the present writer. A
new grade, that of District Surveyor, was created, in
order that separate areas in which a number of the
staff were at work might be more continuously super-
vised. The number of assistant geologists and
geologists was largely increased, and it was arranged
that there should be one geologist for every three
assistants. When the new appointments were all
filled up, the Senior Director had under him a staff of
thirty-seven men, the Director for Scotland nine, and
the Director for Ireland fourteen.

As a consequence of this transformation, Ramsay
ceased to have any control over the progress of the
work in Scotland, and no longer paid his annual visit
of inspection to the surveyors north of the Tweed.

292 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY REORGANISED CHAP, ix

But the number of men whom he now had to superintend
in England was larger than he had ever had before.
On reflection, he strongly disapproved of the increase
in the staff, and he particularly condemned the way in
which it was planned and carried out. Though his
long experience gave him a special claim to be con-
sulted in any important changes in the organisation of
the Survey, he never heard anything definite as to
what was in contemplation until the whole scheme was
matured and adopted. He used to speak bitterly of
the difficulty of procuring the authorised number of
new men, for he felt sure that a good geological sur-
veyor could not be manufactured by a board of
professors, nor even by a crammer, and could not be
discovered by any ordinary form of examination. The
recruit, properly equipped by his education, could only
acquire his fitness for duty by practical training, and it
was, in Ramsay's judgment, impossible with his force
of old hands, constituted as it was, to train at once half
their number of new men. He would have preferred
adding to the force by degrees, as good men could be
found and educated for their duties.

It must be acknowledged, however, that the
Department of Science and Art in proposing, and the
Treasury in sanctioning, this great rearrangement and
augmentation of the staff of the Geological Survey,
were sincerely desirous to further the objects for
which the Survey was instituted. They wished that,
with as little delay as possible, the public should be
put in possession of a general geological map of the
whole country, and this end could not be attained for
many years unless the force were largely increased.
There was an additional reason that had much weight
with the Lord President of the Council. For some

i866-i86; AGRONOMICAL MAP OF BRITAIN 293

years the Geological Survey had been carefully dis-
tinguishing and mapping the various superficial
deposits which, in the earlier days of the work, it had
not been thought necessary to discriminate. Apart
from their great scientific interest, maps of the surface
geology had innumerable advantages of a practical kind.
They gave information as to the nature and distribu-
tion of soils, and were thus of value for agricultural
purposes. They were of essential service in the con-
struction of reservoirs, and generally in questions of
water-supply. They were of great utility in the laying
out of roads and railways ; and they could be made
to furnish valuable evidence in relation to drainage
and sanitary matters. The importance of such maps
being recognised by Government, it was desired to
afford greater facilities for their production. It was
now arranged that the practice of mapping the super-
ficial deposits simultaneously with the solid rocks
underneath them, which had been introduced into the
Survey some years previously, should be continued
over all the unsurveyed districts, and that, as soon as
surveyors could be detached for the purpose, the
tracts already surveyed where the surface-formations
had not been separated should be re-traversed for the
purpose of inserting them. By this means a general
agronomical map of the whole country would be pro-
vided, which would be of much service for farming
purposes, land -valuation, drainage, water-supply, and
many other practical affairs of life. These designs
have since that time been steadily kept in view, and a
large part of the country has now been completed.

The changes in the Survey staff could not come
into operation until the beginning of the financial year,
that is, the ist April 1867. Steps had been taken

294 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY REORGANISED CHAP, ix

before that time to obtain young men who gave pro-
mise of becoming efficient surveyors. But, as Ramsay
had contended, it was extremely difficult to procure
the required number at once, and some time had
passed before he could announce that his comple-
ment was complete, and a still longer time before
he was able to replace the incompetent new-comers
and make his corps efficient. There was much dis-
agreeable detail to be attended to before all these pre-
liminaries were settled, and his letters show that it
gave him a good deal of vexation. But his gaiety of
spirit made even these worries sometimes a subject of
merriment. His letters to myself were at this time
more frequent than usual. A few of them are inserted
here :—

LUNNUN, $th February 1867.

MY DEAR BELL-THE-CAT *• — We must have a pro-
found talk over the colouring of Ayrshire, for there
will be plenty of fault-finders ; and as it belongs to my
reign (old Saturn), and as my aged eyes may never
see the Empyrean (Auchendrane 2) again, we must settle
it among us, while yet, like the Centurion, I may say
to James (the Caledonian apostle), Come, and he
cometh. Let him come, then, with all his maps, and
that will do for the blooming Peach's as well, and all
will be settled before the Jovial times begin. If need
be, Bone in a day will draw in the lines (in pleasant
places) on a clean copy, and we will decide and colour
the rest.

1 It will have been seen how playfully Ramsay used to vary the names of
his colleagues when he wrote to them. The Christian name of his correspondent
on this occasion suggested the well-known sobriquet that was given to the great
Earl of Angus at the end of the fifteenth century.

2 See the reference ante, p. 248.

1 867 EFFECTS OF THE CHANGES 295

Poor Jukes is in a sort of semi-despair about all
this business, and considering that he will be adding
ten more Irishmen to his already Irish lot, I don't
wonder at it. His chief man lately informed him that
he had given up taking and recording dips, as he
found it to be useless! Jukes simply longs for the
day when he will be able to retire, from age, and wear
out the fag-end of his days, un worried by Irishmen
and Boilermen, and I considerably sympathise with
him. . . . Oh for an hour of brave old De la Beche,
in his best days, to look ahead and provide for the
future ! — Ever sincerely, ANDW. C. RAMSAY.

une 1867.

MY DEAR GEIKIE — I had barely time to write you
yesterday about your summons by Sir R. Jukes is
exceedingly fidgety. He has not a man in Ireland
that he can trust to training others. Also, they are
all so unruly, that without rules (printed) every one
will be in rebellion. Even on this side of the water
I have no doubt we are all frightfully mismanaging
everything without knowing it. At least, I have no
doubt I am, and I see no reason why you should not
be doing the same. If you feel conscious that you are
not doing the same, that merely proves that you are
so blinded by ignorance and cockyness that you don't
know when you are doing mischief. At least, I believe
that is the case with me. Therefore everything must
be reduced to printed rules.

Now I am of this way of feeling, viz. I don't
want to have any duties, and I don't want to do them ;
and if it so happen that you are of the same opinion,
then it may fall out that Jukes may get printed rules
for Ireland, and leave us to that ancient unwritten

296 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY REORGANISED CHAP, ix

law which is the Lion of the North, and the bulwark
of the Hammerers' faith.

I think I have now expressed myself in clear
scientific language, and therefore you will dine with
us on Thursday at half-past six. — Yours ever sincerely,

ANDW. C. RAMSAY.

KIRKBY LONSDALE, ^rd July 1867.

MY DEAR GEIKIE — Yours received. Papers glanced
at, but not yet fairly read.

The rule here is out at 9 A.M. ; no letters written
before breakfast, except in cases of fire, murder, rape,
and robbery. Home to dinner, and the post just going
(as now), and too lazy to write after dinner, except in
cases of abduction, stabbing, perjury, and earthquakes.

To-day we have been in a river, the Greta, from
ten till five. When too deep for skipping and missing
the stones skipped at, Tiddeman carried us across on
his back (Hughes and me), because Tiddeman wears
knickerbockers. I understood these villain Carbonifer-
ous rocks (Upper, Middle, and Lower Coal-measures ;
Gannister beds and Millstone grit) better than I ever
did before, and so did all of us. When you don't see
a rock for miles except in a river, and that river is
generally full to the brim and more, then there is
usually Tartarus and Thomas to pay, without coin in
your pocket. To make sure to-day, we all plunged
into a pool to see what was in the bottom, but as we
never got there, heaven only knows whether it is shale
or Millstone grit.

If I get to the Railway Hotel, Newcastle-on-Tyne,
by Saturday (which is on the cards), then I'll spend
part of Sunday reading your brief. — Ever sincerely,

ANDW. C. RAMSAY.

1 867 BRITISH A SSOCIA TION AT D UNDEE 297

To Miss Johnes he writes on the iyth July
from Wirksworth : * Since I left London twenty-four
days ago, I have been staying at Kendal, Kirkby
Lonsdale, Newcastle, Belper, and here. Kendal is a
woollen-making place, but one charming day we spent
on Windermere and in the neighbouring valleys.
Kirkby Lonsdale is charming beyond expression. It
lies on the River Lune, which is more beautiful
than Alph, the sacred river. There is no trade in the
town, and the people are very good people, parsons
and all ; the gentry are hospitable round about, if you
give them a chance, and the inn is old-fashioned, full
of daughters, lively yet sedate, who, with their very
handsome old mother, do not leave their guests to the
mercy of servants. I sometimes think of taking
Louisa there some day on our way to Scotland, that
she may know what an English river is like.'

The British Association met at Dundee in 1867,
and was attended by a large concourse of geologists.
Ramsay formed one of the number, and though he
read no paper, he took part in the discussions and
excursions. He was especially pleased to revisit St.
Andrews, where nine years before he had worked for
three months at the Welsh Memoir, and where he had
made many acquaintances. His old friend, Robert
Chambers, who had come to live in the antique uni-
versity town, was present at the banquet given by the
Senatus to the excursionists, and afterwards had a
reception at his house. This was probably the last
time that Chambers and Ramsay met each other.
Chambers looked already much broken in health,
though he kept still his interest in geological progress.
He died four years afterwards.

In the spring of 1868, in the intervals of examining

298 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY REORGANISED CHAP, ix

candidates and lecturing, Ramsay took the occasion of
the publication of a new edition (the tenth) of Lyell's
Principles of Geology to criticise that work in two
articles in the Saturday Review. Resuming the quota-
tions from his letters, we may note that on the i8th
March he wrote to Mrs. Ramsay : 'Your father would be
about as busy as I am if he had to preach six sermons
a week, had, besides, twenty-four curates to superin-
tend— six with him and eighteen constantly writing
letters — two of them rebellious, with also a bishop
staying in his house constantly consulting with him,
besides having about four magistrates' meetings a week
to attend. These last are my Coal Commissions and
Councils.'

LONDON, i$th May 1868.

MY DEAR GEIKIE — Your argument about recent
disturbances in re lakes is a good addition. I have
long given up taking any notice of those who oppose
me. They are impenetrable, and I feel so sure I
am right, that I can well afford to leave the rest to
time. But many people have a pernicious fashion of
stating that De Mortillet and I came to the same con-
clusion the same year. I wish somebody would some
day contradict that for me. He says that the lake-
basins existed before the glacial period, but how formed
he does not say. They were then filled with gravel,
etc., and the glaciers scooped out that — a very different
sort of story, and one that in no way grapples with the
subject. Did you see my two reviews of Lyell's
first volume of the Principles in the Saturday of the
nth and i8th April ?— Ever sincerely,

A. C. RAMSAY.

Ten days later he wrote to me further regarding

1 868 IMPERFECT HEALTH 299

the opposition to his lake theory : ' All the objections
make no impression on me, and I feel it best to leave
them alone as far as I am concerned. But I still hope
and intend to apply the view to all time — past, pre-
sent, and future — and a good deal beyond at both
ends.

' You will see a lot of curious papers in the volume
which I will send to-morrow. I stayed at Bonn two
months. I have given Zirkel of Bonn a letter of
introduction to you.1 He is going to the Western
Isles. He is a fine young fellow, and a Professor at
Lemberg ; he would like, too, to see some work. . . .
You must take old Hibbert on the Eifel if you go
there. Van Dechen's big map of the Drachenfels
region is not very good ; there is an explanation of it
in German. Also, the Government geological maps
of all the Prussian Rhine region are published. I can
lend you some. Be sure you see the Miocene coal at
Brill, half-way between Bonn and Cologne. I'll give
you letters if you like. Go and see the Moselle and
its tributaries — the best case of valleys cut in a table-
land that I know. You must march through the Eifel —
6s. per day, living like les cogues qui se combattent!

LEEDS, iWi September 1868.

MY DEAR GEIKIE — Late, late, so late ; but I will
venture now to reply to yours of the 4th, which work,
laziness, and sometimes imperfect health, and conse-
quent demi-semi-depression, prevented my sooner
replying to. Not that I am ill, and yet I am just
something or other. It may be that it is only Age
with creeping claw that has claught me in his clutch.

1 See ante, p. 262.

300 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY REORGANISED CHAP, ix

If so, so much the worse for Age, for he has got hold
of a bad lot.

Like the men of the '45, I have been ' out ' since
the 2 Qth June, all but a fortnight, which I spent in
Anglesey; and also, like the same men of '45, I have
had a controversy with the king, not King Cole, but
King Roderick of Siluria. . . . Some people wonder
why I did not reply to Sir R.'s last in the Geol.
Magazine about denudation and lakes, but I think it
is better not to ' condescend upon ' it, as we Scotch
lawyers say. But why should he be always troubling
our Israel ? Is he afeard that we are becoming re-
bellious satraps ?

I did not go to Norwich [British Association
Meeting]. I stayed away a-purpose to keep out of
any excitement. Last year did me no good, and
giving evidence at the end of June for four days
before the Coal Commission for four hours and a half
per day, together with an immediate march and long
hours in the country during the hottest weather, have
not improved me. So I stayed away from Norwich.

D writes me that the advanced scientific thinkers

did themselves and science no good at Norwich. How,
I have not heard ; but I can well believe it of some
of our friends. . . .

I know the Strahleck, having been over it, and
very steep it is on the descent from the Col down to
the surface of the glacier on the Grindelwald side.
But it is very different in different years. Hinchliff
slid down on the snow from top to bottom. I think it
took us an hour to go down on the rocks. . . .

We have done a deal of work hereaway, and are
fast moving up northwards in a broad line, in the hope
of forming a union with the Northumberland and

i868 A PAGAN AT THE POST-OFFICE 301

Westmoreland men, before you can say whew. We
have begun in the Vale of Eden, and will by and by
invade your dominions, if you don't mind your eye. —
Ever sincerely, A. C. RAMSAY.

BLANCHLAND, 2^th September 1868.

MY DEAREST WIFE — I write to tell you that I am
living in a fragment of an ancient abbey, placed on
the banks of the Derwent, far up the stream. The
house is now an inn, and our window looks out on a
plot of grass that may have been in the middle of the
cloisters. The modern church, a fragment of the old
one, re-muddled, looks on our grass ; and pear-trees,
trained against the walls, the fruit of which the monks
ate, writhe their old branches all about the stones.
Such relics of a beautiful antiquity always fill me with
a sort of regretful feeling. If it had only been possible
to preserve them ! How many lovely spots there are
in England that one never heard of till one gets in
among them. Howell came with me from Hexham ;
we drove over the hills, twelve miles, after four o'clock
yesterday. At Hexham there are also the remains of
a grand abbey. The transept and the chancel are
entire, and are used (though abused), but the nave is
gone. It is as big as many a cathedral, and noble
Early English in style.

I must tell you a story of our friend Noumeran,
the Japanese. He had a post-office order sent to the
country, and when he signed his name the postmaster
insisted that it would not do. * You must sign your
Christian name as well.' ' But/ said Noumeran, ' I am
not a Christian ; I am a Pagan.' Amazement of the
postmaster, who only knew of Pagans before as of
dragons, or griffins, or fabulous monsters of some sort.

302 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY REORGANISED CHAP, ix

Howell told me a story of Disraeli. Vernon
Harcourt asked a Conservative friend, * How can you
and your party follow such a man ? ' * We look on
him as a professional bowler,' was the reply.

The men wait. — Your most affectionate,

ANDW. C. RAMSAY.

DENT, KENDAL, \th October 1868.

MY DEAREST WIFE — I begin another letter to you
to-night to tell you something about this place ; it is
so beautiful. The valley is five or six miles long,
'well watered.' While below it is full of lovely green
meadows, bordered with trees and dotted with old
white - washed houses of the dalesmen, all around
great bare hills rise to heights of 2000 and 2300 feet.
And the little town is so quaint, irregular, and clean,
with its village church and absence of shops, that all
combined fill the mind with a sense of repose and
old-fashionedness, but rarely met with now in toil-
worn England. And the people are so nice. Last
night we spent with the Sedgwicks in the house where
old Adam was born. Mrs. Sedgwick is very pretty,
and only about your age. She has at home six girls
and a little boy. They all crowd round Hughes, and
climb on his knees all at once.

I have written to old Adam Sedgwick telling him
how pleased I am to be in his old home, and how kind
Mrs. Sedgwick is, and I hope he will be pleased with
my letter.

This vale of Dent filled Ramsay with delight,
which breaks out again and again in his letters.
Thus to Miss Johnes, on the nth October 1868, he
writes : * Dent is not on the outskirts, but in the core

1 868 THE VALE OF DENT 303

of the world, and the farther you recede from it in
concentric circles, the nearer you get to the outposts of
''civilisation falsely so called." Dent town and the
valley of Dent make a kind of paradise to a man
troubled with cares of Geological Surveys and Coal
Commissions. Fancy a valley some six or eight miles
long, well watered, with green sloping pastures and
noble trees, with great peaceful, solemn hills all
around ; noises unknown from the outer world, no
sounds, in fact, but those made by winds and running
rivers, or dropping rains and cattle, and the voices of
" the kindly race of men," and church-bells o' Sundays.
All the children are clean (very) ; all the men are
stalwart and frank, honest and brave ; and all the
women that are not beautiful are comely, some of
them stalwart too. Men, women, and children, Danes
by descent, are fair, with blue open eyes — "states-
men," the men part, in the northern sense of the term
— frank and respectful, for self-respect makes folk
respectful to others.

* I have been away from home for four and a
half months, as human mortals usually count them,
but to me the time looks like four and a half mortal
years, and I long to see Louisa and my children
again.'

His journeys of inspection now ranged over the
whole breadth of the northern counties of England.
On the 2 ist November 1868 he wrote to me from
Barnsley : ' Since I saw you I have been at Newcastle,
Bellingham, Morpeth, Ponteland, Richmond, Harro-
gate, Pateley Bridge, Otley, Bolton Bridge, Skipton,
and here. I have seen, besides geology, Ripon
Cathedral, Knaresboro, Kirk Hamerton (real Danish
or Anglo-Saxon), Bolton Abbey and Fountains Abbey,

304 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY REORGANISED CHAP, ix

besides Skipton in Craven, where, as you very well
know, ''there's never a haven."

These inspection tours brought him into the midst
of delightful scenery, interesting geology, varied histo-
rical associations, and pleasant society — a combination
of attractions that never failed to show him at his best.
Professor Hughes, who now holds the Woodwardian
Chair at Cambridge, was then one of the staff with
whom the Director had many excursions, and who has
kindly supplied me with the following recollections of
his chief. Speaking of the evenings after the day's
tramp was over, he says : * Ramsay always threw him-
self heartily into whatever game or amusement of any
kind was going on, and thus got an insight into the
life of his men, and helped to make things pleasant
for them with their neighbours. So agreeable a com-
panion at a dinner-party, and so considerate and
obliging a guest at an hotel, was always welcome, and
every one asked when he was coming back, and tried
to arrange little plans to make his stay pleasant. He
loved a game of cards or billiards, which he played to
win, not with the bored expression of one who did it
just because he was asked to, or merely to kill time.
He was very fond of chorus-singing, taking the bass
with a good deal of skill and great earnestness. Even
when there was no entertainment going on he was
generally very lively all the evening.'

LONDON, 26th October 1870.

MY DEAR GEIKIE — I have been away since July,
and only came home on Monday last. I have had an
awful battering on the Yorkshire hills of late in
thunder, lightning, and in rain (Williams). . . .
I am very well, and have been, barring an eye,

1870-1871 THE YORKSHIRE DALES 305

which is now rather better than it was before it got
worse.

Wife and babbies all well, and rejoicing more over
the desperate willain who has returned than over
ninety-and-nine just men who stay in the field and do
their work. I'm off again on Monday for Lancashire,
about Preston, etc. etc., and shall be thereabouts for
two or three weeks ; after that to Grantham and the
Oolites. I won't be much at home before the end of
December. Sir R. looks well.

Oh the dales, the dales, the Yorkshire dales !
Lovely, luvely, loovely ! Cock-fighting be hanged !
The terrassic system ! The Carb. Limestone is a
myth proper, and the Yoredale Rocks ditto. They pass
into limestones in the most unprincipled manner, and
now the limestone runs up to the Millstone Grit, and
now, to use a strong expression, it doesn't. Lithology
is the only science, and as for definite horizons, they
no more exist than nadir or zenith, the equator or
Fergus the First. — Ever sincerely, A. C. RAMSAY.

JERMYN STREET, i6tk February 1871.

MY DEAR MISTER G. — I have gotten yourn. I
believe I have Rtitimeyer's book, and that I looked it
over, but I am a poor ignorant son of a sea-cook, and
cannot read German. But I get bits translated for
me by Ella or the Missus. As Rtitimeyer does not
agree with me, of course he is wrong ! Desor's paper
(French) I have read, on the origin of Jura valleys,
lakes, etc. etc., and thought it ' Walker.' I do not
think I have seen any German treatise of his on the
subject.

I am glad you are writing that paper for
Nature; it will come in rather pattish. Prestwich

x

306 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY REORGANISED CHAP, ix

sent me his remarks to read — what he is going to say
when he hands over to me the Wollaston medal, and
he says nowt about the lakes. They must be still
too strong for his geological stomach. But he has
swallowed other things handsomely, and remarks that
in the matter of Palaeozoic ice I long stood alone. He
may live to swallow all the 4000 feet of Swiss ice that
scooped out lakes, and also all the big northern ice-
sheet that buried two-thirds of the northern continents.

Do you think Rlitimeyer shows good cause for his
dislocations in the Alps without good mapping done ?

My paper on the Old Red, etc. etc., has not yet
been read. I suppose it will come on upon the 22nd
March or thereabouts. They print the papers now
entire for convenience before they are read. It does
not follow, I believe, that they will necessarily be printed
in the Journal.

Now I must go to prepare a lecture for 2 P.M. I
gave one last Monday night on the Origin of the River
Systems of England, and the audience liked it better
than I did.

If I write it, And he likes it,

And I like it, I will like it

I will send it All the better ;

To the Royal. For my Geikie

If they like it, Is judgematick,

And they print it, And he knoweth

I will send it All that differs

To my Geikie. B's between

If he read it, And feet of bullocks.

-Yours ever, A. C. RAMSAY.

About this period Ramsay's pen was more than
usually busy. The problems suggested by red strati-
fied deposits like the New Red Sandstone and Old
Red Sandstone had often been considered by him,

1870-1871 ILLNESS OF MURCHISON 307

and he discussed the subject in two papers communi-
cated in January and March 1871 to the Geological
Society. One of these dealt with the red rocks of
Palaeozoic age, and the other with those of later date.
He was likewise turning his thoughts more frequently
and earnestly to the history of topography, and espe-
cially to the origin of river-valleys. He gave a series
of lectures on that subject during this year, and after-
wards condensed the substance of one or two of them
into a paper on the ' River- courses of England and
Wales,' which was read before the Geological Society
on the 7th February 1872.

Much anxiety was felt during the year 1871 as
to the health of the distinguished Director- General
of the Geological Survey. On the 3<Dth November
1870 he had a stroke of paralysis, which at the time
deprived him of the use of his left side. But he
rallied so far as to be able to take carriage exercise,
and to attend to a good deal of business. It was
evident, however, that he would never again be fit
to resume his place in the scientific world, though he
might possibly linger long. Trenham Reeks, his faith-
ful secretary, and Registrar of the School of Mines,
used to see him at his house daily, bring official and
other letters, arrange about the answering of them,
and despatch frequent bulletins to members of the staff
as to the condition of the chief. Murchison never
again set foot in the Museum in Jermyn Street.

But as there was no immediate prospect of serious
change in Sir Roderick's condition, Ramsay took the
field among his men in the spring of 1871. Some
further letters from him show what he was doing
and thinking about during the summer and autumn
of this year.

3o8 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY REORGANISED CHAP, ix

March 1871.

MY DEAR GEIKIE — I write a second note. If you
refer to my book on North Wales, you will see that I
state that the Lingula Flags and Cambrian are con-
formable, and pass into each other, and that the
Llandeilo and Bala beds lie unconformably on both.
Officially I still call the Lingula Flags Lower Silurian,
because of the Director- General's classification, but
theoretically I consider the Lingula Flags more
closely allied to the Cambrian. In the first paper
I sent you you will see, however, that I consider
the Cambrian (below Lingula Flags) as a fresh-water
formation. The Llandeilos and Balas are, however,
nearly as closely connected with the Tremadoc Slate
and Lingula Flags as the Upper Silurian is with
Llandeilo and Bala beds. The Tremadoc Slate I
consider an upper part of the Lingula Flags. — Ever
sincerely, A. C. RAMSAY.

KING'S ARMS, KENDAL,
ist October 1871.

MY DEAR GEIKIE — I'm smoking a pipe on a
Sunday. Hallelujah, hallelujee ! I send you my two
last [papers on Red Rocks] to Edinburgh, not knowing
where you may be. I have had a very pleasant letter
from De Koninck about them. He will write again,
but at present he seems equally surprised and pleased.
Besides twelve sent here and there in England, I
think I will devote the rest of my copies to Conti-
nentals and Americans, for Englishmen can read them
in the Journal. . . ;

I came here last Tuesday, and, weather permitting,
have been daily among the Silurian Green Slates
and Porphyries. The more I see of them, the more

1871 THE COUNCIL OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY 309

am I convinced that all of them I have seen form part
of a great purely subaerial volcano = the Welsh marine
or semi-marine set. I am assisting at a bit of mapping
which Aveline cannot make up his mind about, and
I have made up mine. ... I hope to leave this on
Tuesday or Wednesday for Kirkby Stephen. It is
tough work here, driving twelve miles and then
climbing, like a climbing boy, mountains from 2000
to 3000 feet high during equinoxious gales. Sir R.
continues just the same. — Ever sincerely,

A. C. RAMSAY.

LONDON, 13^ December 1871.

MY DEAR GEIKIE — Austen has decided to take
the Presidency of the Geological Society.1 That is
well. But the Society is not flourishing in papers.
I am glad we are to have a strong President, and we
must try to get a strong council, made of men of mark.
When Dallas wrote me the other day, asking if I had
no papers to fill the void, I replied that I had none
ready, and of course could not write for the sake of
writing. I also said that they might have more were
it not that authors of theoretical papers were afraid
to send them in for fear of the fatherly care of the

Council. Green's last paper was squashed, by

in particular. You will see it in the Geological
Magazine. I have a great mind to send in a paper
entitled ' The Wonderful, the Councillor,' with illustra-
tions, by Rutley, of living examples. When at Clapham
(Ingleborough) last Friday I explored a cave 800 yards
long with Tiddeman. — Ever sincerely,

A. C. RAMSAY.

1 In the end he was obliged to decline the office.

3io GEOLOGICAL SURVEY REORGANISED CHAP, ix

LONDON, i6th December 1871.

MY DEAR GEIKIE — Yesterday I took a leaf out of
the Book of Othello, and became 'perplexed in the
extreme,' all along of a miserable trusteeship that I
hold. The consequence was that all day I stood
prostrate at the feet of Europe, having there/0r£ an
aversion to all legitimate business, till in the evening
I plucked up ' hart o' grease ' and wrote to S. Kensing-
ton asking about the Survey Annual Reports. I have
to-day had an answer saying that My Lords meet on
Monday, and the question will come before them. ' That
is all we know on Earth, and all we need to know.'

Having done this, I went at half -past four and
played with Herbert Spencer a game of billiards at
the Athenaeum. He beat me. Being beaten, I went
home and ate a turkey, and then proceeded to lay
about me all round and make everybody miserable,
all because a woman 200 and odd miles off is an ass,
and gives me a deal of deilish bother.

The poet [his son Allan] came home yesterday
from Uppingham with a prize for mathematics under
his oxter. We are all very well at home, both the
cats having disappeared. I hope they are not at the
bottom of the water butt !

Several of the drift maps have been engraved.
We are now in a state to publish. I will tell Bristow
to send you a coloured specimen copy for your
criticism before any are issued. I hope we may
manage to do so early next week. — Ever sincerely,

ANDW. C. RAMSAY.

LONDON, nth January 1872.

MY DEAR GEIKIE — Yesterday in the Council of
the Geological Society I proposed Croll as a proper

1 87 1 DBA TH OF MURCHISON 3 1 1

man to receive the Wollaston Fund for the year. . . .
The President and others hailed my proposition.
One objection raised was that Croll's researches
involved no personal expense. Prestwich and I
thought that of no importance ; but nevertheless if you
can tell me anything on that score I shall be doubly
armed —

And on the top of opportunity,
Quell the base scullion rogues, whose envy dull
Would squash the light of Genius, and instead
Display a dirty, spluttering, farthing dip,
And swear that 'tis the sun.

So look alive, my pigeon, and help in this good
cause. ... I can do nothing till my third edition of
Physical Geology and Geography is in the press. I
am now at the last lecture of it. I will turn it into
chapters. It will be nearly twice as long as it was,
and so much modified (I hope improved) that it may
almost be said to be a new book. — Ever sincerely,

A. C. RAMSAY.

Sir Roderick Murchison died on the 22nd October
1871, and the office of Director-General of the
Geological Survey once more became vacant. When
he accepted the appointment it was with the expressed
intention of holding it only for a short period. ' I
will tide you over a few years,' he said to Ramsay
at the outset. But he retained the position for six-
teen years and a half. Of his geological labours, and
more especially of his connection with the Geological
Survey, a full account has been given elsewhere.1
These matters have therefore been only cursorily
referred to in the foregoing chapters.

1 Life of Sir R. I. Murchison t 2 vols., 1875.

312 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY REORGANISED CHAP, ix

The death of their Director-General necessarily gave
rise to considerable anxiety among the officers of the
Survey. They hoped that their friend and colleague,
who had been passed over at the time of De la Beche's
death, would not be passed over again. Rumour, of
course, was busy with reports of various kinds — the
Jermyn Street establishment was to be broken up,
there was to be no new Director-General, or an
outsider who was variously named was to be once
more put over the service. But, happily, these
predictions proved to be false. After four months of
suspense, Ramsay received from Lord Ripon, who
was then Lord-President of the Council, a letter dated
26th February 1872, asking him if it would be agreeable
to him that he should be nominated to the vacant post.
It was explained that the delay had arisen because
various questions connected with the several branches
of the establishment in Jermyn Street had been under
consideration. The appointment thus offered to him
did not embrace the School of Mines. A great
scheme was in contemplation for the formation of a
College of Science at South Kensington, for which
the Jermyn Street School would form an excellent
nucleus ; and it was therefore considered expedient to
sever the tie which from the beginning had united the
School of Mines to the rest of the organisation
planned and carried out by De la Beche. A fortnight
later I had the following note from Ramsay : ' \6tk
March. — I was yesterday summoned to attend a meet-
ing of the [Committee of] Privy Council at South
Kensington. The result is I am Director - General
of the Surveys, Museum, and Mining Record Office,
Bristow succeeds me as Director for England and
Wales, Howell succeeds Bristow (as District Surveyor),

1872 RAMSA Y BECOMES DIRECTOR-GENERAL 313

and Ward gets up to be geologist.' Thus at last he
had attained what had been the height of his ambition.
After thirty-one years of faithful service he was now
placed officially at the head of the organisation of
which he had so long been the life and soul.

CHAPTER X

DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

BEFORE we follow the subject of this biography in his
new sphere of duty and responsibility it will be of
advantage to look for a moment at the state of the
Survey when he was called to be the head of it. He
was no longer to be immediately responsible for
the personal supervision of the field-work. It is
interesting, therefore, to consider in what condition he
left the mapping in England and Wales, and how far
the Survey had advanced in Scotland and Ireland,
which were now to be under his jurisdiction.

In England and Wales the only untouched tracts
were Norfolk and Suffolk, with portions of Essex and
Cambridgeshire, the greater part of Lincolnshire and
Yorkshire, and the north-western portion of Cumber-
land and Northumberland. The field-work was being
pushed forward in the six northern counties, Northum-
berland, Durham, Cumberland, Westmoreland, York-
shire, and Lancashire. A group of surveyors was
busy in Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, and Leicester-
shire, and another in Essex, Hertfordshire, and parts
of the home-counties. As for some years past all the
surface-geology had been traced upon the maps as well as
the outcrops of the older works underneath, a consider-
able part of England had now been surveyed for Drift.

1872 DUTIES OF DIRECTOR-GENERAL 315

In Scotland the survey, extending westward from
the area where Ramsay began in 1854, had stretched
across the island from the mouth of the Firth of Tay
to the mouth of the Clyde, and southwards to a wavy
line drawn from • Berwick-on-Tweed to Wigtown.
There were still large tracts of the counties of Berwick,
Roxburgh, Dumfries, Kirkcudbright, Wigtown, and
Ayr to be surveyed. The Highlands had not yet
been touched.

In Ireland all the country south of a line drawn
from Clew Bay to Dundalk had been surveyed, and
most of it had been published. The ground to the
east of a line from Dundalk to Lough Neagh had
likewise been in great part surveyed and published.
All the northern part of the country was still un-
mapped, including the north-western tracts of Mayo,
Donegal, Londonderry, Tyrone, nearly the whole of
Antrim and Fermanagh, with large tracts of Sligo,
Leitrim, Monaghan, and Armagh.

The duties of Director-General of the Geological
Survey and Director of the Museum of Practical
Geology are necessarily to a large extent administrative.
But as far as possible he keeps himself in touch with
the field-work by personally visiting the districts that
are being mapped, and becoming acquainted with the
details. By making himself familiar with the problems
encountered in each of the three kingdoms, he is
enabled to bring the experience of one branch of the
Survey to bear upon the difficulties of the others, and
thus to ensure more rapid progress as well as more
harmonious results over the whole United Kingdom.
All maps, sections, and memoirs, are submitted to him
before publication, and in this way a good deal of
editorial work is imposed upon him. The amount of

316 DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE SURVEY CHAP, x

Survey correspondence is thus necessarily large and
constant. The Director-General is, further, the official
channel of communication with his own and with other
departments of Government, as well as with the
general public. Endless are the applications he
receives for information or advice on geological
questions. At one moment he is asked for assistance
in supplying an arsenal or fort with water ; at
another he is requested to inform a government board
where a prison or a workhouse had best be placed.
One Colonial government inquires of him whether in
his opinion water is likely to be obtained at a particular
spot which he may never have seen or heard of. Another
sends home a box of earth and stones with a request
to know whether the material affords hopeful indica-
tions of gold. A landed proprietor in England asks
him why no coal has been found on his estate, another
forwards a parcel of * specimens,' and wishes to know
what useful minerals he may look for in the places
from which they were taken. A third sends a so-called
'fossil,' dug up on the estate, in the belief that it is
some unique treasure, when it proves to be merely a
lump of inorganic concretion. In numberless questions
of drainage, road-making, railway-engineering, water-
supply, choosing sites for buildings, and other matters
where a knowledge of geology has a practical bearing,
applications are continually made to the Geological
Survey for assistance. It may readily be believed
that the Director-General is thus involved in a large
amount of extraneous business, besides that which
more properly arises from his ordinary official duties.

The quantity of letter-writing which now fell upon
Ramsay, whether by his own hand or by that of a
secretary, was often so large that it left him hardly time

1872 PROMOTION COMES TOO LATE 317

for other avocations. Amid the multitude of letters he
was glad to keep them as brief as might be. He could
comparatively seldom indulge in the pleasant gossiping
epistles which hitherto he had been wont to send to his
friends and colleagues, but restricted himself more and
more to the absolutely essential business. Neverthe-
less for a few years he contrived to find opportunity for
putting on paper some of the observations he had
made on the origin of the features of landscapes, and
for communicating papers on this subject to the
Geological Society.

Except that he was more involved in official
routine, and had less time for inspection of field-
work and for original research of his own, his life as
Director-General passed much in the same way as
that of Director had done. One year slipped away
like another, only marked by longer or shorter spells of
London life. But he had one great resource in a house
at Beaumaris left to Mrs. Ramsay by an old friend.
To this retreat he betook himself more and more with
his wife and family. There, away from the thousand
distractions of town, he attended to his correspondence
and worked at the geological or literary undertakings
which duty or choice imposed on him. The mountains
of Caernarvonshire rose in front of his windows to
remind him, as he felt himself no longer young, that
he had been a good climber in his day, and that on
their flanks and among their Cwms and crags he had
done some of the best geological labour of his life.

Ramsay had now gained the position which for so
many years he had wished to reach. But it must be
confessed that the reward came to him too late to
enable him to profit by it as he would have done had
it been conferred ten or fifteen years sooner. He had

318 DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE SURVEY CHAP, x

probably never quite recovered from the effects of that
disastrous break-down in 1860. Had he been able to
free himself from the burden of his lectureship at
the School of Mines, he might perhaps have been
restored to complete health, and have escaped from that
mental weariness which his friends and colleagues used
sorrowfully to watch as it increased upon him during
each succeeding session of the school. Even the
advancement to be Director-General did not throw off
this incubus. The income of the appointment was
reduced by the amount of his salary as professor, and
he was compelled to go on lecturing for five years longer,
until the Treasury at length agreed to restore the
emoluments of the office to what they had formerly
been, and to permit him to resign his lectureship.

In the early autumn the new Director -General
made an official tour in Ireland, in order to become
personally acquainted with the various officers in that
part of the United Kingdom, and also to see some of
the more salient features of Irish geology, of which as
yet he had not been able to obtain any knowledge by
actual examination in the field. The following letters
supply us with some pictures of the tour : —

LARNE, 2^th September 1872.

MY DEAR MRS. COOKMAN — I am at Larne, in
Antrim, some twenty miles or so north of Belfast, and
have with me my good friend John F. Campbell, ycleped
of Islay.1 And this is how it happened. Being in
London against my will, in re a fight in the Irish
branch of the Survey, I heard that Campbell was also

1 John F. Campbell, born 1821, died 1885, author of Tales of the West
Highlands, was also fond of geological observation. He had travelled far and
wide, and was the author of the picturesque and entertaining work Frost and
Fire, besides other volumes of travel.

1872 INSPECTING TOUR IN IRELAND 319

in London in a dismantled state. ... So here we are !
At Dublin I transacted a deal of business, saw some
marvellous antiquities at the Irish Academy, and then
with my colleague Mr. Hull, Director for Ireland, we
started for Dundalk, where besides seeing the geology,
we visited Cuchullin's Rath and saw the grave of Fin
M'Coul ; worked our way to Newry ; from Newry to
Warrenpoint, and joined there a fine young fellow
called Traill, one of the Survey. He looks something
like what I did when I joined the Survey, only he
is much handsomer, sings a great deal better, but
cannot jump so high. We saw the Carlingford country
and all the Mourne Mountains, and progressed to
Newcastle, staying two or three days at each place.
We were out on the mountains or on the sea-cliffs every
day, and have been battered by equinoxial gales from
every point of the compass. ... I do not expect to
be home for a fortnight or three weeks, for by easy-
stages I have to continue this royal progress till
we get to Galway, and then back across the great
central plain of Ireland to Dublin.

The Irish trouble to which I alluded has lost me
three weeks, otherwise I proposed going to Germany,
and perhaps taking Ella with me. But I begin now
to see that it will be too late for this year. I have
such a pretty problem in my mind, if I could only
tackle it.

FLORENCE COURT, $th October 1872.

MY DEAR GEIKIE — I got your letter last night on
our arrival here, Hull and self. I have been making
a grand round with Hull for more than a fortnight. . . .
Here at Lord Enniskillen's we stay till Monday. I
have learned a great deal about Irish geology and
physical geography previously to me unknown. John

320 DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE SURVEY CHAP, x

Campbell stuck by us as far as Armagh, when he
branched or shunted off to speak Gaelic to the folk in
the north-west.

Thanks for your remarks on Arran. I have seen
the Mourne Mountain and Slieve Croob granites, and
one of them took away my breath. [Here follows a
rough sketch showing an upper cake of contorted and
baked Silurian strata with basalt dykes, underlain and
cut off by a mass of granite.] That is in the Mourne
Mountains, and the drawing represents the crest of a
large mountain a mile or two long ; it is one of many
such.

When I saw it drawn in a section I could scarce
believe it. But I saw it afterwards on the ground, and
it is true. — Ever sincerely, A. C. RAMSAY.

The loughs of Ireland, as might have been expected,
roused the enthusiasm of one who had studied lakes
so closely, and had been involved in so much contro-
versy about them. Regarding those of Fermanagh he
tells Mrs. Cookman : 'These lakes here (Upper and
Lower Lough Erne) first took away my breath, then
made my hair stand on end, and then confused my
intellect so lamentably that I doubt if I will ever
write sense any more. They are the most curious
lakes I ever saw/

DUBLIN, \\th October 1872.

MY DEAR GEIKIE — Since I wrote to you I have
been at Sligo and Boyle, and I now write to say that
near Boyle I saw Old Red Sandstone, which doubtless
is Lower, and it contains bands of felspathic lavas
precisely like those of the Pentlands and Oban. I
have seen no Old Red Sandstone that is not Lower

1872 THE ANNUAL REPORT 321

and the Carboniferous lies highly unconformably
on it.

I now also know a deal about the great Carbon-
iferous Limestone plains of the middle of Ireland, and
something of the coal-fields. Ireland must have been
somewhat like Finland long ago, before so many of
its lakes got turned into peat -mosses. I have also
partly realised the Shannon and a lot of other odds and
ends in a three-and-a-half weeks' tour among Hull's men.
I have seen all the staff but two, and a very nice set
of fellows they are. I leave to-morrow night, and get
home on Tuesday, I hope. — Ever sincerely,

A. C. RAMSAY.

One of the periodical tasks of the Director-General
is to receive the reports of the field operations, of
the indoor work, and of the Museum for the year, and
to prepare from them his Annual Report of progress,
which is sent to the Department of Science and Art
to be presented to Parliament, and published in the
annual blue book of the Department. At the end of
the year these various returns are prepared by the
officers of each branch of the Survey and the curators
of the collections in Jermyn Street, Edinburgh, and
Dublin, and the first duty of the" chief after the begin-
ing of January is to master their contents, to procure
additional information or correction where needed, and
to work the whole into a narrative of all that has
been done during the previous twelve months by the
different establishments under his control. Buried in
the pages of a blue book, these Annual Reports are
much less widely known than the labour spent upon
them entitles them to be. It was now Ramsay's turn
in the early part of 1873 to compile the yearly state-

322 DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE SURVEY CHAP, x

ment. His personal familiarity with the men in the
field and their work enabled him to attack the most
difficult part of the task with spirit and success. In
these labours of routine, and indeed in all the official
work of his office, he received constant loyal and
efficient aid from Mr. Edward Best, who, originally
appointed as an assistant geologist for service in the
field, had been transferred early in his career to the
office in Jermyn Street, where he acted as general
secretary in charge of the correspondence and the
issue of publications. Mr. Best's long experience
made him familiar with all the details of the history
and progress of the Survey. He was a general
favourite among the staff, and for many years served
as the right hand of his chief.1

Ramsay still occasionally contributed an article
to the Saturday Review, and gave a Friday evening
discourse at the Royal Institution. In the pages of his
favourite 'weekly' he wrote pleasantly about the history
of Great Britain, taking a much wider view into the
past as well as into the future of the subject than the
ordinary historian is content with, and adding a caution
to our statesmen for the benefit of their successors fifty
thousand years hence, when a new glacial period shall
begin to banish man from the northern half of Europe.
' It behoves the Minister for the Colonies,' he con-
cludes, * to see that our inter-tropical possessions are
kept in good order for the coming migration, for the
fortunes of the British Islands will then be far below
zero. One cold comfort remains — the universal
northern ice-sheet may possibly solve the Irish diffi-
culty.'

1 He joined the service in 1855 under De la Beche, and retired from it on
3 1st March 1893, carrying with him the affectionate regard of all his colleagues.

i8;3 DISCOURSE AT ROYAL INSTITUTION 323

Another occupation of the same winter was the
writing of an article on the River Po for Macmillans
Magazine. As his mind dwelt so much now on rivers
and their operations, he was led to recall what he had
himself seen of the workings of the Po and its
tributaries on the southern flanks of the Alps, and
over the vast plains of Lombardy. He likewise read
extensively the literature of that great river. The paper
which he now wrote was translated by Gastaldi into
Italian for the Bulletin of the Italian Alpine Club, and
separate copies of the translation were printed for the
Italian Government, that they might be distributed
widely among local authorities and others in Lom-
bardy. In sending a copy of the Italian version of
the paper to Mrs. Cookman, Ramsay told her that he
had * heard from Italy that the article has helped to
stir up the authorities there in re their duty to their
rivers and the people.'

Before the Royal Institution he discoursed on
'Old Continents,' and sent me the following account
of the evening. 'I lectured last Friday [i 2th Feb-
ruary 1873] on " Old Continents " to a very full house.
As I treated it, the subject was quite new to every one
there, and by good luck I was in the right humour for
lecturing. I restricted myself to the great continental
epoch between the close of the Upper Silurian and the
end of the New Red Marl, and put all episodes in
consecutive order. The act of lecturing on it suggested
some new ideas which I did not broach, for I had quite
enough to do without them in an hour. However,
perhaps they may bear fruit in a paper for the
Geological.'

Having been chosen by Murchison as his literary
executor, and charged with the writing of his bio-

324 DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE SURVEY CHAP.X

graphy, I had applied to Ramsay for any of Mur-
chison's letters which he could supply, and also for
information as to the best way of procuring materials
from some of the old chiefs correspondents. He
answered as follows : ' I have no influence with
Sedgwick. We are very good friends, but he never
quite forgets the Survey having turned his Cambrian
into Lower Silurian, so aiding Sir Roderick, without
specially meaning it. ... I doubt if Hughes will be
able to help you in that matter. Sedgwick is still sore
about it. ... I never saw Wollaston, but Greenough,
Buckland, Warburton, and Fitton I knew. There
ought also to be De la Beche, Sedgwick, old John
Taylor, Whewell, Mantell, Major Clark, old Stokes,
Sir Philip Egerton, Lord Enniskillen, Babbage, and
others. They used all to have a jollification at Lord
E.'s rooms in Jermyn Street after the meetings. Lord
E. told me a lot of things last autumn, which I now
nearly forget.'

Of the voluminous memoir on the Geology of
North Wales, published in 1866, a new edition was
now required, and its author set about the necessary
preparation. The house at Beaumaris came then to
be of more practical value to him than ever, for while
it allowed him to escape conveniently from London,
and to keep his family around him, it provided him
with a home near the ground which he might have to
re-examine. This new edition continued to be one of
his main employments during the rest of his official
life.

While at Beaumaris, in the summer of 1873, he
made a short excursion to St. David's, the geology of
which had in recent years been brought into pro-
minence by Mr. Salter and Dr. Hicks, whose con-

JOHN W. SALTER

i873 SOUTH WALES REVISITED 325

elusions did not quite coincide with those expressed
on the maps of the Geological Survey. Writing to
Mrs. Ramsay from that remote cathedral town on the 3rd
August, he says : * To-day (Sunday) we have been at
the cathedral, and I sat in my old stall and sang bass.
But the music has sadly fallen off. The organ is dis-
mantled because of the repairs of the church, and there
is only a harmonium, and the singers are diminished.
Scott is slowly restoring the building, but there is still
a great deal to do, with as yet insufficient money.

' To-morrow we take a boat and coast along for
eight or ten miles to re-examine the coast section.
The weather is splendid, and it will be delightful.
We have first-rate boatmen, one being the captain of
the lifeboat. . . . Now that I am here, it would never
do to leave the country without bringing the geology
of St. David's (which is now exciting so much atten-
tion) up to the modern mark. Considering how
ignorant I was in 1841, I wonder I did it so well.'

Three days later, writing to the same corre-
spondent, he tells her : ' Probably we will start to-
morrow, drive up to Fishguard, and thence to Car-
digan. I shall refresh my memory on geological
points by the way. . . . This is a moist, hot climate,
like Cornwall. Your very clothes get damp, and your
gummed envelopes get also damp and seal them-
selves.'

On his return to Beaumaris he sent me the fol-
lowing account of the trip into Pembrokeshire : * I
have been for a fortnight at St. David's seeing all
Hicks's discoveries among the Cambrian rocks and his
Menevian strata, which form a grey band, 550 feet
thick, between the uppermost purple Cambrian grits and
the bottom of the Lingula Flags. Fossils numerous,

326 DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE SURVEY CHAP, x

all of the same kind as those in the Cambrian beds,
only some additional genera and species, but none or
few common to the Lingula Flags. Etheridge I took
with me, and David Homfray came also from Port-
madoc. As I knew before, there are boulder-beds at
St. David's, but I did not know that they contain
chalk-flints, which are also found in Ramsey Island.
The country is undoubtedly moutonne1, and I saw on
the coast in three places striations running N.N.W.
and S.S.E., pointing, in fact, to the north of Ireland.

' My Contemporary Review paper, as regards
substance, is in all important points my two Red Rock
papers in the Geological Journal, only the subject is
put consecutively. ... I am satisfied that in Scotland
there are two or three glacial episodes in what is
commonly called Old Red. I have no doubt, however,
that you will work it out, and I see no reason against
a Carboniferous glacial episode. The day will come
when all folk will allow a Silurian one too, which I
long ago inferred from the rocks on Carrick Moore's
land, and troubled his mind by printing the idea.

1 Hicks I think is wrong about his Laurentian axis
at St. David's. I believe the area is Cambrian
metamorphosed into a kind of syenite, and that the
granites there are, like those of Anglesey, also meta-
morphic. But I could not be supposed to see all that
in 1841 when I surveyed the area.'1

He was able this summer to carry out at last his
intention of visiting the Rhine Valley, for the purpose
of studying the problem of its origin. Taking with
him his eldest daughter, and accompanied by his sister
and his nephew (now Professor William Ramsay of
University College, London), he ascended the river

1 See p. 172 and note.

i873 THE SWISS VALLEYS ONCE MORE 327

from Cologne, and remained a week at Bingen, making
excursions up the valley of the Nahe and the Rhine.
Thence the party went to Strasburg, and Ramsay took
some geological expeditions into the Vosges valleys for
the solution of the question he had come to study.
Being so near, it was impossible to resist the pleasure
of seeing some of his old friends and former haunts in
Switzerland. So with his travelling companions, he
made for Basle, Lucerne, and Meiringen, crossing the
Scheideck to Grindelwald, where he was much inter-
ested in the diminution of the glaciers since he had
previously seen them. By way of the Wengern Alp,
Lauterbrunnen, and Interlaken, the party reached
Berne, where they remained some days taking excur-
sions with the venerable Studer. They then made for
Bex, where Ramsay, with eyes now quickened to
perceive the profound interest of river-courses, was de-
lighted to have an opportunity of examining the valley of
the Rhone where it bends sharply round at Martigny,and
farther down where the river is filling up the upper end
of the Lake of Geneva with sediment. Returning to
Basle, they experienced much kindness from that delight-
ful veteran of Swiss geology, Peter Merian, and from
Professor Rlitimeyer, and then made their way home-
ward by the east side of the Rhine, through Heidelberg to
Cologne. It had been Ramsay's intention to descend
the whole length of the grand old river down to
Rotterdam, but on looking into the state of the
finances of the party, he found that they had just
money enough left to take them straight back to
London, which they reached by way of Ostend.

On his return he sent me (26th September) a few
jottings of his doings : * I got home last night, having
solved my problem in a very different way from what

328 DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE SURVEY CHAP, x

I expected. It was curious to find all the supports to
one's speculative views crumbling away one after
another. So I began again quite dispassionately in re
the Rhine, and the result is that I think I have done
the gun trick, which is too long to write about. I
have also learned a deal of other odds and ends.' To
Mrs. Cookman he wrote : ' Ella and I had a delightful
journey. I saw at least five of my old friends in
Switzerland, two of them, alas ! over eighty years of
age, but I rejoice to say quite hale and hearty. But I
missed old Escher von der Linth, who is no more. I
learnt heaps of things, and will send you a memoir
when it is written and printed, on the physical history
of the valley of the Rhine. If you and Betha will
come out with my wife and me, we'll explore the valley
of the Rhone from Geneva downwards, and next year
do the Danube from its sources in the Schwarzwald to
its mouth, and write joint memoirs on these subjects,
for I am rather crazy about rivers just at present, and
it will be of great advantage to the world if Louisa and
you will get crazy too.'

The results of this brief continental excursion were
quickly brought before the world. On the 4th February
1874 Ramsay read an account of his observations to
the Geological Society in a paper on the Physical
History of the Valley of the Rhine, and on the 27th
March he gave a Friday evening discourse on the sub-
ject to the Royal Institution. A reference to his views
on this question will be made in the succeeding chapter.

Next summer, as was usual now, he spent some
time at Beaumaris, making excursions thence to re-
examine ground for the preparation of the Welsh
Memoir. With the company and assistance of Mr.
Hughes, formerly one of his staff, but who had now

1 874 REVISION OF WELSH GEOLOGY 329

succeeded Sedgwick as Woodwardian Professor at
Cambridge, and also with Mr. R. Etheridge, and Mr.
D. Homfray of Portmadoc, he traversed a good deal
of ground in the district of Cader Idris, Aran Mowd-
dwy, and Portmadoc. Rain and wind buffeted the
party a good deal, but the Director-General declared
that ' every day hardened his old legs more and more,
and by the end he cared little for the fatigue.' In an
account of his doings (gih August) he wrote to me that
* the necessity for a second edition of my North Wales
is now urgent, and I am seriously at work making out
a new line of division, that between the base of the
Llandeilos and the top of the Tremadocs, or, en grand,
between the Lingula Flag series and the Llandeilos.
I have accurately traced twenty miles of it, and have
for the first time (yesterday) got perplexed. We have
been at work for about eighteen days.'

Some further information is given in a letter to his
brother William, written from Portmadoc during a
subsequent excursion. (i3th September 1874): 'I
am busy revising a deal of country and realising all
the discoveries that have turned up since Selwyn and
I were here more than twenty-five years ago. It
involves the tracing of one new geological line that no
one suspected long ago, and which I surmised must
exist ever since Sir Roderick and I were in the north
of Scotland some fifteen years ago.'

The progress of his work and the nature of some
of his engagements during the year 1875 are told in
the following letters : —

^th January 1875.

MY DEAR GEIKIE — I highly approve of your vindi-
cation of De la Beche [in proof-sheets of the Life of

330 DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE SURVEY CHAP, x

Murchison^. In fact, the one-sidedness lay all on the
other side. . . . Last Wednesday Ward read a second
paper at the Geological Society on the Cumbrian
Lake-basins, going the whole hog in re their glacier
origin. Bonney allowed that he could go that length,
but that the theory in no way applied to the Swiss
and Italian lakes. Since then I have received a letter
from Gastaldi enclosing a MS. of a paper to be read
at the Academy of Turin on Sunday, the 7th February,
in which he proves that all the great Italian lakes were
produced by glacier erosion, and giving good reasons
for their special positions and relative sizes in relation
to the valleys in which they lie, and also their relations
to the Pliocene deposits of the valley of the Po. He
wants my opinion on it before it is read, which I will
send him on Monday. In the meanwhile, my wife is
translating it, and I will publish it with his permission
after he has read it. It is a very important paper.—
Ever sincerely, A. C. RAMSAY.

j.6th April 1875.

MY DEAR INFANTA [Miss Johnes] — I do not think
you can have any idea of the good that my visit
to Dolaucothi did to me physically and morally. I
went on improving after I got home, too, extending
even to the art of lecturing within the last few days.
The pleasant quietness and the absence of all necessity
for being agreeable in your house (!) did me a power of
good. The dawdling by the quiet waters and among
my old friends the individual trees, and the sitting
opposite your father in the library, to say nothing
about his two daughters all about the house — ach,
lieber Himmel ! — these things were good for a man.

1 See vol. ii. p. 186, note.

i8;s DISCOURSE AT ROYAL INSTITUTION 331

You know that I was always soft enough in the head,
but now I think I have got softened all over, not
excepting the engine that drives the blood. I do not
think I have even thought a cross thought since I came
home, and I only hope I may always be able to keep
up that decent frame of mind. You see I do not mind
what I say to you or your sister. You are one of the
Sisters of Charity, and I make my confession to you
as I would to the Pope, honest man, if I happened to
be intimate with him, and liked him sufficiently. I
often think of that pleasant episode in my life which
began when I first went to Pumpsaint, and has lasted
up till to-day. That to me is a golden legend better
than any that Caxton ever printed, for in spite of a
few clouds, so much of it has been full of air, light, and
sunshine. On the 26th July 1842 I first went to
Pumpsaint, and there was no winter at all that year,
nor for several years after. And even now there is
no more of it than is perhaps good for one.

LONDON, 24^ April 1875.

MY DEAR GEIKIE — Since receiving yours of 2ist
I have been very busy. . . . Last night I lectured at
the Royal Institution on the Pre- Miocene Alps, and
their subsequent waste and degradation, to a good
audience. It is a difficult subject to make quite plain
to a general audience, the figures are so large ; but
though I was not quite satisfied with it myself, Sir
Philip Egerton and others seemed to think I made it
clear. — Ever sincerely, ANDW. C. RAMSAY.

LONDON, 2$rd July 1875.

MY DEAR MRS. COOKMAN — . . . As for me my life
is rendered miserable by writing testimonials for men

332 DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE SURVEY CHAP, x

trying for professorships in Australia, Japan, Aberyst-
with, and Eton — the latter a mastership. I have
had the nomination of a man to the University in the
capital of Japan, as Professor of Geology. Then I am
driven wild by invitations for self and lady to all sorts
of public soirees — three for this very night, to only
the quietest of which I will go. However, I have
made up my mind to dine with the Lord Mayor, and
I will take Louisa to the soiree of the Society of Arts.
... I have had a letter to-day from America, and the
' critter ' encloses another sheet giving a sketch of my
life, and asking me to fill in some blanks and correct it
and send it back for publication in Appletoris American
Cyclopedia ! I am laughing consumedly. — Ever
affectionately, ANDW. C. RAMSAY.

During the summer and autumn he was again busy
in Wales, and from time to time he sent me tidings of
his doings. From his letters to me the following
sentences are taken.

' 27 tk July. — There has been no practicable weather
till yesterday. It is fine now, and I start for Merioneth-
shire on Thursday. The book is not in a state to
make any further progress till more work is done in
the field. I had brought it up to that point.

' \'2th August. — Here [Beaumaris] and in Mon-
mouthshire, Etheridge and I are hard at work. In the
mountains about Dolgelli I have Ward and Hebert,
having shown them the sections and the needful line
to add to the map. I am not fit for daily high
mountain work on a large scale now.

'The case stands thus: We have (i) Lingula
Flags, (2) Tremadoc Slates, (3) Arenig beds, which in
my Memoir are called Lower Llandeilo or Arenig beds,

i875 GEOLOGY OF WALES 333

above which in N. Wales comes the Caradoc series,
of which the old-fashioned Llandeilos of Murchison
may with propriety be considered a part. From the
Tremadocs into the Arenig beds there pass about ten
or eleven species ; from the Arenigs into the ordinary
Llandeilo and Caradoc beds eight species. I hear
that you have equivalents of the Arenigs in the S.
of Scotland, somewhere towards the Cambrian country.
Can you give me any idea of their real relations to any
overlying Silurian strata, and underlying strata, if any ?
. . . I have some evidence that the Arenigs of
Caernarvonshire have overlapped all below, and lie
direct on the Cambrians. It is in my Geology of N.
Wales, but I think these Arenigs are there called
Llandeilos.

* i ^th September. — I scarcely think I have had
enough of rest in the entire way. I am getting on with
my new edition in spite of too much correspondence, and
I have now got all the data except a scrap. The great
Arenig and Lower Llandeilo line is done and run out
to sea at both ends. I think I would almost rather
write a new book than a new edition. Dovetailing is
often so troublesome. I think (or hope) that I shall
soon get to the last half, which may need but little
alteration, except a few words here and there. As it
turns out, a good deal of my book will be almost re-
written. It will be a great improvement on the last
edition: In the Welsh section, the trappy inter-
stratifications are, of course, accidents, and sometimes,
as at Criccieth, they are absent.

' 2$rd December. — I am so head and ears at present
in the River Dee (Wales) that I think I have got water
on the brain. It is the most curious bit of physical
history of any river I have yet tackled. It will make

334 DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE SURVEY CHAP, x

a chapter of my Survey Memoir on N. Wales ; but I
shall first send it to the Geological Society. 30^. —
I have finished my Jolly Miller chapter [on the origin
of the River Dee]. The results rather astound myself
about the extremely early date of the river. It has
been running so long that the Rhine is a baby to it
in age.'

He had on hand at this time a number of geolo-
gical memoirs bearing on his favourite topic of the
origin of the superficial contours of the land. The
paper on 'How Anglesey became an Island' was
read before the Geological Society on the igth January
1876, and that upon the River Dee upon the 26th
April following. Then he was busy during the winter
partly on the new edition of the Welsh Memoir, and
partly on a revised and enlarged edition of his little
volume on The Physical Geology and Geography of
Great Britain. He still also fired an occasional shot
in defence of his theory of the glacial origin of lake-
basins. We resume the extracts from his correspond-
ence.

On the 26th January 1876 he wrote to me : ' My
Dee paper only went in [to the Geological Society] last
Saturday, and therefore is not likely to be read for
a month or two, in the time of the new President,
Dr. Duncan, who assumes office on the igth February.
Austen would not take it, and there is no doubt that
Duncan is the next best man. Evans's selection of
him gives general satisfaction.

' We are very deficient in volcanic rocks in England
and Wales, excepting those of Lower Silurian date.
These are all younger than the Tremadoc Slates,
and begin in the Arenig series (Lower Llandeilo of
Murchison). If, as I have said, the red Cambrian

i8;6 RELIEVED OF GEOLOGICAL LECTURESHIP 335

rocks are mostly fresh-water or estuarine deposits, that
may give some sign of an old valley ; but in Wales
there is a great thickness of Lingula Flags and
Tremadoc Slates between the Cambrian strata and
the volcanic series. ... I know all the New Red
series of England north of the Severn, and it contains
no volcanic rocks. In Devon it does, see De La
Beche's Report on Devon and Cornwall, chap, vii.,
where you will find something directly bearing on your
question in re valleys and volcanoes.

' We have no Liassic or Oolitic volcanic rocks, and
none in the Wealden, though that formation must have
been deposited at the mouth of a great river-valley.
Neither have we any Cretaceous or Eocene igneous
rocks, though there is in these formations evidence of
the mouth of another big river-valley.

' The Eifel volcanoes are, in general, on the top of
a plateau, in which, however, there were pre- Miocene
valleys, if these volcanoes be Miocene. ... I think
your letter gives me a glimmering of what you are
thinking about in the matter of these old river-valleys
and volcanoes, and the subject is quite a new idea to
me, and will be to others when you work it out.'

To Miss Johnes he wrote on the 2nd March : 4 1
have pretty good news to tell of myself. This is my
last year of delivering lectures in the Royal School of
Mines. This will be a very considerable relief in point
of work. As I had pay and fees as a professor, they
cut off that part of the salary given to Sir Roderick,
supposed to represent the Museum as distinct from
the Survey. Now they are to add ^300 a year to
the Survey salary for the Museum, and cut off the
Professorship salary, etc., and for that "crowning
mercy" I am very glad, and so is Louisa. The fear

336 DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE SURVEY CHAP, x

is that by and by, having no occasion to lecture
students, I may take to lecturing her instead.'

To Mrs. Cookman he reported that he had given
his farewell lecture on the Qth May, * fifty-five minutes
being devoted to a broad resume of geological subjects,
and eight or ten to taking farewell of the students, and
of my post of Professor of Geology. In that theatre
I had lectured for quarter of a century, to say nothing
of three previous years at University College. Glad
as I am to stop, the severance cost me a sort of pang,
and for a moment at the beginning of the valedictory,
I almost thought I was going to break down — a tend-
ency which my watchful wife observed, but which
probably no one else did. In point of fact, I bit my
under-lip, and swallowed something like a young
potato in my throat. A sprinkling of extra strangers
came, and all my children were there to hear Papa's
last lecture.'

On the 22nd June he formally sent in his resigna-
tion of the lectureship, and the task which had once
been so light and joyful, but which in these last years
of failing power had become an increasing burden, was
now happily removed. He told me that he would be
financially a loser by the change, ' but the relief will
counterbalance that.'

\QthJuly 1876.

MY DEAR GEIKIE — On Thursday I take my
family to Beaumaris. Etheridge will join me by and
by to have a bout at the rocks of Lleyn (north horn
of Cardigan Bay), where I begin to believe I shall find
the Arenig Slates lying directly on the Cambrian,
without the intervention of the Menevian, Lingula, and
Tremadoc beds, and involving a vast unconformity.

1 876 REVISION WORK IN NORTH WALES 337

It is a most important point in British Silurian geology,
as I have long attempted to show, and if I find this
additional demonstration I shall be glad.

I shall be at work in Wales, writing the Memoir,
with some field-work, for a good while, how long I
know not. In September I go to Gibraltar for the
Colonial Office and the authorities at Gibraltar, with an
assistant. All expenses for both will be paid, and I
asked nothing more, considering it a piece of duty.
It is in re water. Now I would like much if you
could spare your brother James to go with me. A
few weeks will do it, for the surveying will be brief.

In accordance with his plan of work Ramsay this
summer revisited many parts of the ground in North
Wales which Selwyn and he had surveyed so long
before, and with the assistance of some of his col-
leagues traced in the new boundaries. It is interesting
to notice among his notes of these journeys that over
tracts where formerly he had eyes only for the old
rocks and their structure, he now looked out eagerly
everywhere for the tracks of glaciers and ice-sheets,
examined the rock-basins, and went carefully over the
exposures of drift.

BEAUMARIS, io//fc August 1876.

MY DEAR GEIKIE — We started at eight yesterday
morning, and had twelve hours on the Caernarvon-
shire hills. We began by marching to the top of Moel
Tryfaen to see the Cambrians and the shell-beds of
Trimmer, 1 1 50 [correctly about 1400] feet above the sea.
These are undoubtedly true marine, beachy, false-bedded
sands and gravels, overlaid by good boulder-clay, and
have been much eroded before or during the deposition

338 DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE SURVEY CHAP, x

of the latter. It is a long story. We saw much moraine
matter en route up. There is no description of that
area in my Old Glaciers of North Wales, and no printed
description of Moel Tryfaen gives an account of all
that we saw. I shall write a note about it for the
Geol. Soc., and also put it in my new edition of
North Wales, when I have digested it. In the
meanwhile, I see nothing in it adverse to my broader
views in the Old Glaciers of North Wales.

From Moel Tryfaen we walked across moor and
hill to Llanberis, that I might get a notion of the great
extension of the slate-quarries since I first mapped
the country some twenty-seven years ago. ... I re-
examined the Cambrian rocks at Bangor the other day,
and found that the Arenig beds lie directly upon them,
without the intervention of the Tremadoc Slates and
Lingula Flags, as I have all along maintained. This is
an important point for me versus mere stratigraphico-
palaeontological men who delight in finding errors in
Survey views. I wish you could find Arenig beds
directly on the Cambrians in the West Highlands.

On the 1 4th September he sailed for Gibraltar.
With the assistance of his colleague, Mr. James Geikie,
he made a careful survey of the Rock and a portion
of the surrounding ground, steamed in a gunboat along
the Spanish shores, crossed to the opposite mainland,
and sailed for fifty miles along the African coast so as
to get a bird's-eye view of the geology for purposes of
comparison with that of the northern side, spent three
days in Africa geologising and wandering among
Moors, camels, and the picturesque but odorous
streets and suburbs of a Moorish town. He was
back in England on the 3<Dth October.

1876-1877 TESTIMONIAL FROM PUPILS 339

On his return he set to work at once on the report
of his examination of Gibraltar with reference to the
question submitted to him. But materials enough of
a more generally interesting geological character had
been collected which it seemed a pity to bury in the
pages of a departmental blue book. The fellow-
travellers accordingly worked these materials up
into a conjoint paper, which in the spring of 1878 was
read before the Geological Society.

A pleasant incident diversified Ramsay's London
life during the winter of 1876-77. His pupils at the
School of Mines had raised among themselves and
former students about ^100, with which they pur-
chased a set of three handsome silver dessert pieces,
half a dozen old Dutch parcel gilt spoons, and some
other table ornaments. These they presented to their
much -esteemed teacher as an expression of their
gratitude and good-will for his eminent services to
the School, and for the benefit they had themselves
derived from his teaching and his influence.

How much his thoughts turned to foreign lands
and the geological questions there awaiting solution
is well shown in his correspondence at this time.
Thus to Mrs. Cookman he wrote : ' I have planned
a route to San Remo in the hope of going there to
fetch you home ; viz. that Louisa and I first go to
Mulhouse or Basle, and then find our way down the
Saone to Lyons, where it joins the Rhone, then work
up the Rhone to Geneva, and back to Lyons, and so
down the remainder of the Rhone to Marseilles, with
a possible divertissement into Auvergne. There is
something to find out about the valleys of the Saone
and Rhone that I know nothing about, and which I
think no one but myself has yet dreamed of. On the

340 DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE SURVEY CHAP, x

whole, I have always been a pretty good hand at
scientific dreaming, and I believe this dream will come
true, if I can only find time to work it out.'

A heartrending tragedy occurred during the autumn
of 1876 in the family at Dolaucothi. The butler
shot Mr. Johnes, severely wounded Mrs. Cookman,
and afterwards committed suicide. As these were
Ramsay's dearest friends, the event was a crush-
ing trial for him, and in some measure saddened all
his later life. His diary and his letters of this period
afford touching proofs of the tender affection and deep
sympathy of his nature.

But the vortex of London life swept him on. ' We
are all well enough,' he wrote later in the year to his
Dolaucothi friends, ' and, as usual, occupied with those
innumerable busynesses which take up so much of
people's lives in London, that anything like leisure
becomes an unknown quantity. Of course, I am at
work on a book in scraps of time, and if it were only
finished I fancy I might breathe more freely, but I
know that something else is sure to succeed it. The
Survey men both of Scotland and Ireland are crying
to me " Come," and go to both I must, some time
this year.

* The invasion of scientific foreigners has also set
in with unusual severity at an earlier season than
usual. I invite them to dinner ; some of them cannot
come, and some do come, and then we have a Babel of
languages. To add to that, we have got a German
housemaid who as yet speaks no English.

' Since writing that last word, dispatches have
arrived from Nova Scotia requiring immediate atten-
tion, the writer asking a letter from me, which, being
shown, shall stimulate the Governor of Newfoundland

1877 THE OLD GLACIERS OF NORTH ITALY 341

to see the importance of certain work on the north-
east coast of Labrador, whither my friend is being
despatched from Newfoundland the dreary. He is
the man who told Louisa that the worst dinner he
ever had consisted of "cold eagle and badger-sauce."1

To the same friends, who were now on the Riviera,
he writes : ' I grieve to say there is no chance of foreign
travel for me this year. I must go to Ireland, and I
must go to Scotland, and I have irons in the fire that
must be got out and cooled, some of them, I hope, ere
this year is much further advanced. . . . All of those
valleys opening into the Alps, from the Dora Baltea
to Como, have made a deep impression on me. I
wish I could see them again, and specially with you
two and Louisa. Besides the beauty, some curiously
interesting points have come out since we were there.
It is now known that the great lakes of Como,
Maggiore, etc., were at one time fjords, like those of
Norway. When the mighty old glaciers were busy
scooping out my lake - hollows, the ends of them
descended into the sea, and deposited their moraines
there, for sea-shells are mingled with the material at
the ends of the moraines. Then as the glaciers retired,
the lakes became fjords, and I hear that, just as in the
Swedish lakes, some marine species still inhabit the
waters of Maggiore. There is a geological infliction
for you ! I give it you without remorse, for I know
you to have a soul above buttons, unlike me, when
once I wandered out round a lonely lake at the
Grimsel in search of any kind of button, and found
one of brass, by the margin on an ice-scratched rock.'

The journeys of inspection to Ireland and Scotland
were duly made, and pictures of his progress may be
gathered from his correspondence.

342 DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE SURVEY CHAP, x

BEAUMARIS, qth September 1877.

MY DEAR GEIKIE — I got back on Thursday, after a
month's stiffish work all about Ireland, from Kilkenny
and Galway up to Portrush and the Giant's Causeway,
and so south by Belfast back to Dublin. I have seen
all the Miocene basalts in the north of Ireland, and
from thence have had a view of Rathlin, Isla, Jura, the
Mull of Cantyre, Ailsa, Arran, the Ayrshire mountains
by Loch Doon, and a lot of small islands away north
by Oban that I could not name. As for glaciation
in Ireland, by Glendalough [Gal way], etc. etc., good
heavens ! ! ! The sections at Glendalough and away
north are the Silurian rocks of N.W. Sutherland, etc.,
quartzites, limestones, and all.

I shall be ready for the Cumberland and south of
Scotland comparison with you and your men, Peach
and Home, and with Aveline, Ward, and Bristow.

The conference with his colleagues in the north-
west of England and the south of Scotland was the
last important conclave which Ramsay held in the
field. The Directors for England and Scotland, each
with two of their respective staffs, met him at Kendal,
and the party journeyed through the more important
geological tracts. Those of the number who had not
been out in the field for some years with their chief
saw with regret the marked failing in his vigour. The
old brightness and kindliness were there as fully as of
old, the merry laugh still rang out after the ready jest,
and the lively talk, with interesting reminiscence and
literary allusion, still charmed as they had always
done ; but the elastic step, the eager endurance, the
sustained power of tracking the intricacies of geological
structure had grown markedly feebler. I remember

1 877 A GEOLOGICAL CONFERENCE IN THE FIELD 343

well the pang with which I realised as we climbed
a hill-side above Derwent Water that my beloved
friend, whom from my boyhood I had looked up to
with pride and affection as the very embodiment of
geological prowess, had now become an old man. He
was then not more than sixty-three years of age, but a
life of physical and mental toil and official worry had
made him prematurely aged. At the end of the day
when we got back to our inn he would often look
exceedingly weary, and yet dinner would for the time
revive him, and make him once more what he used
always to be, the gayest member of a Survey gathering.
I remember that on the same occasion he showed
how difficult it now was for him to keep pace with the
onward developments of his own science. The intro-
duction of the microscope as an adjunct to a field-
geologist's equipment and the microscopic study of thin
slices of rocks for petrographical determination had
been recognised for some time by several members of
his staff as absolutely essential for accurate mapping in
regions of crystalline rocks. I had myself made use
of the aid of the microscope for twelve years before
this time, and J. C. Ward had adopted the same course
in his study of the volcanic district of the Lakes. The
party having dined, Ward and I had retired to another
room that we might examine under the microscope
some of his volcanic rocks, and compare them with
the Palaeozoic volcanic series of Scotland. We had
been engaged on this task for an hour or two when
Ramsay joined us. He sat rather impatiently watching
us for a while, and then starting up, left the room after
exclaiming, ' I cannot see of what use these slides can
be to a field -man. I don't believe in looking at a
mountain with a microscope.'

344 DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE SURVEY CHAP, x

While on the journey through Scotland, he sent
the following account of it to his friends at Dolau-
cothi : ' From one of the windows of this coffee-room
[in Perth] I can see the Tay, full-flooded, rushing
through the arches of that noble bridge, which reminds
me of the bridge across the Moselle at Treves, only
both river and bridge at Perth are more striking than
those of Treves. Of a verity there is no denying the
fact that the Tay is the finest river in Britain, with
more water in it than even the Thames or the Severn,
and such a varied landscape to flow through, with
hills and cliffs, woods and swelling fields, all undulating
and brae-like, except the noble haughs or meadows
that here and there form the banks of the river, and
of which the Inches of Perth (once islands) form such
beautiful examples.

'I went to Keswick, Cockermouth, Carlisle, Hawick,
Melrose, Galashiels, Peebles, Edinburgh, Leadhills,
and Moffat, Dumfries, Kirkcudbright, Dumfries again
and Edinburgh, and so to Arbroath, Stonehaven,
Blairgowrie, and Perth. There is a catalogue for you,
that beats Homer's catalogue of ships, or Milton's
catalogue of devils. I hope ere a fortnight elapses
to be in the bosom of my own family at Cromwell
Crescent.'

Returning to London, he was soon once again in
the midst of his * new edition ' and other multifarious
preparations. His paper on the geology of Gibraltar
was read before the Geological Society on the 6th
March 1878, and he gave a Friday evening discourse
on the subject on the 24th May, which was his last
appearance before the Royal Institution. The fifth
edition of his Physical Geology and Geography of
Great Britain, on which he had been engaged in

1878-1880 LOSES THE LEFT EYE 345

intervals of leisure for several years past, was at length
published in May of this year.

For some time previous to that at which this
narrative has now arrived, Ramsay had suffered much
trouble from an affection of the left eye, brought on
in the first instance by overwork in lamplight, and
aggravated by a severe wetting at the funeral of a
brother-in-law. In the autumn of 1878 the ailment
became so serious that, to save the other eye, it
was necessary to remove the left one — an operation
skilfully performed by his friend Mr. Whitaker Hulke,
and borne by Ramsay with his characteristic quiet
courage.

A month later he wrote to his friends at Dolau-
cothi : * I am well enough to be doing much as usual,
excepting that I do less work as yet. Then I have
got a most lovely glass eye. You are not to quote
Shakespeare, " Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy
politician, seem to see the things thou dost not." :

On the 1 6th June 1879 he received a gratifying
telegram from Sella at Rome, that he had been elected
a corresponding member of the Royal Academy of the
Lincei, an honour which he specially prized, not only
because of the famous Society which conferred it on
him, but because it came as a mark of the kindly
esteem of his friend, the illustrious statesman and
geologist of Italy.

In the early summer of 1880 he succeeded in
taking a brief holiday in a part of Europe which he
had not before explored. Mrs. Ramsay and his
second daughter had spent the winter at Hyeres,
and he met them on their way home at Aix les Bains.
The traces left by the vast ancient glacier of the
Rhone, which once overspread all that region, filled

346 DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE SURVEY CHAP, x

him with astonishment and delight. He boated down
Lac Bourget, walked over hills strikingly ice-worn,
and picked up fragments of gneiss, granite, and other
rocks that had been brought down by the ice from the
heart of the distant Alps. He took the bearings of
the glacial striae, observed the positions, sizes, and
composition of the erratic blocks, and saw so much as
to fill him with the strongest desire to return and
make a more complete examination of the district for
comparison with the old glaciated areas so familiar
to him at home.

From Aix the party made its way to Geneva,
spent a day or two there with the Swiss geologist, A.
Favre, and was back in England again by the loth
June.

Ramsay had been elected President of the British
Association for this year, and the meeting was to be
held on the 25th August at Swansea. In the quiet
of his retreat at Beaumaris he prepared the presi-
dential address. He chose a thoroughly geological
theme, and contrived to say a little on all the branches
of the science in which he himself had specially worked.
After a general historical introduction he launched into
the subject of metamorphism, and then into that of
the volcanic eruptions of former periods, whence he
naturally passed to the structure and relative ages of
mountain-chains. The salt-lakes of past times and
the recurrence of fresh - water conditions again and
again in geological history were next touched upon,
before the fascinating topic of glaciers and their
operations was reached. In summing up his dis-
course, the President professed once more his geo-
logical faith as an uncompromising Uniformitarian,
declaring that, from the period of the oldest known

i88o PRESIDENT OF BRITISH ASSOCIA TION 347

rocks down to the present day, * all the physical events
in the history of the earth have varied neither in
kind nor in intensity from those of which we now
have experience.'

The discourse, though printed, was not read by
the speaker. He had a few notes before him, to
which he made occasional reference as he passed from
one division to another. His lively inflections of
voice, marked Scottish accent, and energetic gestures
as he enforced the successive points which he wished
the audience to comprehend were a novel and not un-
welcome variation from the more usual formality of
the presidential address. In the proceedings at the
close reference was made to the fact that, though the
President was not a Welshman, he had done his best
to atone for that defect by marrying a Welshwoman.
Ramsay in replying spoke of his love for Wales ; he
knew almost every mountain-top in the Principality,
he said, having either surveyed them with his own
hands, or having superintended the surveys of them
by others.

Towards the end of the year two marks of recog-
nition of Ramsay's lifelong devotion to science were
received by him. At the Anniversary of the Royal
Society on the ist December a Royal Medal was given
to him ' for his long-continued and successful labours
in geology and physical geography.' A few days later
the University of Glasgow conferred on him the
degree of LL.D. — thus towards the close of his career
linking him by a new tie with his native town and the
college with which he had so many pleasant early
associations.

The second edition of the North Wales Memoir,
which had involved so much labour both in the field

348 DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE SURVEY CHAP, x

and at the desk, was at last published at the close of
1 88 1. In bulk it considerably exceeded the previous
edition. A special interest attaches to it because
it was its author's last Survey publication. As the
year wore on it had become more and more evident
that he must seek retirement from the endless cares of
official life. In the course of the summer he made a
round of farewell visits among his staff. I accompanied
him through some parts of the centre of Scotland. He
particularly wished to see some of the Highland lakes.
So we made for Kenmore, and sailed up Loch Tay,
and then by Lochs Vennachar and Achray to Loch
Katrine and Loch Lomond. The scenery brought
back early associations to him, and mingled with these
reminiscences came the new interest which such
scenery had for him in its bearing upon his doctrine of
the glacial origin of lake-basins, and at the same time
the sadness that arose from the feeling that he should
probably never see these scenes again.

The British Association held its jubilee this year
at York, where it had opened its career fifty years
before. Ramsay, as the oldest surviving president of
Section C, was asked to take the chair of that section
on this occasion. He did so, and gave the address ;
but the effort was a great strain upon him, and he
returned to Beaumaris to rest. It was definitely
arranged that he should retire from his Government
appointment at the end of the year.

To his old friend and colleague, Mr. Howell, he
wrote : ( I feel grateful for the regret that our good
fellows feel for my retirement. I regret it too very
much, but in the words of the old ballad, "I'm weary
wi' hunting and fain would lie down." I hope I may
find contented rest in doing nothing but what I choose

i88i RETIREMENT AND KNIGHTHOOD 349

to do. The change, however, will be very great, even
though the non- official intercourse should continue
between us as fast as ever.'

He announced to his friends at Dolaucothi : ' On
the 3ist December I shall retire from the public
service, and whether or not there will be another
Director-General I do not know. Neither do I quite
know how I shall enjoy doing nothing but what I
choose to do ; but, on the whole, I think I shall manage
very well. They have given me the highest possible
pension, and that and our private incomes will enable
us to live just as we have been accustomed to do ever
since I became Director-General. ... I think that,
on the whole, I have been a " fortunate youth." One
thing also pleases me, that I shall be able some time
in 1882 to pay a visit to Dolaucothi the beloved, and
to lie upon a bank where the wild thyme grows, and
where oxlip and the nodding cowslip blows."

* My address to the geological section of the
British Association at York last summer principally
dealt with the progress of geology for the last fifty
years. In my mind there is no doubt that it is, or was,
the last address I shall ever give.

' The other day, as Louisa, Fanny, Dora, and
I had arrived at the pudding stage of dinner, a
franked letter arrived from Mr. Gladstone, informing
me that at the instance of Lord Spencer, who is my
official chief, I am required on Wednesday next to go
down to Windsor by the i.io P.M. train in levte
costume, and from the station, along with others, am
to be transported to the castle to be knighted at three/

On the afternoon of the 3 ist December Sir Andrew
quitted his desk at the Jermyn Street Museum, and
closed his long and honourable career as a civil servant.

350 DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE SURVEY CHAP, x

For upwards of forty years he had given himself with
his whole heart to the work of the Geological Survey,
and he carried with him into his retirement the affec-
tionate wishes of every member of the staff over which
he had so long and so ably presided.

CHAPTER XI

RETIREMENT — SUMMARY OF CAREER

RELEASED from official life, and free to go where he
pleased in this country or to travel abroad, Sir Andrew
Ramsay looked forward to a few years of pleasant
rest and cheerful occupation in the pursuits that more
especially interested him. And to his friends the
regret at seeing him retire from active life was
tempered by the reflection that now at last he would
be able to work as he chose at those problems which,
by the pressure of his Survey duties and his engage-
ments in London, he had been prevented from
thoroughly investigating. But time and over-exertion
had done their work upon him. His life henceforward
was marked by a calm, painless, and gradual decline.
His days for mental exertion were now at an end.

For a short time after his retirement he remained
in London, and had a fair enjoyment of life, usually
finding his way to the Athenceum Club in the course
of the afternoon, and having a game of billiards with
some friend there. When summer came, and brought
with it the time for retreating to Beaumaris, he was
able to take short walks and to indulge his favourite
pastime of steering a boat. He tried to do a little
writing on a geographical subject which he had
undertaken. As the autumn approached, the second

352 RETIREMENT CHAP, xi

daughter was again ordered abroad for the winter, and
as Sir Andrew had such a love of mountains, it was
determined to move the whole family to St. Moritz.

In the early part of the season the place gave him
great pleasure, for he was able to take some fairly long
walks, and it was a delight to him to find himself once
more in the chain of the Alps. But in the middle of
November the snow came, not to depart for the rest
of the winter. Thereafter every walk involved a
slippery descent from the hotel and a slippery ascent
in returning. The consequent fatigue became so great
that his pedestrian excursions were necessarily limited.
Sledge-driving proved equally impracticable, for the
keen frosty air induced severe pain round the glass
eye. He was thus cooped up in the hotel, the most
practicable exercise available being obtained by pacing
up and down a covered verandah open to the air.

By the end of March the party was glad to take
flight by the Maloja to Chiavenna, and thence by
steamer on the Lake of Como to Cadenabbia. Sir
Andrew enjoyed watching the pleasure which these
charming scenes gave to his daughters, who saw them
for the first time, and he seemed himself also to ap-
preciate their beauty ; but the confinement of the pre-
ceding winter had left its mark upon him. The old
spirit of happy comprehension of what he saw, and the
keen zest with which he scrutinised new physical
features and sought to interpret them, were now only
too visibly on the wane. The route homeward in-
cluded a halt of a fortnight at Venice, which he
thoroughly enjoyed, and another for the same length
of time at Pallanza, which also gave him much
pleasure.

The family returned to England in time to spend

1882-1891 CLOSING YEARS 353

the summer at Beaumaris, where Sir Andrew's
diminished strength was painfully shown by his
shortening walks. They went back, however, to the
Continent in the autumn in order to pass the winter
at Hyeres. The journey homeward in May (1882)
proved to be the last of Ramsay's experiences of
foreign travel. He was well enough to be greatly
interested in the Roman remains of Southern France.
At Nimes his antiquarian zeal was kindled by the
grand amphitheatre and the baths and the Maison
Carree. He walked across the Pont de Card by the
old water channel. Farther north his ardour for the
relics of the past was renewed in Auvergne, as he
paced the mouldering rampart of the hill of Gergovia,
and pictured to himself Caesar's siege and the heroic
defence of Vercingetorix. Fain would he have
climbed the Puy de Dome, but the weather prevented
him from attempting it.

For the next two years Sir Andrew and his family
came up to London for the winter, but he hardly ever
went to the Athenaeum, and was only able slowly to
walk up and down the streets in the neighbourhood of
his house in Cromwell Crescent. It was then resolved
to break up the London home, in order that he might
remain permanently at Beaumaris. There he continued
for a time to enjoy the panorama of his own Caernarvon-
shire mountains, and was much more in the open air than
he could have been in London. But from this time
forward nothing could be done save to watch with sad
and affectionate eyes the progress of the slow decline.
His mind does not seem in these last years to have
reverted often to his geological days ; at least he
seldom spoke of them. His memory would some-
times dwell on the long bygone days of his childhood.

2 A

354 RETIREMENT AND DEATH CHAP, xi

He continued to read with delight the Waverley
Novels, and the humour of Dean Ramsay's Reminis-
cences of Scottish Life never failed to call out his
merry laugh. His general health remained good, but
his strength, bodily and mental, seemed imperceptibly
to ebb away.

Almost every fine day until 1891 he was wheeled
out in a bath -chair and placed in some sunny,
sheltered spot where he could watch the mountains
and the sea, while his wife sat and read or worked
beside him. These daily little journeys continued to
give him great pleasure, until at last, in September of
that year, his increasing weakness made them no
longer possible. Eventually he was unable to bear
the fatigue of rising and being dressed, so kept his
bed until, on the Qth December, he passed gently
away.

He was buried in the churchyard that surrounds the
pretty little church of Llansadwrn, among his wife's
people. The spot was a favourite one with him, for it
commands on the one side a noble view of the whole
range of the high grounds of North Wales from the
Orme's Head, through the Snowdon group, down to
the far Rivals, and on the other a wide sweep of the
undulating plains of Anglesey. It was fitting that one
who had loved Wales so ardently, who had spent the
best years of his life there, and who had done more
than any other writer to unravel at once its geology
and its physical geography, should be laid to rest
within view of the peak of Snowdon, and within sound
of the rush of the tide through the Strait of Menai.

SUMMARY OF RAMSAY'S SCIENTIFIC WORK 355

This memoir would be incomplete if it did not
give some retrospect and summary of the work
achieved in the lifetime which it has attempted to
describe. It is too soon yet properly to appraise the
ultimate value of this work in the general progress of
science. But we may at least group Sir Andrew
Ramsay's labours in the several categories under
which they may be classified in order to form some
conception of the general character and sum of his
contributions to the geology of his time.

I. The department of Structural Geology comprises
his earliest and his latest labours, beginning with his
little pamphlet on Arran, and ending with the volumin-
ous second edition of the monograph on North Wales.
Between these two limits he accomplished a large
amount of investigation directed towards the eluci-
dation of the geological structure of Britain. In
England his own share of this labour was for the most
part merged in that of his colleagues. For, in his
eagerness for the repute of the Survey as a body, he
was careless of his individual fame. Undoubtedly his
own greatest achievement is his mapping in North
Wales, and more particularly the working out of the
structure of the complicated and mountainous ground
around Snowdon. It must be remembered by those
who now examine the geology of that region that
when Ramsay surveyed it the science of petrography
hardly existed at all in England. He had no assist-
ance from the microscope, and scarcely any from the
chemical laboratory. He had to determine his rocks
with no more help than could be given by a pocket-
lens, and he was guided in this matter largely by the
behaviour of the masses in the field. It should not,
therefore, be matter for surprise that a geologist of

356 SUMMARY OF CAREER CHAP, xi

to-day, coming with all the appliances of modern
petrography, may be able to improve the nomen-
clature followed by Ramsay, and to show that he had
been mistaken in some of his determinations, as
where, for instance, he may have classed lavas as tuffs,
or tuffs as lavas. The surprise ought rather to be
that a man with only field-evidence and his geological
instinct to guide him, should have succeeded in un-
ravelling so admirably the complications of so difficult
a region.

British geology lies under a deep obligation to
Ramsay for the skill and insight with which he
deciphered the relics of the older Palaeozoic volcanoes.
Without attempting to enter into the minutiae of the
mineralogical and chemical constitution of the rocks,
he seized upon the salient features that illustrated
ancient volcanic action, and he supplied, in the Survey
Memoirs and in the Descriptive Catalogue of the
Jermyn Street Museum, the first detailed and con-
nected description of the different epochs of volcanic
activity in the Silurian period in Britain.

On the maps and sections of the Geological
Survey he expressed most of his results in structural
geology, and it may be fearlessly asserted that at the
time of their appearance these publications were un-
surpassed for clearness, beauty, and accuracy. Even
where the mapping was mainly the work of his col-
leagues, it usually had the benefit of help from his
skilful hand and sound judgment. His Geological
Map of England and Wales, reduced from the Survey
sheets and other sources of information, is still the
most useful small map of the kingdom, and his
general Geological Map of the British Isles is a con-
venient compendium of British geology.

STRATIGRAPH1CAL WORK 357

II. In Stratigraphy much of Ramsay's work is so
intimately bound up with his labours in structural
geology as to be hardly separable. But his two
presidential addresses to the Geological Society mark
a distinct epoch in stratigraphical work. Darwin had
dwelt upon the imperfection of the Geological Record.
Ramsay proceeded to indicate the historical meaning
of this imperfection. He pointed out the various breaks
in the succession of the stratified formations of Britain,
and by his wide practical knowledge of the subject,
gave it a clearness and significance which it had not
before been suspected to possess. He showed that these
breaks sometimes consist of actual unconformabilities,
arising from disturbance and denudation, and demon-
strating a long lapse of time unrecorded by stratified
deposits ; while in other instances they are marked by
no visible discontinuity of the stratification, but by a
sudden and more or less marked change in the fossils
characteristic of two apparently consecutive forma-
tions. His careful tabulated lists of genera and
species that pass from one formation to another finally
annihilated the long-lived delusion that each geological
system was complete in itself, and was separated, by a
general destruction and re-creation of life, from the
formation that succeeded it. Accepting Darwin's
views on the origin of species, he argued that the
relative lapse of time between different formations
might be determined by the greater or less distinction
between them as regards their organic contents. By
this line of argument he was led to the novel and
suggestive conclusion that periods of time, of which
there was in the geological record of Britain no strati-
graphical chronicle, might be much longer than those
which were represented by stratified formations.

358 SUMMARY OF CAREER CHAP, xi

These doctrines were by far the most important which
had been taught in regard to the principles of strati-
graphy since these principles were first determined by
the discoveries of William Smith.

III. Connecting his Stratigraphical with his
Physiographical researches comes the series of papers
in which he discussed the former existence of Conti-
nents, or of terrestrial conditions, during the deposition
of the geological record. He dwelt especially upon the
red colour of certain formations, their barrenness in
organic remains, the proofs of the occurrence of traces
of land animals and plants in them, and the similarity
presented by them to the deposits of salt lakes or
inland seas. In this way he tried to restore in some
degree the physical geography of ancient periods of
the earth's history. He attempted also, from the same
kind of reasoning, to estimate the relative value of the
old continental periods, and came to the conclusion
that the period which began with the Old Red Sand-
stone and closed with the New Red Marl may have
been comparable to all the time that has elapsed from
the beginning of the deposition of the Lias down to the
present day.

IV. In Physiography Ramsay's work was abundant,
as well as remarkably original and important. It may
be grouped in three subdivisions: (i) Denudation in
General ; (2) The History of River-valleys ; and (3)
The Results of the Operations of Ice.

(i) The early paper on the Denudation of South
Wales, published in 1846, in the first volume of the
Memoirs of the Geological Survey, was undoubtedly
the most important essay on the subject which up to
that time had appeared. Much had previously been
written on the question of denudation, but it was of the

WORK IN PHYSIOGRAPHY 359

vaguest nature. It was Ramsay's merit that he based
his discussion upon the results of careful surveying.
He had traced out the structure of a complicated
geological region, and was able to show what should
have been the form of the surface had it depended
entirely on geological structure. He was thus in a
position to demonstrate how much material had been
removed by denudation, and how far the process of
removal had been guided by geological structure. It
is true, as he himself afterwards confessed, that at that
time he assigned too much power to the sea, and too
little to the subaerial agents, in the lowering of a mass
of land. But his exposition of the old base-level of
ancient erosion, or 'plain of marine denudation,' as he
called it, will ever be a classical study in geological
literature.

Subsequently, as he realised more and more how
mighty had been the action of rain, frost, rivers,
glaciers, and other subaerial forces in carving the sur-
face of the land, he came boldly forward to take the
lead among British geologists in enforcing this
doctrine.

(2) During the last ten years of his official life the
physical history of river-valleys exercised a peculiar
fascination on Sir Andrew's mind. The subject had
for many years engaged his attention, but not until the
appearance in 1862 of his friend Jukes's remarkable
memoir on the river- valleys of the south of Ireland
did he realise how the problem might be satisfactorily
attacked. He was led to the conclusion that the
denudation of the Weald had been effected by subaerial
waste, and that the cause of the flow of the rivers,
from that central low tract through the encircling rim
of chalk downs, was to be sought in the ancient topo-

360 SUMMARY OF CAREER CHAP, xi

graphy of the region, when the streams descended
from a central, still unremoved dome or ridge of
chalk. Extending this process of reasoning, he after-
wards discussed the main causes whereby the rivers of
England had been led to flow in the courses which
they now follow. There was undoubtedly a good deal
of speculation in this discussion, but his treatment of
the subject was full of suggestiveness, and pointed out
the direction in which, with perhaps a larger array of
facts, the question might eventually be solved.

Subsequently he attacked the history of individual
rivers, working it out in more detail along the same
lines as he had already followed. In this manner he
traced the successive stages which, in his opinion, had
led to the excavation of the present valley of the
Rhine, showing that in Miocene time the flow of the
drainage between the Black Forest and the Vosges
had been from north to south, or towards the great
hollow lying to the north of the Alps, that subsequent
disturbance and elevation of the Alpine chain tilted
the ground in such a manner that the drainage was
reversed, and the streams from the tract of the Alps
were collected into a river which found its way
northward, and gradually excavated the valley and
gorge in which the present Rhine still flows. Though
it cannot be demonstrated that such have been the
successive stages in the history of the course of this
river, the available evidence makes Ramsay's explana-
tion highly probable.

The later application of the same principles of
interpretation to the history of the valley of the Dee
in Wales led him into still ampler fields of speculation,
because dealing with a vaster and dimmer geological
past. He could not claim to have proved every step

THEORY OF ORIGIN OF LAKES 361

in his chain of argument, but he undoubtedly pro-
pounded a method whereby, if such questions are
capable of solution, they may most advantageously
be attempted.

(3) It was in his researches among the traces of
ancient glaciers and ice-sheets that Sir Andrew accom-
plished his most original physiographical work. His
demonstration of the occurrence of evidence of two
glaciations in Wales was an important step in the
elucidation of the history of the Ice Age, for he showed
that after a general glaciation of the Welsh hills and
valleys, and the deposition of the drift upon them, a
later time came when the ice existed only as local
glaciers in the valleys among the higher mountains.

But his name will be most widely known for his
theory of the Glacial Origin of certain Lake-basins.
This theory has been warmly attacked and as vigor-
ously defended. The contest regarding it still con-
tinues, though more than thirty years have passed
since it was published. This is not the place for a
review of the voluminous arguments that have been
adduced for and against the theory. If we look upon
the doctrine as promulgated by its author, and not in
the extravagant form in which it sometimes appears in
the hands of too zealous partisans, we must admit that
Ramsay was the first to call attention to the remark-
able fact that lakes are especially numerous in the
glaciated tracts of the northern hemisphere. Taking
the rock-basin lakes on which he based his doctrine of
glacial erosion, it is a fact that while they are prodigi-
ously abundant in glaciated tracts like the gneisses
of Canada, Scandinavia, Finland, and Scotland, they
either do not occur, or are excessively rare, outside of
ice- worn areas. It is likewise true that these rock-

362 SUMMARY OF CAREER CHAP, xi

basins have once been filled with ice, for roches
moutonndes occur round their margins and rise from
their bottoms. There can be no doubt also that the
ice which filled them was in motion, for the rocks that
enclose them are scored and polished, and the direc-
tion of the striae shows that the ice descended into
the basins at their upper end and ascended from them
at the lower. Ramsay went farther, and insisted that
the hollows themselves had actually been dug out by
the moving ice. I have myself no doubt that he was
essentially right in this contention. That there may
be difficulty in the universal application of his doctrine
will be readily admitted, and was fully recognised by
himself. He carefully guarded himself by the very
title of his original paper, * On the Glacial Origin of
Certain Lakes/ from being supposed to have one
explanation for all sheets of fresh water over the surface
of the globe. But that the lakes in glaciated regions
are connected in origin with the general denudation
of the regions in which they lie is a fact which few
geologists who have carefully mapped the rocks around
these water-basins will dispute. And the only agent
known to us to be capable of the kind of erosion which
would produce such basins is land-ice. On any other
hypothesis yet proposed the lake-basins are not only
unintelligible, but contradictory to all that is now well
ascertained regarding the progress of denudation and
the influence of geological structure upon topography.
In connection with Sir Andrew Ramsay's glacial
work, reference should be made here to his papers on
the evidence for the existence of ice in Palaeozoic time.
The Permian examples cited by him were certainly
striking, but the general feeling among geologists
seems to be that the evidence is not convincing. The

UNCOMPROMISING UNIFORMITARIANISM 363

cases from the Lower Silurian, Old Red Sandstone,
and Carboniferous formations are still less conclusive.

As a contribution to Physiography his volume on
The Physical Geology and Geography of Great Britain
is worthy of special mention. It puts in clear and
untechnical language the evidence on which geology
proceeds to trace the bygone history of a terrestrial
region. Unfortunately, the last edition was brought
out by him when his powers had already begun to fail,
and he was led to weight the book by the addition of
various already published papers and essays which,
though excellent for the purposes for which they were
written, were somewhat out of place in his otherwise
charming little volume.1

V. Sir Andrew made few contributions to the litera-
ture of the History of Geology. His two inaugural
lectures at University College presented a rapid sketch
of the leading features in the progress of geological
research up to this century, and his last address as
President of Section C of the British Association at
York in 1881 gave an outline of the advance of
geology during the fifty years preceding that date.

He was a thorough uniformitarian in geology.
Having early imbibed his theoretical views from Lyell's
Principles, he maintained them to the end, and took
occasion when he was President of the British Associa-
tion at Swansea, and consciously approaching the end
of his active career, to proclaim them as a last declara-
tion of faith to his contemporaries.

VI. In this retrospect of the literary and other
work which Sir Andrew Ramsay accomplished, refer-
ence should not be omitted to his contributions to the

1 A new edition of this book is now in preparation under the able editorship
of Mr. H. B. Woodward of the Geological Survey.

364 SUMMARY OF CAREER CHAP, xi

Saturday Review. Sometimes these were criticisms
of publications, and in that case often took as their
subject the maps and memoirs of some Colonial
Survey. He was thus enabled to do signal service
to his friend Logan, then struggling with the Canadian
Philistines, who saw no practical good in geological
work of any kind. But now and then he let his
fancy loose in the pages of the Saturday, and treated
geological and other topics with the light playfulness
so characteristic of his talk, but in which the nature
of his official writings hardly allowed him to indulge
in print.

VII. But it is not by the visible amount of published
work that we can rightly estimate the extent of Sir
Andrew Ramsay's influence in promoting the advance
of his favourite science. For nearly thirty years he
was a teacher of geology. Year by year a fresh band
of young men came to listen to him, and to carry the
fruits of his instruction to all parts of the world.
Season after season he lectured to working men, who
flocked in hundreds to hear him. His lectures were
not written out, but delivered from notes, and were
always kept up to the latest conditions of the science.
Many a time some new deduction that had been
simmering in his mind for a while would be communi-
cated first of all to his students. In the debates at
the Geological Society, also, he would often make
known some fresh observation, or some novel present-
ation of known facts, or some suggestive speculation
which had recently taken shape in his mind. Indeed,
much of his work was published only in this way,
for writing became increasingly irksome to him ; but
in the excitement of lecturing or of discussion he
would pour out from his full stores of information,

EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCE 365

and taking his audience into his confidence, would
flash out new views that he had never communi-
cated to any one before. There was always some-
thing remarkably suggestive in his lectures. He
loved to put broad and striking views of geological
principles and theory before his audience, and sought
thus to excite an interest that would search for detail,
rather than to weary it by dwelling on the detail him-
self. He spoke with a good deal of facial expression,
his brow sometimes wrinkling with his earnestness to
make a point clear, and again beaming with a kindly
smile as he was enjoying his discourse, and felt that he
was carrying his auditors with him. The working
men used to crowd round his table at the end of a
lecture to ask questions, and one of them once said to
him, ' You are the best lecturer I ever heard in my
life ; and you always look so happy in it.'

There was another form of instruction less palpable
perhaps than that communicated in formal prelections,
but not less valuable — the practical training which he
gave to his men on the staff of the Geological Survey.
Those who have enjoyed that training look back
upon it as one of the privileges of their lives. The
influence of his example was contagious. A district
which had seemed hopelessly entangled and insuffer-
ably dull, after a visit from the Director came to be
seen in a new light. Its very difficulties grew to be
centres of attraction, and its dulness was changed into
freshened interest. That this influence has not been
without effect in the higher education of the country
will be seen from the number of men trained under
Ramsay who have held or now hold University chairs
or other educational appointments in this country
and in the colonies.

366 SUMMARY OF CAREER CHAP, xi

But above and beyond the impress of his scientific
achievements Sir Andrew Ramsay's high position
among his contemporaries was largely determined
by his individual personality. His frank manly bear-
ing, his well -cut features beaming with intelligence
and with a sweet childlike candour, his ready powers
of conversation, his wide range of knowledge, his
boyish exuberance of spirits, his simplicity and modesty
of nature, his sterling integrity, perfect straight-
forwardness, and high sense of duty, his generous
sympathy and untiring helpfulness, marked him out
as a man of singular charm, and endeared him to
a wide circle of friends who, while they admired him
for his genius, loved him for the beauty and bright-
ness of his character.

APPENDIX

I. — LIST OF PAPERS, BOOKS, ETC., BY SIR ANDREW C. RAMSAY,

F.R.S.1

1840

' Notes taken during the Surveys for the Construction of the Geo-
logical Model Maps and Sections of the Island of Arran.'
Rep. Brit Assoc. for 1840 [1841]. Sections, p. 92.

1841 and previous years

'The Geology of the Island of Arran, from original survey.' 8vo.
Glasgow [1841].

1846

' On the Denudation of South Wales and the adjacent Counties of
England.' Mem. Geol. Survey ', vol. i. pp. 297-335.

1847

' On the Causes and Amount of Geological Denudations.' A discourse
at the Royal Institution. Athenceum, 27th March 1847, p. 342.

'On the Origin of the existing Physical Outline of a portion of
Cardiganshire.' Rep. Brit. Assoc. for 1847 [1848]. Sections,
pp. 66, 67.

1848

'Sketch of the Structure of Parts of North and South Wales.'
(With W. T. Aveline.) Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. iv. pp.
294-297.

1 The years put in separate lines are generally those in which the work was done ;
the years placed within scjuare brackets give the dates of publication.

368 APPENDIX

1 Passages in the History of Geology.' Two Lectures at University
College, London. 8vo. London, 1848, and second lecture
1849.

* On some points connected with the Physical Geology of the

Silurian district between Builth and Pen-y-bont, Radnorshire.'
Rep. Brit. Assoc. for 1848 [1849]. Sections, p. 73.

1850

' On the Geological Phenomena that have produced or modified the
Scenery of North Wales.' Friday evening discourse at Royal
Institution. Athen&ttm, 6th April 1850, p. 377.

' On the Geological Position of the Black Slates of Menai Straits, etc.'
Rep. Brit. Assoc. for 1850 [1851]. Sections, p. 102.

1852

'On the Science of Geology and its Applications.' Introductory
Lecture to the Course of Geology, School of Mines, Session
1851-52. Records School of Mines, vol. i. pp. 81-102.

1 On the Superficial Accumulations and Surface-markings of North
Wales.' Quart. Jour n. Geol. Soc. vol. viii. pp. 371-376.

1853

* On the Physical Structure and Succession of some of the Lower

Palaeozoic Rocks of North Wales and part of Shropshire,' with
Notes on the Fossils by J. W. Salter. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.
vol. ix. pp. 161-179.

1854

' On the Geology of the Gold-bearing District of Merionethshire,
North Wales.' Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. x. pp. 242-247.

'On the former probable existence of Palaeozoic Glaciers.' Rep.
Brit. Assoc. for 1854 [1855]. Sections, pp. 93, 94.

'On the thickness of the Ice of the ancient Glaciers of North
Wales, and other points bearing on the Glaciation of the
Country.' Rep. Brit Assoc. for 1854 [1855]. Sections, pp.

94, 95-

' On the occurrence of Angular, Subangular, Polished, and Striated
Fragments and Boulders in the Permian Breccia of Shropshire,
Worcestershire, etc. ; and on the Probable Existence of Glaciers

LIST OF RAMS A Y >S PUBLIC A TIONS 369

and Icebergs in the Permian Epoch.' Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.
vol. xi. pp. 185-205.

1857

'On certain peculiarities of Climate during part of the Permian
Epoch.' Proc. Roy. Inst. vol. ii. pp. 417-421.

1858

' The Physical Structure of Merionethshire and Caernarvonshire.'

Geologist^ vol. i. pp. 169-174.
'On the Geological Causes that have influenced the Scenery of

Canada and the North-eastern Provinces of the United States.'

Proc. Roy. Inst. vol. ii. pp. 522-524.
' Geology of Parts of Wiltshire and Gloucestershire.' (With W. T.

Aveline and E. Hull.) Geol. Survey Mem. 8vo. London, 1858.
* Geological Surveys in Great Britain and her Dependencies.'

Saturday Review, 3rd July, pp. 8-10.
' Descriptive Catalogue of the Rock Specimens in the Museum of

Practical Geology.' (With H. W. Bristow, H. Bauerman, and

A. Geikie.) 8vo. London, 1858; 2nd edit., 1859; 3rd edit.,

1862.

1859

' On Some of the Glacial Phenomena of Canada and the North-
eastern Provinces of the United States during the Drift-
Period.' Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xv. pp. 200-215.

' Geology of Pennsylvania.' Saturday Review, 3oth April and 28th
May, pp. 530, 531, 558-560.

' Beach Rambles.' (Review of J. G. Francis's * Beach Rambles in
Search of Sea-side Pebbles and Crystals.') Saturday Review,
1 2th November, pp. 585, 586.

4 Geological Map of England and Wales.' (Stanford.) 1859. 3rd
edit, 1872 ; 4th edit, 1877 ; 5th edit, 1881.

1860

' The Old Glaciers of Switzerland and North Wales.' 8vo. London.

(Printed in Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers, by the Alpine Club.

8vo. 1859.)
' Geological Surveys of Canada and New Zealand.' Saturday Review,

nth August, pp. 174-176.

2 B

370 APPENDIX

1861

' Lyell and Tennyson.' Saturday Review >, 22nd June, pp. 631, 632.
' Kensington Gardens.' Saturday Review ', 291)1 June, pp. 668, 669.

1862

* On the Glacial Origin of certain Lakes in Switzerland, the Black

Forest, Great Britain, Sweden, North America, and elsewhere.'
Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xviii. pp. 185-204.

* The Excavation of the Valleys of the Alps.' Phil. Mag. vol. xxiv.

PP- 377-38o.

1863

* Breaks in Succession of the British Palaeozoic Strata.' Address to

Geological Society. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xix. pp.
xxix-lii.

1863-78

'The Physical Geology and Geography of Great Britain.' 8vo.
London. 2nd edit., 1864; 3rd edit., 1872; 4th edit, 1874;
5th edit., 1878.

1864

' Notes accompanying Translation of Paper on " The Sahara, and its
Different Types of Deserts and Oases," ' by E. Desor. Geol.
Mag. vol. i. pp. 27-34.

* The Breaks in Succession of the British Mesozoic Strata.' Address

to Geological Society. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xx. pp.

xl-lx.
' On the Erosion of Valleys and Lakes : a Reply to Sir Roderick

Murchison's Anniversary Address to the Geographical Society.'

Phil. Mag. vol. xxviii. pp. 293-311.
'The Geology of Canada.' Saturday Review, 26th March, pp. 383,

384-

'Changes of Climate.' Saturday Review, i4th May and nth June,
pp. 591, 592, 719-721.

1865

' The Ice-drifted Conglomerates of the Old Red Sandstone.' Reader,
1 2th August, p. 1 86.

LIST OF RAMSA Y'S PUBLICATIONS 371

' On the Eozoon and the Laurentian Rocks of Canada.' Proc. Roy.

Inst. vol. iv. pp. 374-377-
' Sir Charles Lyell and the Glacial Theory of Lake Basins.' Phil.

Mag. vol. xxix. pp. 285-298.

1866

* The Geology of North Wales.' With Appendix on Fossils by J.

W. Salter. Geol. Survey Mem. 8vo. London, 1866. 2nd

edit. 1 88 1.
' Address to the Geological Section of the British Association at

Nottingham.' Rep. Brit. Assoc. for 1866 [1867]. Sections,

PP- 46-50.

1868

'Review of ist vol. of Lyell's "Principles of Geology.'" Saturday
Review, nth and i8th April.

1869

' Evidence given before the Royal Commission on Water-Supply.'

Report, pp. 104-107. Folio. London.
' Report on Ice as an Agent of Geologic Change. (With O. Torell

and H. Bauerman.) Rep. Brit. Assoc. for 1869 [1870], pp.

171-174.

1871

'On the Recurrence of Glacial Phenomena during great Con-
tinental Epochs.' Nature, vol. v. pp. 64, 65.
' On the Physical Relations of the New Red Marl, Rhaetic Beds,

and Lower Lias. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxvii. pp.

189-199.
'On the Red Rocks of England of older date than the Trias.'

Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxvii. pp. 241-256.
' Report on the Probability of finding Coal under the Permian,

New Red Sandstone, and other superincumbent Strata.' Roy.

Comm. on Coal, vol. i. pp. 119-145. Also Evidence, vol.

ii. pp. 422-424, 449, 463-488. Folio. London.

1872

' On the River-courses of England and Wales.' Quart. Journ. Geol.
Soc. vol. xxviii. pp. 148-160.

372 APPENDIX

'The River Po.' Macmillarfs Magazine, vol. xxvii. pp. 125-129.

(' Les Inondations en Italic.') II Fiume Po. Bolletino del Club
Alpino Italiano, vol. vi. 8vo. Turin, 1873. (Translated
from Macmillarfs Magazine, December 1872.)

1872-1881

' Annual Reports of the Director-General of the Geological Survey of
the United Kingdom, the Museum of Practical Geology, the
Royal School of Mines, and the Mining Record Office, for the
years 1871 to 1881.' Reports of Science and Art Department.

1873

'On Old Continents.' Proc. Roy. Inst. vol. vii. pp. 32-34.
(Translated into French in the Revue Scientifique.)

'Report on the Exploration of Brixham Cave,' conducted by a
Committee of the Geological Society. (Report prepared by
J. Prestwich, agreed and approved by G. Busk, R. Godwin-
Austen, and A. C. Ramsay.) Phil. Trans, vol. clxiii. pp.
471-572.

'The History of Great Britain.' Saturday Review, 25th January,
pp. no, in.

1874

' On the Comparative Value of certain Geological Ages (or groups of

Formations) considered as Items of Geological Time.' Proc.

Roy. Soc. vol. xxii. pp. 334-343-
' Article "Geology" in Blackie's " The Popular Encyclopaedia." ' 8vo.

London.
' On the Physical History of the Rhine.' Proc. Roy. Inst. vol. vii.

pp. 279-288.
' The Physical History of the Valley of the Rhine.' Quart. Journ.

Geol. Soc. vol. xxx. pp. 81-95.

1875

' The Pre-Miocene Alps, and their subsequent Waste and Degrada-
tion.' Proc. Roy. Inst. vol. vii. pp. 455-457.

' Geological History of some of the Mountain Chains and Groups of
Europe.' Lectures at the Royal School of Mines. Mining
Journal, vol. xlv. pp. 57, 79, 106, 135, 162, 191.

LIST OF RAMS A Y'S PUBL1CA TIONS 373

' General Instructions for Observations in Geology.' (With J. Evans.)
In ' Manual of the Natural History, etc., of Greenland and the
neighbouring Regions'; prepared for the use of the Arctic
Expedition of 1875. ^vo- London. Pp. 68-77.

* Evidence given before Civil Service Inquiry Commission : and

Memorandum on the Geological Survey.' Second Report of
Commission, with Appendix. Folio. London. Pp. 43-46,
70-72.

' Orographical Series of Wall Maps.' (Stanford's.) British Isles,
Europe, etc.

1876

' How Anglesey became an Island.' Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol.

xxxii. pp. 116-122.
Note appended to paper by William Ramsay, ' On the Influence of

Various Substances in Accelerating the Precipitation of Clay

suspended in Water.' Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxxii.

p. 132.
' On the Physical History of the Dee, Wales.' Quart. Journ. Geol.

Soc. vol. xxxii. pp. 219-229.

* The Origin of Lake-Basins.' (A Letter.) Geol. Mag. Decade II.

vol. iii. pp. 136-138.

1877

* The Origin and Progress of the Geological Survey of the British

Isles, and the Method on which it is conducted.' In Science
Conferences. Conferences held in connection with the Special
Loan Collection of Scientific Apparatus, vol. ii. pp. 364-380.
8vo. London.

* Report on the Question of the Supply of Fresh Water to the Town

and Garrison of Gibraltar.' Folio. London.

1 The Existence of Coal beneath the New Red and Permian Strata.'
Proc. Dudley Geol. Soc. vol. iii. pp. 35-37.

1878

' The Geology of Gibraltar and the Opposite Coast of Africa ; and
the History of the Mediterranean Sea.' Proc. Roy. Inst. vol.
viii. pp. 594-601.

1 Geological Map of the British Isles.' (Stanford.) 1878.

1 On the Geology of Gibraltar.' (With J. Geikie.) Quart. Journ.
Geol. Soc. vol. xxxiv. pp. 505-541.

374 APPENDIX

1879

'Discussion at Annual Conference on National Water-Supply, etc.'
Journ. Soc. Arts, vol. xxvii. p. 159.

1880

'On the Recurrence of certain Phenomena in Geological Time.'
(Presidential Address to the British Association.) Rep. Brit.
Assoc. for 1880, pp. 1-22.

1881

' On the Origin, Progress, and the Present State of British Geology,
especially since the first meeting of the British Association at
York in 1831.' Address to Section C. Rep. Brit. Assoc. for
1881 [1882], pp. 605-608.

1883

'Notes on the Geology of St. David's.' (1842-43.) In paper 'On
the Supposed Pre- Cambrian Rocks of St. David's,' by A.
Geikie. Quart. Jour n. Geol. Soc. vol. xxxix. pp. 263, 264.

1885

' Stanford's Compendium of Geography — Europe.' (With F. W.
Rudler, G. G. Chisholm, and A. H. Keane.) Svo. London.

II. — LIST OF GEOLOGICAL SURVEY MAPS (ONE-INCH SCALE), PARTS

OF WHICH WERE SURVEYED BY SlR A. C. RAMSAY.1

England and Wales

Sheet 19. (1845) Mendip Hills, Bath.

„ 35. (1845) Bristol, Chepstow, Cotteswold Hills.

„ 38. (1845) Pembroke, Milford Haven.

„ 40. (1845) St. David's.

„ 41. (J845) Caermarthen, Llandeilo, Llandovery.

„ 43. S.E. (1845) Woolhope, Malvern, Ledbury.

„ 53. N.W. (1855) Coventry, Rugby, Leamington.

,, 54. N.W. (1852) Kidderminster, Bromsgrove.

1 The original dates of publication are given, but new editions of some of the
Sheets have been published.

LIST OF RAMSA Y'S PUBLIC A TIONS 375

Sheet 56. N.W. (1850) Rhayader.

56. N.E. (1850) Chin, Knighton, Presteign.

„ 56. S.W. (1850) Builth.

„ 56. S.E. (1850) New Radnor.

„ 57. N.W. (1848) Cardiganshire coast.

„ 57. N.E. (1848) Aberystwith.

„ 57. S.W. (1848) Aberavon, Aberforth.

„ 57. S.E. (1848) Lampeter, Tregaron.

,, 58. (1850) Cardiganshire coast.

„ 59. N.E. (1850) Barmouth, Dolgelly, Cader Idris.

„ 59. S.E. (1848) Machynlleth, Aberdovey, Plinlimmon.

„ 60. N.W. (1851) Dinas Mowddwy, Llanfair.

„ 60. N.E. (1850) Welshpool.

„ 60. S.W. (1850) Llanidloes.

„ 60. S.E. (1850) Montgomery, Bishops Castle.

„ 61. N.W. (1855) Shrewsbury.

„ 61. N.E. (1855) Wellington, Wrekin.

„ 6 1. S.W. (1850) Church Stretton, Longmynd.

„ 62. N.W. (1852) Cannock Chase.

„ 62. S.W. (1852) Wolverhampton, Dudley.

„ 62. N.E. (1856) Lichfield, Tamworth.

„ 62. S.E. (1855) Birmingham.

„ 71. N.W. (1855) Belper, Wirksworth.

„ 72. N.E. (1852) Ashbourn.

„ 74. N.W. (1850) Corwen, Pentre Voelas.

„ 74. N.E. (1850) Crewe, Nantwich.

„ 74. S.W. (1850) Bala, Hirnant.

„ 74. S.E. (1850) Oswestry.

,, 75. N.W. (1850) Nevin, Caernarvonshire.

., 75. N.E. (1851) Snowdon, Tremadoc.

„ 75. S.E. (1851) Harlech, Portmadoc.

„ 77. N. (1852) Holyhead Island.

„ 78. N.W. (1852) Anglesey, part of Holyhead.

,, 78. N.E. (1852) Beaumaris, Conway.

„ 78. S.W. (1852) Anglesey, Caernarvon.

„ 78. S.E. (1852) Bangor, Llanberis.

„ 79. N.W. (1850) Little Orme's Head.

Scotland

„ 33. (1860) Dunbar, Haddington.

376 APPENDIX

III. — LIST OF HORIZONTAL SECTIONS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
DRAWN BY SIR ANDREW C. RAMSAY.

Sheet i

No. i. Section from Porth-wyn, St. Bride's Bay, near Solva, Pem-
brokeshire, to the north cliff of Ynys-y-Barry ; on a line 100°
W. of N. from Porth-wyn to the cross-roads near Shyvog
Common, and 5° E. of N. from thence to the sea. By A. C.
Ramsay and W. T. Aveline.

No. 2. Section across Pembrokeshire, from South to North. From
St. Gowan's Head to Lanstadwell, from Lanstadwell to Tref-
garn Rock, and thence to Dinas Head, near Fishguard. By A.
C. Ramsay and W. T. Aveline. (1845. Revised 1857.)

Sheet 3

No. i. Section from Cerrig-dwfn to Mynydd-bancy-iYair, near
Llandeilo. By A. C. Ramsay.

No. 3. Section from the Black Mountain, near Llangadoc, to
Cefnllwyn hir, Caermarthen. By H. T. De la Beche, A. C.
Ramsay, and W. T. Aveline. (1844.)

Sheet 4

No. 4. Section from Mynydd Bwlch-y-groes, Brecknock to Craig-ddu,
Cardigan Bay. By A. C. Ramsay and W. T. Aveline. (1845.
Revised 1858.)

Sheet 5

No. i. Section across the Old Red Sandstone and Silurian Rocks,
from the Black Mountain Range S.E. of Glasbury to Allt-wen,
Cardigan Bay, near Aberystwith. By A. C. Ramsay, T. E.
James, and W. T. Aveline. (1845. Revised 1858.)

Sheet 6

No. 2. Section across the Silurian Rocks, from Gwaun Ceste to
Rhiw Gwraidd, Radnor. (1845. Revised 1858.)

LIST OF RAMS A Y'S PUBLICATIONS 377

Sheet 13

No. i. Section from Edge Hill, Forest of Dean, to Taynton House.
(N.D.; about 1845.)

Sheet 14

No. 2. Section from the Great Western Railroad, near Saltford
Station, to the Box Valley near Slaughterford. (1845.)

Sheet 15

No. i. Section from Ridge Barn Hill, near Castle Gary, Somerset,
to Jay Hill, near Bitton, Gloucester. By H. T. De la Beche,
D. H. Williams, and A. C. Ramsay. (1845.)

Sheet 27

Section across Radnor Forest and Hanter Hill, to the Old Red
Sandstone near Fern Hall, South of Kington, Herefordshire.
By A. C. Ramsay, H. W. Bristow, and W. T. Aveline. (1852.)

Sheet 28

Section from Llanfair-is-gaer, Menai Straits, over the Cambrian and
Silurian Rocks of Dinas, Snowdon, Cynicht, Moel-wyn, Cors-
goch (near Trawsfynydd), Aran Mowddwy, and Newtown,
Montgomeryshire, and the Upper Silurian Rocks and Old Red
Sandstone of Clun Forest, Bucknall, Wigmore Valley, Orleton,
etc., near Ludlow. (1853.)

Sheet 29

Section from Craig das Eithin across Y Dduallt, Aran Mowddwy, and
Cwledog, Merionethshire. By A. C. Ramsay, A. R. C. Selwyn,
and W. T. Aveline. (1853.)

Sheet 31

Section from the Suspension Bridge, Menai Straits, across Y-Glyder-
fawr, Moel Siabod, Bala Lake, etc. (1854.)

378 APPENDIX

Sheet 40

No. i . Section from Forth Llanlliana, across Anglesey to the Menai
Straits at Llanidan.

No. 2. Section from Carmels Point to the north shore of Church
Bay, N.W. of Anglesey.

No. 3. Section across Anglesey from Point ^Elianus to the Menai
Bridge by Traeth Dulas and Pentraeth. (With explanation,

1857.)

Sheet 44

No. 2. Section through Tan-y-Castell, Cefn-y-Fedw, etc. (Account
of Silurian, Old Red Sandstone, and Carboniferous Rocks in
'Explanation,' 1859.)

Sheet 45

No i. Section across the Upper Silurian Rocks and Coal-measures
of Coalbrook Dale, etc. (Notes in 'Explanation,' 1859.)

Sheet 50

Section from near Cleobury Mortimer to Nuneaton, Forest of Wyre,
Clent Hills, etc. (Notes in 'Explanation,' 1859.)

Sheet 54

No. i. Section from N.W. to S.E., across the Wrekin, Coalbrook
Dale Coalfield, Shropshire, and the New Red Sandstone of
Beckbury, Pattingham, and Oreton Hill, to Baggeridge Wood,
South of Wolverhampton, Staffordshire. By A. C. Ramsay,
D. H. Williams, and E. Hull (1858). (With explanation, 1859.)

Sheet 58

No. 2. Section from W. to E. from Cluddley, near Wellington,
across the Coalbrook Dale Coalfield, the Permian Rocks, and
New Red Sandstone, near Shiffnal and Brewood to the
Western Border of the S. Staffordshire Coalfield S. of Cannock.
By A. C. Ramsay, D. H. Williams, and E. Hull. (1860.)

LIST OF RAMSA Y'S PUBLICA TIONS 379

IV. — LIST OF VERTICAL SECTIONS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
DRAWN BY SIR ANDREW C. RAMSAY.

Sheet 12

Sections illustrative of the passage of the Old Red Sandstone into
the Carboniferous Limestone in South Wales and South-Western
England.

No. 2. Skrinkle Haven, Pembrokeshire.

Sheet 15

No. i. Section through the Silurian strata of May Hill, Gloucester-
shire.

INDEX

ABBERLEY HILLS, 219

Aberaeron, 73, 74, 75, 81

Abergwailas, 81

Aberpwl, 232

Aberystwith, 73, 74, 77, 8 1

^Eggischorn, 254, 267, 273

Africa, Ramsay's excursion into, 338

Agassiz, L., notice of, 18 ; visited by
Ramsay, 252

Agronomical map of British Isles, 293

Airy, G. B., 159

Aix les Bains, 345

Albert, Prince, 159, 175, 185

Aletsch glacier, 255, 267, 273

Alf, 263

Alps, Ramsay's visits to the, 198, 202,
253, 266, 272, 327, 352; conse-
quences of upheaval of, 360

Altered rocks, Ramsay's views regard-
ing, 52, 83, 109, 154, 172, 191,
207, 286, 326

American Association for the Advance-
ment of Science, 252

Amlwch, 171, 191

Andersonian University of Glasgow,

17
Anglesey, 105, 107, 154, 164, 170,

172, 190, 191, 192, 207, 287, 288,

300, 326, 334
Ansted, D. T., 57, 78
Antiquities, Ramsay's love of, 1 1 1, 188,

246, 289, 301, 319, 353
Antrim, 315, 318
Arans, geology of the, 79, 82, 165,

329

Arbroath, 344
Arenig, geology of, 79, 204
Arenig group, 332, 333, 334, 336, 338
Argyll, Duke of, 270
Armagh, 315, 320

Arran, Isle of, as a summer resort, 10 ;
attractive geology of, 12 ; surveyed
and modelled by Ramsay, 16, 17 ;
volume on, by Ramsay, 21, 29, 239;
descriptions of, 22-25 '•> revisited, 74

Ash, volcanic, 82, 83

Atmospheric disintegration, 199

Auchendrane Castle (E. Cathcart), 248,
294

Austen, see Godwin-Austen

Auvergne, 353

Aveline, W. T., appointed to Geologi-
cal Survey, 43, 66 ; letters to, 77,
82, 83, 126, 146, 149, 152, 154,
158, 162, 167, 211, 213, 218, 231,
232; 234; at work in Wales, 79,
80, 83, 100, 153, 158, 204, 205,
234; paper at Geological Society,
124; at the annual Survey dinners,
175 ; position on staff of Survey in
1854, 212 ; revision work of, in
North Wales, 230; attends confer-
ence in Scotland, 342

Ayrshire, coast-scenery of, 4 ; Ramsay's
visits to, 248 ; survey of, 315

BAILY, W. H., 66, 116, 129, 142,

160, 175, 212
Bala, geology of, 80, 82, 83, 105, 125,

213, 214
Bala rocks, equivalents of Caradoc

series, 230 ; unconformability of, 308
Ball, J., 271

Bangor, 152, 154, 171, 174, 192, 338
Bantry, 218
Barlow, Dr., 146
j Barmouth, 82
Barnsley, 303
Barry, Sir Charles, 40
Basle, 263, 327

382

INDEX

Bass Rock, 166
Bauerman, H., 204
Bayfield, Captain, 64
Beaumaris, Ramsay's life at, 317, 324,
328, 332, 336, 342, 346, 348, 351,

353

Beddgelert, 105, 136, 140, 214

Bel Alp, 273

Belfast, 342

Bell Rock, 1 66

Bellingham, 303

Belper, 297

Berkshire, 211

Berlin, 229

Berne, 226

Bertrich, Ramsay's stay at, 264

Berwick, 315

Berwyn Hills, 214

Best, E., 322

Bethesda (North Wales), 167, 170

Bettws y coed, 157, 167

Bex, 272, 327

Bingen, 327

Black Forest, 263, 328, 360

Blairgowrie, 344

Blanc, Louis, 146

Blanchland, 301

Blanford, H. F.,2O4

W. T., 204

Bolton Bridge, 303

Bone, C. R., 67, 130, 175

Bonn, Ramsay's sojourn in, 262

Bonney, Professor T. G., 330

Boulder - clay, growth of Ramsay's
opinions regarding, 261, 337

Bowerbank, Dr. J. S., soiree at house
of, 30

Boyle, 320 (Roscommon)

"Breaks in Succession," Ramsay's
views regarding, 277, 357

Breidden Hills, geology of, 79, 133

Brewster, Sir David, 166, 285

Bristow, H. W., notice of, 66 ; in
Gloucestershire, 50 ; at Ludlow and
Radnor, 73 ; in Dorsetshire, 99,
158, 1 80; at the Geological Society,
124, 144; at the Survey dinners,
175; in the Isle of Wight, 133, 180;
position on staff of Survey in 1854,
212 ; in Hampshire, 235 ; referred
to, 310; promoted to be District
Surveyor, 290 ; becomes Director of
the Geological Survey of P^ngland
and Wales, 312, 342

Britain, climate of, 59

British Association, Glasgow (1840),

16; memorialises Government re-
garding mining records, 41 ; at
Cambridge (1845), 73 ; Oxford
(1847), 99, 103 ; Swansea (1848),
135 ; Birmingham (1849), 153 ;
Edinburgh (1850), 165; Liverpool
(1854), 218; Cheltenham (1856),
243 ; Nottingham (1866), 286 ;
Dundee (1867), 297 ; Norwich
(1868), 300 ; Swansea (1880), 346 ;
Jubilee Meeting, York (1881), 348

Brodick, disappearance of village of, 1 1

Bromsgrove Lickey, 198

Brougham, story of, 146

Brush, Professor, 252

Bryce, J., 165

Buch, Leopold von, 73, 201

Buckingham, Duke of, 289

Buckinghamshire, 211

Buckland, W., notice of, 1 8 ; Ramsay
introduced to, 30 ; applied to for
advice regarding early progress of
Geological Survey, 37 ; opinion of
early Geological Survey maps, 39,
42; on R. Chambers, 103; speeches
at Geological Society, 124, 144 ;
goes over Jermyn Street Museum
with Sir R. Peel, 143 ; on British
glaciers, 64, 137, 170, 203

Builth, geology of, 79, 99, 109, 112,
135, 206

Burlington House, 122

Buttons, Geological Survey, 45

CADENABBIA, 352

Cader Idris, geology of, 75, 79, 81,

125, 133, 168, 329
Caer Caradoc, no
Caermarthen, 56, 235
Caernarvonshire, see North Wales
Cambrian and Silurian controversy,

52, 53, 77, 79, 90, 134, 197, 324
boundary traced by Ramsay in

South Wales, 206
red rocks, of fresh-water origin,

335 ; relation of, to Lingula Flags,

308, 325

Cambridgeshire, 314
Campbell, J. F., Ramsay reviews his

Frost and Fire, 288 ; accompanies

Ramsay to Ireland, 318, 320 ; notice

of, 318
Canada, Geological Survey of, 64 ;

Ramsay's visit to, 252, 269
Canino, Prince of, 104
Cannock Chase, 188

INDEX

383

Capel Curig, 150, 153, 193

Caradoc rocks, 230, 333

Cardiganshire, see South Wales

Cardwell, E., 207, 217, 228

Carlingford, 319

Carlisle, 344

Lord, 161

Carlyle, T., 285

Carnedd Llewelyn, 152, 154, 161,
167, 203

Carpenter, W. B., 124

Cerrig y druidion, Survey work at, 105

Chalmers, Thomas, 100, 146

Chambers, R., detected by Ramsay as
author of the Vestiges of Creation,
78 ; at British Association, Oxford,
103 ; first induces Ramsay to study
glacial geology, 137 ; notice of,
137 ; at British Association, Edin-
burgh, 1 66 ; on Ramsay's early
glacial studies, 202 ; on British
glaciers, 203 ; last interview with
Ramsay, 297

Chamouni, 201

Charlesworth, E., 124

Chartist scare of 1848, 129

Chatillon, 268

Cheltenham, 237, 261

Chiavenna, 352

Chili, elevation of, 85, 87

Church Stretton, 80

Clent Hills, 198

Clew Bay, 315

Climate of Britain, 59

Clunn's Hotel, Covent Garden, 122

Clynnog fawr, 158

Coal, foolish search for, near Caernar-
von, 148

Coblenz, 264

Cole, Sir Henry, 290

College of Science, at South Kensing-
ton, origin of, 312

Cologne, 327

Colours for igneous rocks on Geological
Survey maps, 231, 232

Como, Lake of, 341, 352

Conglomerates, geological importance
of, 171, 172

Continents, Ramsay's views regarding
former, 323, 358

Conway, 153, 213

Conybeare, W. D., 58

and Phillips's Geology of England

and Wales, new edition of, under-
taken by Ramsay and E. Forbes,
58, 72

Cookman, Mrs., letters to, 194, 264,
271, 318, 320, 323, 331, 336, 339,
340, 341, 345, 349

Cornwall, early geological maps of,
37, 205, 206, 211

Coronation stone at Westminster, 284

Covenanters, 249, 250

Cowper, quoted, 157

Craig's Court, Museum in, 41, 128,

174, 183

Crib goch, 135, 136
Criccieth, 333
Croll, J., 310

Crombie, J., dyer in Edinburgh, 3
Elizabeth, mother of A. C.

Ramsay, 2

"Crown and Anchor," Strand, 30
Crum, Walter, of Thornliebank, 2 '
Cumberland, 314, 342
Cwm Gwynant, 214
Cwm Idwal, 168
Cwm Llafar, 168
Cynicht, 214

DAKYNS, J. R., 288

Dale (Pembrokeshire), 233

Dalkeith, 243

Dallas, W. S., 309

Dalquharran Castle (T. F. Kennedy),
249

Dana, J. D., 252

Danube river, 328

Darwin, C., on Ramsay's essay on
" Denudation of South Wales," 85 ;
at Geological Society, 123 ; visit of
Ramsay to, 130 ; on British glaciers,
170, 203 ; on imperfection of the
Geological Record, 357

Dechen, H. von, 262, 299

Dee river (Wales), 333, 360

De la Beche, H. T., notice of, 18 ;
is asked by Murchison to take
Ramsay into the Geological Survey,
28 ; writes offering appointment on
Geological Survey to Ramsay, 32 ;
ancestry, 34 ; founded Geological
Survey, 34 ; sent to Military College,
Great Marlow, 34 ; devotes himself
to geology, 35 ; scientific qualifica-
tions, 35 ; published works by, 36 ;
personal character, 36 ; begins the
investigation of the geology of S.W.
England, 36 ; defrays most of the
expense of the early years of Geo-
logical Survey, 38 ; publication of
his Maps and Report on Devon and

384

INDEX

Cornwall, 38 ; member of Com-
mission for selecting building material
for new Houses of Parliament, 40 ;
geological sections of, 44 ; his work
in the field, 44 ; knighted, 56 ;
sagacity in choosing his colleagues,
57 ; becomes Director-General of
the Geological Survey of Great
Britain and Ireland, 65 ; at Geo-
logical Society, 78 ; with the staff at
Dolgelli, 8 1 ; at Ffestiniog and Bala,
83 ; on Survey Memoirs, 84 ; on
Cambrian and Silurian controversy,
92> 93 > on Royal Institution, 95 ;
proposes that Ramsay should become
Professor in University College, 101,
1 02 ; opposes R. Chambers, 103 ;
at British Association, Oxford, 104 ;
mapping in North Wales, 105 ;
President of Geological Society, 119,
123, 143 ; his scheme for the
erection of a museum, 121 ; alarmed
by the proposed publications of his
officers, 125 ; officialism of, 127 ;
conduct of, at the Chartist scare of
1848, 128 ; in the Snowdon country,
135, 140; opinion of Lyell and
Murchison, 141 ; letters to Ramsay,
141 ; at anniversary dinners of the
Survey, -142, 160, 175; describes
progress of Geological Survey, 143 ;
at Royal Institution, 145 ; letter to
Ramsay, 153; his work in North
Wales corrected by Ramsay and
Selwyn, 163, 190; anxious for faster
progress in Wales, 167, 204; work
in Anglesey, 170, 171, 172; sup-
ports Ramsay in regard to glacial
geology, 177; Bristow's joke regard-
ing the Geological Observer^ 181 ;
recognition of his claims in founding
the Jermyn Street establishment,
182, 184 ; receives the Wollaston
medal, 184; first President of the
School of Mines, 1 86 ; in Anglesey
with Ramsay, 1 90 ; on the action of
the sea, 191 ; letter to Ramsay on
his engagement, 194; on Ramsay's
return from his marriage tour, 202 ;
on the extension of the Geological
Survey to Scotland, 209 ; failing
powers of, 210, 216, 224, 226 ; at
Glengariff with Jukes and Ramsay,
217; his relations to Ramsay in
respect of the Director-Generalship,
225 ; his last days, 226 ; death,

227 ; his opinion of Ramsay's views
regarding Permian breccias, 228 ;
his latest official decisions, 231 ; his
influence longed for again, 295 ;
Ramsay's opinion of, 329

Dent, Ramsay on Vale of, 288, 302

Denudation, subaerial, development of
Ramsay's views regarding, 23, 199,
221, 254, 280, 358, 359

"Denudation of South Wales," paper
on, written by Ramsay, 63 ; planned
for first volume of Memoirs of Geo-
logical Survey -, 67 ; criticised favour-
ably by De la Beche, 78 ; published,
84 ; summarised, 358

Department of Science and Art, 207, 208

Derbyshire, 121, 144, 189, 211

Derwent river, 301, 343

Desor, Prof., 305

Devon and Cornwall, Report on, by
De la Beche, 38 ; maps of, Ramsay's
opinion of, 205, 206

Dillwyn, Mr., 135

Disraeli, story of, 302

District Surveyors appointed in Geo-
logical Survey, 290, 291

Dolaucothi, visits to, 76, 81, 108,
235» 33° ; tragedy at, 340

Dolfuss-Ausset, M., 199

Dolgelli, geology of, 79, 81, 82, 125,
133, 168, 193, 214, 332

Dolwyddelan, 157, 213

Donegal, 315

Doon river, 248

Dora Baltea, 341

Dorset, 99, 121, 133, 144, 158, 180,211

Dresden, 266

Drift, glacial, 167, 168, 178, 203, 253,
261, 293

Dry-proofs of maps, 60

Dublin, 319, 320, 342

Ducie, Lord, 270

Dudley, 147

Dumfriesshire, 315, 344

Dunbar, Geological Survey of Scotland
begun at, 219; Ramsay's descrip-
tions of, 220-223

Duncan, P. M., 334

Dundalk, 315

Dundee, 297

Dunford Bridge, 289

Dunoyer, G. V., 212

Durham County, 314

description of, by Ramsay, 288

EAST LOTHIAN, Geology of, 220

INDEX

385

Eden, Vale of, 301

Edinburgh, British Association Meeting
at, 161, 165 ; visited, 344

Royal Society of, awards Neill

medal to A. C. Ramsay, 285

— Royal Society Club, 285

University, Natural History

Chair at, 165, 218, 224 ; confers
degree of LL.D. on A. C. Ramsay,
285

Egerton, Sir Philip, 104, 331

Eifel, volcanoes of the, 263, 264, 265,

335 ; walking tour in the, 299
Eisenach, 229
Elbe river, 266
Elie de Beaumont, 139
Emerson, R. W., 124
English scenery, Ramsay's descriptions

of, 1 88, 235, 236, 246, 249, 297,

302

Enniskillen, Lord, 319, 324
Escher von der Linth, 328
Essex, 314

Etheridge, R., 326, 329, 332, 336
Evans, J., 334
Exhibition, Great, of 1851, 175, 207,

209

FALCONER, H., 63, 271, 272

Faraday, M., 159, 160

Favre, A., 346

Fawnog du, 161

Featherstonhaugh, G. W., 29

Fermanagh, 315, 320

Ffestiniog, 83, 108, 153, 204, 213,
214

Finsteraarhorn, 201, 255

Firth of Forth, excursion to islands of,
1 66 ; storm in, 223

Fishguard, 206, 233, 234, 235, 325

Fitton, W. H., 64, 73, 102, 118, 145,
179, 228, 239

Fitzmaurice, Hon. Captain, 179

Fjords, Italian, 341

Flanagan, J., 212

Florence Court, 319

Fluelen, contorted rocks at, 199

Foot, F. J., 212

Forbes, E., notice of, 18 ; appointed
Palaeontologist to the Geological
Survey, 57, 66 ; with the " Red
Lions," 58, 62, 104, 179; de-
scribes Irish Survey life, 72 ; at
Cambridge Meeting of Brit. Assoc.,
73 ; his " road map " of Wales, 77 ;
with Ramsay in Wales, 83, 108,

140 ; advice as to Professorship at
University College, 101 ; his artistic
faculty, no; at University College,
118; at Geological Society, 124,
144, 177, 179 ; refuses to be sworn
in as a special constable, 129 ; gives
outline of his lecture on generic
centres, 1 30 ; in the Isle of Wight,
133 ; on Snowdon, 135 ; at the
annual dinners of the Geological
Survey, 142, 160, 175 ; as a writer
of after-dinner songs, 142, 160, 176;
discourses at Royal Institution, 159 ;
at British Association, Edinburgh,
165 ; song by, 176 ; on Murchison,

179 ; replies for " Red Lions," 180 ;
in Isle of Wight and Dorsetshire,

1 80 ; appointed to School of Mines,
1 86; succeeds Jameson at Edinburgh,
218; President of Section C at British
Association, 218 ; his death, 224

Forbes, James (brother of Edward), 1 76

J. D., 203

Foreign Governments, geologists sent

to England by, 139
Fossils, Ramsay's discoveries of, 56,

83, 112, 134, 137, 168
Fountains Abbey, 303
Frankland, Dr. E., 282
French invasion of Pembrokeshire

(1797), 234
Freshwater conditions of deposit, 335,

346, 358
Freshwater Gate, 180

GALASHIELS, 344

Gal way, 319, 342

Gastaldi, Prof., 274, 323, 330

Geikie, J., 294, 337, 338

Gemmi Pass, 267

Geneva, 272, 327, 346

Geological Club dinners, 30, 122 ;

foundation and constitution of,

122
map of England and Wales

by Ramsay, 260, 356

record, Ramsay's views re-
garding imperfection of, 276, 357

Society, anniversaries of, 78,

120, 123, 143, 149, 177, 184, 196,
270, 277, 280

Society, connection of, with

Geological Survey, 37, 120, 184

Society, meetings of, 31, 62,

64, 77, 119, 124, 143, 177, 178,
197, 309, 328, 344

2 C

386

INDEX

Geological Survey of Great Britain,
founded by H. T. De la Beche, 34 ;
first beginnings of in 1832, 36, 37 ;
under Board of Ordnance, 37 ; pub-
lication of early maps, 37, 38, 39;
connection of with Geological
Society, 37, 120; character of first
maps, 39, 205, 206; field-work
extended to South Wales, 42, 43 ;
duties of officers of, 43 ; military
uniform of, 45 ; life of, in the field,
45 ; discomforts and risks in work
of, 46 ; palaeontologist appointed,
57 ; influence of climate on work of,
59 ; winter work of, 60 ; transferred
to the Office of Works, 61, 65;
augmentation of staff, 66 ; publishes
Memoirs, 67, 84 ; account of by
Leonard Horner, 68 ; system of
accounting in, 69, 168 ; duties of
Local Director of, 71 ; work of in
Ireland, 72 ; work of in South
Wales finished, 75 ; work of in
North Wales begun, 79 ; in progress
in the Dolgelli region, 81 ; appealed
to by Murchison, 93 ; revision work
of (see 'Revision'); preliminary
traverses in Snowdon region, 105 ;
section-running by, 113; progress of
up to 1848, 120; first sketch of
work done in North Wales, 125 ; first
publication of results of work in North
Wales, 125 ; regulation as to pub-
lication of results obtained by officers
of the, 126 ; work in Snowdon
region, 133, 148, 153, 161 ; legal
powers of trespass, 133; annual
dinners of, 142, 160, 175, 241 ;
songs by members of, 142, 160, 161,
176, 241, 242 ; head office removed
to Jermyn Street, 174 ; transferred to
Department of Science and Art,
207 ; extended to Scotland, 209,
219; progress of in England up to
1854, 211 ; condition of staff in
1854, 212; six -inch Ordnance
Survey maps used by, 215, 217 ;
death of De la Beche, 227 ; Mur-
chison appointed as his successor,
228 ; explanatory memoirs for the
maps organised, 259 ; reorganisation
and enlargement of staff in 1867,
290-293 ; agronomical work, 293 ;
progress of the service up to 1872,
314; duties of Director- General,
315 ; preparation of Annual Report,

321 ; revision of maps of Wales
(see 'Revision'); conference of
Director-General with Directors for
England and Scotland, 342 ; Sir A.
C. Ramsay resigns his position on
the staff, 348

Geology, Structural, Ramsay's contri-
butions to, 355

Stratigraphical, Ramsay's work

in, 357

Physiographical, Ramsay's

researches in, 358

history of, 349, 363

Museum of Economic (see

Museum)

Gergovia, 353

Giant's Causeway, 342

Gibbs, R., 66, 83, 105, 108, 135, 136,
137, 147, 212

Gibraltar, 337, 338, 344

Glacial geology, Ramsay's first refer-
ence to, 64 ; his first lessons in,
137 ; early incredulity regarding,
138; Ramsay's first public declara-
tion relating to, 1 60 ; progress of
Ramsay's views regarding, 167, 168,
170, 177, 193, 198, 202, 219, 251,
253> 254, 268, 326, 337, 345, 346 ;
summary of his contributions to,
36i

periods, successive, 198, 219,

228, 322, 326, 362

Gladstone, Mr. W. E., 349
Glas lyn, 135

Glasgow, Chemical Society of,
founded, 2

Philosophical Society of,

foundation of, 2

University confers degree of

LL.D. on Ramsay, 347

Glendalough (Galway), 342

Glengariff, 217

Glen Sannox, 23

Glyder fawr, 107, 136, 148, 149, 154,

255

fach, 150, 151

Goatfell, view from top of, 22
Godwin- Austen, R. A. C., 78, 124,

144, 309, 334

Goodsir, J., 222

Corner glacier, 267

Graham, J., notice of, 29 ; at Univer-
sity College, 1 1 8

Grant, Dr., 118

Grantham, 305

Green, A. H., 309

INDEX

387

Green Slates and Porphyries, 308

Greenough, G. B., notice of, 18 ; on
early maps of Geological Survey,
37 ; discussion with Sedgwick, 64 ;
at University College, 102 ; at
Council of Geological Society, 143

Greta, River, 296

Griffin and Co. publish Ramsay's first
book, 21

Griffith, R. , notice of, 1 8 ; maps Cam-
brian rocks in Ireland, 94

Grimsel, 199, 201, 254, 267,

341
Grindelwald, 253, 300, 327

HADDINGTON, i

Hall, J. (Albany), 252

Hammerers, the Royal, 142, 175

Hampshire, 144, 211, 235

Harlech, 82

Harrogate, 303

Hasli Thai, 267

Hathersage, 288

Hauer, Ritter von, 140

Haverfordwest, 53, 234

Hawick, 344

Hazelhead, Sheffield, 290

Hebert, E. J., 332

Heidelberg, 229, 263, 327

Henfrey, A., 180

Henry, T. H., 78

Herefordshire, 121, 211

Herschel, Sir John, 159

Hertfordshire, 314

Hexham, 301

Hicks, H., 324, 326

Highlands of Scotland, Ramsay's visits
to, 211, 260, 348; Survey not
begun in 1871, 315 ; his views on
age of schists of, 119

Hinter Rhein, 268

Holyhead, 171, 190

Homfray, D., 326, 329

Hooker, Dr. (Sir) Joseph, 66, 239,
282

Hope Bowdler, no

Hopkins, W., 85, 130, 177, 196

Home, J., 342

Homer, Leonard, on Geological Sur-
vey, 67 ; notice of, 122 ; President
of Geological Society, 270

Homes, M., 140

Hoskins, P., 212

Howell, H. H., 167, 187, 212, 244,
301, 302, 312, 348

Hughes, T. R., on Ramsay's life in

the field, 304 ; referred to, 280, 296,

328

Hulke, J. W., 345
Hull, E., 187, 212, 237, 288, 319
Hunt, Robert, Keeper of Mining

Records, 66, 129, 160, 176, 186
Hutton's Theory of the Earth, 116,

117, 118

Huxley, T. H., 271, 285
Hyeres, 345, 353

IBBETSON, Captain, 175, 180

Iguanodon, Mantell on the, 197

Inchkeith, 166

India, Geological Survey of, 63,
168

Ingleborough, 309

Inspection duty in the Geological Sur-
vey, 68, 79, 187, 244, 247, 250,
258

Interlaken, 199, 327

Ireland, Geological Survey of, 61, 65,
71, 72, 83, 121, 168, 169, 212, 215,
291, 293, 314, 315

Ramsay's visits to, 169, 215,

3i8, 342

lakes of, 320, 321

future glaciation of, 322

Italy, Ramsay's visits to, 168, 272 ;

rivers of northern, 323 ; glacial

fjords of, 341
Ivrea, moraines of, 266, 268, 273

JAMES, Sir Henry, R.E., 66, 144,

175, 177

Trevor E., 43, 66, 235

Jameson, R. , on Arran, 1 5 ; Wer-
nerian writings of, 155; at British
Association, 165 ; succeeded by E.
Forbes, 218

Jamin, Jules, 180

Jermyn Street, Museum and School of
Mines in, 121, 174, 182, 185, 196
312, 322, 339; catalogue of rock-
specimens in, 259, 356

Johnes, Mr., of Dolaucothi, 76, 266,
340

Miss, letters to, 249, 297,

302, 330, 335

Johnston, Prof. , of Durham, his advice
to Ramsay, 20

Jordan, T. B., keeper of Mining
Records, 42, 66

Jukes, J. B., joins the Geological Sur-
vey, 80 ; notice of, 82 ; with Ram-
say at Ffestiniog, 82, 83 ; at Cerrig

388

INDEX

y druidion, 105 ; Ramsay's opinion
of, 105, 147 ; reads a paper at
Geological Society, 1 24 ; as a writer
of "Survey songs," 142, 160; at
Aber, 152, 158; at work in Wales,
161 ; becomes Director of Geological
Survey of Ireland, 169, 176, 212;
visited by Ramsay in County Cork,
216 ; relieves Ramsay of his lectures,
261 ; on the valley of the Rhone,
282 ; his feelings with regard to the
reorganisation of the Survey, 295 ;
his paper on origin of river-valleys,
359

KEATS, Ramsay's admiration of, 246

Keeping, W., 77

Kendal, 288, 297, 308, 342

Kenmore, 348

Kent, 211

Keswick, 344

Kilkenny, 342

Killarney, 218

Kimeridge Bay, 180

Kinahan, G. H., 212, 217

King, Mr. James, his reminiscences of
Ramsay's boyhood, 5

Kirkby Lonsdale, 288, 296

Stephen, 309

Kirkconnel, 249

Kirkcudbrightshire, 315, 344

Kirk Hamerton, 303

Knaresboro, 303

Knighthood conferred on A. C. Ram-
say, 274, 349

Koninck, L. G. de, 308

LABRADOR, 341

Lac Bourget, 346

Lakes, Ramsay's views regarding origin

of, 269, 271, 281, 298, 299, 320,

321, 330, 341 ; summary of, 361
Lammermuir, 220, 247
Lancashire, 211, 314
Landsborough, D., early influence of,

on Ramsay, 13
Lankester, E., 63, 145
Larne, 318

Latham, R. G., 166, 179
Lauder, 247

Lauderdale, Earl of, 222
Lauener, C., Swiss guide, 254
Lauren tian rocks, supposed, 326
Lauterbrunnen, 327
Lay of Sir Roderick the Bold and the

Emperor of all the Russias, 242

Lectures organised at Craig's Court

and Jermyn Street, 183
Lectures, Ramsay's, 95, 98, 115-119,

124, 159, 1 86, 196, 253, 279, 318,

323, 328, 331, 335, 364
Leicestershire, 211, 314
Leitrim, 315
Lemon, Sir C., 196
Letter- writing in the Geological Survey,

247, 289, 296, 316
Lewes (Sussex), 236
Lincei, Royal Academy of, 345
Lincolnshire, 314
Lindau, 266
Lindfield, 280
Lingula Flags, upper limit of, 308, 329,

332, 333, 335. 336, 338 ; Ramsay's

view of the stratigraphical relations

of, 308
Llanberis, 70, 106, 133, 134, 137,

139, 148, 163, 167, 171, 213, 219,

338

Llanbrynmair, 79
Llandegle Rhos, 112
Llandeilo, 56
Flags, lower limit of, 329, 332,

333 ; volcanic rocks of, 334
Llandovery, 232
Llanfachreth, 81
Llanfair, 164
Llanfairynghornwy Rectory, 173, 193,

198, 214
Llangadock, 56
Llanidloes, 75
Llansadwrn, 354
Llechog, 135
Lleyn peninsula, 153
Llugwy, 152
Llyn Bychan, 158

Crafnant, 154, 158

Dulyn, 161

Geirionydd, 154, 156

Idwal, 137, 148, 149, 168

Llydaw, 136

Ogwen, 149, 152

Llyn-y-Cwm, 151

Local Director of Geological Survey,

duties of, 68
Loch Achray, 348

Katrine, 348

Lomond, 348

Ranza, 24

- Tay, 348

Vennachar, 348

Lockhart, J. Gibson, 146

Logan, W. E. , geological sections by, 44;

INDEX

389

notice of, 64; at Geological Society,
177 ; conference with Ramsay on
glacial geology, 178 ; paper on Pro-
tic hnites, 197 ; receives Ramsay in
Canada, 252 ; on Ramsay's views
regarding lake basins, 272 ; aided
by Ramsay, 364

London, Ramsay's life in, 60, 77, 118,
142, 159, 174, 196, 238, 310, 317,
331, 340, 351, 353

Londonderry, 315

Longmynd, 80

Lough Erne, Ramsay's impressions of,
320

Neagh, 315

Lowry, J. W., 165

Lucerne, Lake of, 198, 327

Lune, River, 297

Lyell,C.,visitsArran,i5 ; attends British
Association meeting in Glasgow
(1840), 17, 19; early kindness of, to
Ramsay, 29 ; consulted by Board of
Ordnance as to future of Geological
Survey, 37 ; on Ramsay's essay on
" Denudation of South Wales," 85 ;
testimonial to Ramsay, 102 ; opposes
R. Chambers, 103 ; on Hutton, 117 ;
married a daughter of L. Horner,
122 ; in company, 130 ; on American
Society, 131 ; Elementary Manual
reviewed by Ramsay, 138 ; De la
Beche on, 141 ; President of Geo-
logical Society, 143, 144 ; at Royal
Institution, 145 ; on Ramsay's first
glacial paper, 177 ; on Murchison's
views regarding the denudation of
the Weald, 178 ; joins Ramsay in
the Isle of Wight, 180; on Pro-
tichnites, 197 ; accompanies Ram-
say over Permian breccias of Mid-
lands, 229 ; letter to Ramsay regarding
a review of his Elements, 239 ; favours
Ramsay's nomination as President of
the Geological Society, 270 ; on
Ramsay's views upon lake -basins,
271, 281, 282, 283; his Principles
criticised by Ramsay, 298
- Lady, 15, 130, 239

Lymington, 180

Lyskamm, Ramsay's ascent of, 267

M'Cov, Professor, 144, 230
Macculloch, J. , on Arran ; on Corona-
tion Stone, 284
M'Lauchlan, H., 38
Machynlleth, 75

Mackintosh, A. F., 64

Maclagan, Sir D., 286

Maclaren, C., on British glaciers,
203

Maggiore, Lake, 341

Mallwyd, 80, 213

Maloja, 352

Malvern Hills, 162, 205, 219

Mantell, G., 58, 145, 178, 197

Maps used by Geological Survey, 215,
219

Marchllyn Mawr, 134

Marine denudation, plain of, 359

Marjelen See, 254, 255

Mathry, 232

Maxstoke Priory, 188

May, Isle of, 166
Hill, 205

Mayo, County, 315

Medlicott, S., 212

Meiringen, 266, 327

Memoirs of Geological Survey, 67 ; first
volume published, 84 ; sheet-explana-
tions instituted, 259

Menai Strait, 164, 171, 191

Mendip Hills, 86, 88, 89

Menevian group, 336

Mer de Glace, 201

Merian, P., 198, 201, 327

Metamorphism, see Altered Rocks

Microscope, use of, in geological sur-
veying, 343, 355

Midlands, geological work in, 1479 187,
188, 198, 219, 228

Midlothian, 243

Miller, Hugh, 63, 165

Mines, School of, 184, 186

Mining Record Office founded, 42

Miocene basalts, 342

Mist, geologising in, 47, 113, 150, 151,
152

Mitcheldean, 235

Moel Siabod, 125, 213
- Tryfaen, 337, 338

Monaghan, 315

Mont Blanc, 273
— Cervin, 201

Monte Rosa, 201, 267, 273

Montgomeryshire, in, 144

Monthey, blocks of, 256, 272

Montreal, Ramsay visits, 252

Moore, J. Carrick, 223, 326

Morpeth, 303

Mortillet, G. de, 298

Moselle, Ramsay's stay on the, 263,
264 ; his study of its evidence of

390

INDEX

river erosion, 265, 299 ; compared
with the Tay, 344

Mountain-chains, elevation of, 85

Mourne Mountains, 319, 320

Munich, 263

Murchison, R. I., on Arran, 15 ; notice
of, 1 8 ; geological work of, 25 ; in-
vites Ramsay to accompany him, 26 ;
procures Ramsay's appointment to
Geological Survey, 28 ; at the Geo-
logical Club, 30 ; on early work of
Geological Survey in Wales, 52 ;
map of Wales by, 5 3 ; at Anniversary
of Geological Society, 78, 144 ; on
Cambrian and Silurian controversy,
93 ; opposes R. Chambers, 103 ;
at British Association, 103, 166 ;
De la Beche on, 141 ; as a writer
of " Survey songs," 142 ; gives up
wearing a wig, 143 ; at Royal In-
stitution, 145, 159 ; dinner party
given by, 146 ; discourses at Royal
Institution, 159; on Ramsay's first
glacial paper, 177; reads paper on
Weald before Geological Society,
178; on De la Beche's labours in
founding the Jermyn Street Museum,
184; contest with Sedgwick, 197;
on Protichnites, 197 ; appointed
Director-General of the Geological
Survey, 228 ; with Ramsay in the
field, 243 ; on Ramsay's nomination
as President of the Geological Society,
270 ; is awarded the Wollaston
medal, 280 ; opposes Ramsay's
theory of lake-basins, 281, 282,
300 ; correspondence with Ramsay
with regard to Survey changes, 290 ;
struck down with paralysis, 307 ;
death, 311

Lady, 28, 29, 146

Museum of Economic Geology, origin
of, 40, 41

of Practical Geology, erection

of building for, in Jermyn Street,
121, 174, 182; contents of, 182;
opening of, 185 ; evening lectures
to artisans at, 196 ; duties of Director

of, 315

Mynydd Danlyn, 158
Perfedd, 148

NANT FRANCON, 152, 153, 219, 255
Neaves, Lord, 285

Necker de Saussure on Arran, 15, 16
Neill prize, 285

Newcastle, 303

New Cumnock, 249

New Forest, Ramsay on history of the,

235
Newfoundland, geological surveying in,

340

New Red Sandstone, 21, 89, 91, 306,
335, 358

Newstead Abbey, 287

Nichol, Dr. J. P., encourages Ramsay
in youth, 9, 14 ; organises an ex-
hibition of the geology of West Scot-
land, 1 6 ; advises Ramsay, 1 8 ; sees
the value of an appointment in the
Geological Survey, 32 ; meets Ram-
say at British Association at Oxford,
103 ; death, 248

Nicol, James, 123, 145

Nimes, 353

Nithsdale, 249

Noggerath, Professor, 262

Norfolk, 314

Northampton, Marquis of, 63

Northamptonshire, 211

Northumberland, 314

Norwich, 300

Nottingham, 286

Nottinghamshire, 211, 314

Nova Scotia, 340

OBAN, 320

Ober Aar glacier, 199, 267

Obergestalen, 267

Oberland, 198

Officialism in a Government depart-
ment, 127, 128

O'Kelly, J., 212

Oldham, Thomas, 82, 84, 118, 141,
142, 153, 160, 166, 168, 176

Old Red Sandstone, Ramsay's views
regarding, 220, 306, 320, 326,
358

Order of SS. Maurice and Lazarus, 274

OrdnanceSurvey,eaiiyconnectionofwith
Geological Survey, 36, 37, 38, 42, 68,
215 ; state of, in Scotland, 209, 219

Otley, 303

Overstone, Lord, 159

Owen, R., 62, 145, 179, 197

Oxfordshire, 211

PALLANZA, 352

Parliament, House's of, Commission for

considering building-stone for, 40
Parys Mine, 171, 172
Pateley Bridge, 303

INDEX

Peach, B. N. (Geological Survey), 294,

342

Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers, 199, 260
Peel, Sir R., sounded as to becoming

President of the Royal Society, 128 ;

on Jermyn Street Museum, 143 ; at

Geological Society, 144
Pembrokeshire, geology of, 43, 50, 231,

232, 233, 234
Pentland, J. B., 146

Hills, 320

Pen-y-bont, 81

Pen-y-gwryd, 150, 154

Percy, Dr. John, 145, 186

Permian breccias, investigation of, 198,

219, 228, 229, 241, 362
Perth, 344
Petrography in the Geological Survey,

343, 355

Phillips, J., notice of, 18; employed
in Geological Survey, 43, 50, 63, 162

J. A.', 129, 130, 176

R. , Curator of Museum of

Economic Geology, 41, 66 ; death
of, 185
- W., 58

Physical Geology and Geography, by
A. C.Ramsay, 277, 3 1 1, 334, 344, 363

Physiography, Ramsay's contributions
to, 358

Playfair, John, his Illustrations of
Huttonian Theory, 116

Playfair, Lord, an early friend of
Ramsay, 9 ; his reminiscences of Sir
Charles and Lady Lyell with Ramsay
in Arran, 14 ; with Ramsay in
London, 61, 62, 64, 77, 78, 144,
176 ; appointed chemist to Geo-
logical Survey, 66 ; with the sur-
veyors in Wales, 108 ; at the time
of the Chartist riot, 1 29 ; appointed
to School of Mines, 186

Plynlimmon, 75

Po, River, article by Ramsay on the, 323

Pont de Gard, 353

Ponteland, 303

Porteous Mob, anecdote of, 3

Portlock, J. E., 65

Port Madoc, 133, 326, 329

Portrush, 342

Pre-Cambrian rocks of Anglesey, 154,
172, 191, 192, 207

Preston, 305

Prestwich, J., 78, 124, 144, 305, 311

Privy Council, Committee on Educa-
tion, 208

Professor, work of a, 117
Protichnites, reading of Logan's and

Owen's papers on, 197
Pumpsaint, Ramsay stationed at, 76,

235, 331
Punch on the quarrels of the geologists,

283
Purbeck formation, Forbes' subdivisions

of, 1 80

Puy de Dome, 353
Pwlheli, 153

RAIN, geologising in, 46, 105, 113, 151
Ramsay, A. C. — Chap. I. — 1814-1840.
— Parentage, I ; brothers and sister,
3 ; birth, 4 ; childhood, 4 ;• attends
Glasgow Grammar School, 5 ; first
reads Shakespeare, 6 ; loses his
father, 7 (see p. 257) ; goes into
business, 7, 257 ; edits a manu-
script journal, 8 ; enters into partner-
ship as a cloth-merchant, 9 ; in-
fluenced towards science by D.
Landsborough, 13 ; and by J. P.
Nichol, 14; makes the acquaintance
of Lyell, 15 ; geologically surveys
Arran, 17 ; first meets De la Beche,
Murchison, E. Forbes, etc., 18; reads
his first geological paper, 19 ;
misses the excursion to Arran, 20 ;
writes his volume on Arran, 21 ;
extracts from this volume, 22-25 :
leaves home to join Murchison, 26 ;
letter to his mother, 26 ; to his
brother William, 27 ; first visits
London, 28 ; is appointed to the
Geological Survey, 28 ; dines at
Geological Club, 30 ; joins the
Survey at Tenby, 33 (see pp. 1 76, 234)
Chap. II. — 1841 - 1845. — His
opinion of the early maps of the
Geological Survey, 39, 53 ; early
days in the Survey, 42, 49, 234 ; with
J. Phillips in South Wales, 43, 50 ;
first Report on Welsh Geology, 51 ;
first mapping of volcanic rocks, 51 ;
sings in cathedral choir at St. David's,
54, 234 ; musical talent of, 54 ;
sociality of, in South Wales, 55 ; finds
fossils in South Wales, 5 6 ; undertakes,
with E. Forbes, to prepare a new
edition of Conybeare and Phillips'
Geology, 58, 72 ; life in London, 61 ;
promoted to be Local Director, 61 ;
writes the essay on the " Denudation
of South Wales," 63 ; declines the

392

INDEX

offer of an appointment to the
Geological Survey of India, 63 ;
first speech at Geological Society, 64

Chap. III. — 1845-1846. — His
position as Local Director, 66 ; new
duties assigned to him, 68 ; the
task of inspecting the work of his
colleagues, 68 ; his experiences with
the Survey accounts, 70 ; relation to
Irish Survey, 71 ; at Cambridge
meeting of British Association
(1845), 73 > buys a pony for field
work, 75 '•> verses by, 76 ; in London
(1845-46), 77 ; in North Wales, 79 ;
his essay on " Denudation of South
Wales " published, 84 ; criticised by
Darwin, 85 ; criticised by Lyell, 85 ;
reply to Lyell, 88 ; on disturbance
and upheaval, 89 ; on denudation,
90 ; on geological time, 90 ; ex-
presses his indebtedness to Lyell,
92 ; invited to give a Friday evening
discourse at Royal Institution, 95 ;
returns home for Christmas, 95 ;
rhyming letter to his mother, 95

Chap. IV. — 1847-1848.— Dis-
course to Royal Institution, 98 ;
mapping volcanic rocks in Wales,
99 ; offered Chair of Geology at
University College, London, 101 ;
accepts the professorship, 103 ; at-
tends British Association at Oxford,
103 ; resumes work in North Wales,
105 ; accompanies De la Beche in a
tour to Llanberis, etc., 105 ; first
ascent of Snowdon, 106 ; accident
on Glydyr fawr, 107 ; first visit to
Anglesey, 107 ; works at his lectures,
108, 115, 1 16; his sketching powers,
no, 116; his love of antiquities,
ill, 188, 246; finds the Wenlock
unconformability and fossils in sup-
posed "greenstones", 112; studies
Welsh, 112; verses by, 113; gives
his introductory lecture, 1 1 8 ; first
course of lectures, 119; elected into
the Geological Club, 121 ; speaks
at Geological Society, 1 23 ; elected
a member of council of the Geologi-
cal Society, 123 ; reads a paper at
the Geological Society, 124 ; obtains
concession as to the reading of papers
by officers of Survey, 1 26 ; loyalty
to De la Beche, 127 ; in the Chartist
scare of 1848, 129; visits Darwin,
130

Chap. ¥.—1848-1851.— Begins
the survey of the Snowdon region,
132 ; secretary of Section C at
British Association 1848, 135 ; as a
mountaineer, 136; receives a lesson
in glacial geology from R. Chambers,
137 ; review of Lyell's Elementary
Manual, 138 ; at dinner at Murchi-
son's, 146 ; friendship with Jukes,
147 ; elected into Royal Society,

147 ; resumes work at Llanberis,

148 ; on sinking for coal near Caer-
narvon, 148 ; hampered by mist in
the Snowdon country, 1 50 ; stationed
at Capel Curig, 153 ; first impressions
of Anglesey geology, 1 54 ; on the
Wernerian School, 155 ; sonnet by,
157 ; on Cowper and Luther, 157 ;
life in London, 158 ; discourse at
Royal Institution, 159 ; first publicly
expresses his opinion on the glacia-
tion of Wales, 1 60 ; writes two songs
for Survey dinner, 160; returns to
field-work in North Wales, 161 ; cor-
rects De la Beche's work in North
Wales, 163, 190; runs sections in the
Snowdon region, 163 ; at British
Association, Edinburgh, 165 ; on
glacial drift in Wales, 1 68 ; first visit
to Ireland, 169; verses on Oldham's
marriage, 169 ; work in Anglesey,
170 ; makes the acquaintance of the
Rector of Llanfairynghornwy and his
family, 173; songs by, 176; reads
his first paper on glacial geology,
177; in the Isle of Wight with
Lyell and Forbes, 180

Chap.Nl.— 1851-1853.— Resigns
his professorship in University Col-
lege, and is appointed to School of
Mines, 186 ; his power as an in-
structor in the field, 187 ; on English
scenery, 188 ; on antiquities and
provincialisms, 188; metrical epistle
to Salter, 189; tour in Anglesey
with De la Beche, 1 90 ; account of
last excursion with the Director-
General in Wales, 190 ; on Welsh
words, 192 ; with Selwyn in the
Dolgelli region, 193 ; engagement
to Miss Williams, 193 ; opens his
course of lectures at the School of
mines, 196; on controversy between
Sedgwick and Murchison, 197 ; in-
vestigates the Permian breccias of
Worcestershire, etc., 198 ; marriage,

INDEX

393

198 ; first visit to the Continent,
198 ; sees the Alps and glaciers for
the first time, 198 ; excursion with
Dolfuss-Ausset to the Ober Aar
glacier, 199 ; reception by De la
Beche on his return, 202 ; influence
of the Swiss tour on his geological
progress, 202 ; correspondence with
R. Chambers, 202 ; his share in the
development of glacial geology, 203 ;
resumes work at Ffestiniog, 204 ;
difficulties with De la Beche as to
the progress of the Survey in Wales,
205 ; on the early maps of Devon,
Cornwall, and South Wales, 205,
206 ; on the Geology of Wales,
206 ; on altered Cambrian rocks,
207 ; birth of a daughter, 207

Chap. VII.— 1853-1856.— Pre-
liminary visit to Scotland before ex-
tending the Geological Survey
thither, 210; begins to prepare the
Survey Memoir on North Wales,
212 ; birth of a son, 214 ; journey
to south of Ireland, 215 ; on Irish
scenery and peasantry, 218 ; reads
papers at Liverpool meeting of
British Association, 219; on glacia-
tion of Wales, 219 ; begins the
Geological Survey of Scotland, 219 ;
life at Dunbar, 220 ; on Old Red
Conglomerate, 220 ; his colour-
blindness, 220 ; led by De la Beche
to expect to be his successor, 225 ;
disappointment of his hopes, 227 ;
proposes that Murchison should be
Director-General, 228 ; resumes the
investigation of the Permian breccias,
228 ; visits the Rothliegendes of
Germany, 229 ; on revision of South
Wales, 229-235 ; reminiscences of
his early Survey life, 234 ; on Hamp-
shire scenery, 235 ; description of
Lewes, 236 ; reviews fifth edition of
Lyell's Manual of Elementary
Geology, 238 (see p. 138) ; songs at
the Survey dinner in 1856, 241 ; his
" Lay of Sir Roderick the Bold and
the Emperor of all the Russias,"
242 ; President of Section C at
British Association, 243 ; his char-
acteristics among his colleagues in
the field, 244 ; his love and know-
ledge of English literature, 245 ; on
the Waverley Novels, 246 ; on
Keats, 246 ; his enthusiasm for anti-

quities, 246 ; his inspecting work in
Scotland, 247 ; in Lammermuir,
247 j in the West of Scotland, 248
Chap.VIII.— 1857-1862.— Visits
Canada and the United States, 251 ;
growth of his views on glaciation,
253; visits Switzerland with Tyndall,
253 ; death of his mother, 256 ;
draws a picture of her character, 257;
increase of his literary duties, 258 ;
publishes a geological map of Eng-
land and Wales, 260 ; writes for
Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers, and
Saturday Review, 260 ; accompanies
Murchison to North- West Highlands,

260 ; beginning of ill-health, 261
(see p. 318); views regarding Boulder
clay, 261 ; obtains leave of absence
for six months and goes to Germany,

261 ; life in Bonn, 262 ; stay on the
Moselle, 263 ; grows a beard, 265 ;
goes with Mrs. Ramsay to Switzer-
land, 266 ; ascends the Lyskamm,
267 ; turns his thoughts to the prob-
lem of the origin of lakes, 269 ;
becomes President of the Geological
Society, 270 ; reads his paper on
Lake basins, 271 ; revisits Switzer-
land, 272 ; receives an Italian
Knighthood, 274

Chap. IX. — 1863-1872.— Presi-
dency of Geological Society, 276 ;
takes " Breaks in the Succession of
the British Strata" as the subject
of his Presidential addresses, 277 ;
origin of his Physical Geology and
Geography of Great Britain, 277 ;
gives increasing attention to the
origin of scenery, 278 ; continued
ill-health, 278 ; asks to be relieved
from lecturing, 279 ; views on
Denudation, 280 ; presents the
Wollaston medal to Murchison, 280 ;
replies to Murchison's criticism of
the lake-basin theory, 281, 288;
replies to Lyell's criticism of the
same theory, 283 ; finishes the
Memoir on North Wales, 284 ; work
on the Royal Coal Commission, 2845
on the Coronation Stone, 284 ; is
awarded the Neill medal by the
Royal Society of Edinburgh, 285 ;
is made LL.D. by Edinburgh
University, 285 ; is presented with
a gold watch by his staff, 286 ;
President of Section C at British

394

INDEX

Association (1866), 286; metrical
account of the meeting, 287 ; Sur-
vey rambles, 288, 289, 296, 300,
3°3> 304 ; description of Durham,
288 ; hears of prospective reorgan-
isation of the Survey, 290 ; becomes
Senior Director, 291 ; on rules and
regulations, 295 ; on Kendal and
the River Lune, 297 ; at the British
Association (1867), 297 ; attitude on
the lake question, 298 ; criticises
Lyell's Principles, 298 ; on English
antiquities, 301 ; story of a pagan
at the post-office, 301 ; on the Vale
of Dent, 302 ; on the Yorkshire
dales, 305 j is awarded the Wollas-
ton medal, 306 ; metrical account of
his paper on English river-systems,
306 ; on Cambrian and Lower
Silurian classification, 308 ; on
" green slates and porphyries," 308 ;
on the Council of the Geological
Society, 309 ; is appointed Director-
General of the Geological Survey,3i2
Chap. X. — 1872-1882.— Duties
as Director-General, 316 ; his promo-
tion comes too late, 317; is compelled
to continue to lecture, 318; tour in
Ireland, 318 ; article in Saturday
Review, 322 ; article on River Po,
323 ; discourses on " Old Conti-
nents," 323 ; begins the prepara-
tion of a new edition of the Memoir
on North Wales, 324; revises geology
of St. David's, 324 ; studies the
origin of the valley of the Rhine,
326 ; revisits Rhineland and Switzer-
land, 326 ; revision of the Geological
Survey map and Memoir of Wales,
328, 329, 332, 333, 336 5 discourse
at Royal Institution, 331 ; on history
of the River Dee, 333 ; on volcanic
rocks in Britain, 334 ; is relieved
from lecturing, 335; on Moel Tryfaen,
337 ; is commissioned to examine
and report on rock of Gibraltar, 337,
338 ; receives a presentation of
plate from his old students, 339 ;
on the Italian lakes, 341 ; inspection
tour in Ireland, 342 ; conference in
Scotland, 342 ; his growing weak-
ness, 342 ; discourses for the last
time to the Royal Institution, 344 ;
undergoes an operation for the re-
moval of the left eye, 345 ; is elected
into the Royal Academy of the

Lincei, 345 ; examines the evidence
of the former great extension of the
Rhone glacier, 345 ; President of
British Association, 346 ; receives
one of the Royal medals of the Royal
Society, 347 ; is made LL.D. by
the University of Glasgow, 347 ;
president of Section C at the jubilee
meeting of British Association, 348 ;
resignation determined on, 348 ; is
knighted, 349 ; retires from the
Survey, 349

Chap. XI. — 1882-1891. — Re-
tirement, 351 j St. Moritz, Como,
Venice, 352 ; Southern France,
353 ; removal to permanent resi-
dence at Beaumaris, 353 ; last years
of life, 353 ; his death, 354

Summary of his scientific work,
355 ; his contributions to Structural
Geology, 355 ; work among older
Palaeozoic volcanic rocks, 356 ;
Stratigraphical work, 357 ; papers
on old continents, 358 ; Physio-
graphical work, 358 ; researches in
Denudation, 358 ; investigation of
river valleys, 359 ; studies in Glacia-
tion, 361 ; contributions to the
History of Geology, 363 ; literary
essays, etc., 363 ; general view of
his scientific influence and character,

364

Ramsay, Dean, 354
W. (father of A. C. Ramsay),

i, 3» 6

W. (brother of A. C. R.),

letters to, 9, 27, 155, 157, 329

Professor W. (nephew of A. C.

R.), 326

Mrs. W. (E. Crombie),

mother of A. C. Ramsay, marriage
of, 2 ; character of, 3 ; family life of,
4 ; letters to, 26, 74, 95 ; her dismay
at her son's appointment to the
Geological Survey, 32 ; at British
Association, 165 ; Ramsay's regard
for her, 167 ; death of, 256 ; char-
acter of, as drawn by Ramsay, 257

Red deposits, Ramsay's views regard-
ing, 306, 308, 326, 335

" Red Lions," notice of, 62 ; London
company of, founded, 58 ; dinners
of, 104, 145, 179

Reeks, Trenham, 64, 124, 129, 137,
144, 145, 1 60, 175. 307

Rees, T., 43> 234

INDEX

395

Revision in the Geological Survey, 99,
in, 161, 203, 229, 324, 326, 329,
332, 336, 337, 338

Rhind, J., 212

Rhine, Ramsay's investigation of valley
of, 326, 327, 328, 360

Rhinog fach, 193

Rhobell fawr, geology of, 81, 193

Rhone glacier, 254, 267, 345

valley, 201, 254, 256, 267, 272,

273, 327, 339, 345

Richmond (Yorkshire), 303

Riffel, 256, 267

Ripon, 303

Lord, 312

Rivals, the (Lleyn), 162

River valleys, Ramsay's investigations
of, 264, 265, 299, 306, 307, 325,
326, 328, 333, 344, 359

Ross (Herefordshire), 235

Rowsley, 288

Roxburghshire, 315

Royal Commission on Coal, 284

Institution, Friday evenings at

the, 145, 159, 197; Ramsay's lec-
tures to, 95, 98, 159, 253, 323,
328,^331, 344

- Society, Ramsay elected into,
147 ; awards Royal medal to Ram-
say, 347

Russell, Lord John, 175

Russian prisoners at Lewes, 236

Riitimeyer, Professor, 305, 306, 327

Rutley, F., 309

ST. ANDREWS, Ramsay at, 259, 297

St. David's, geology of, 51, 52, 206,
232, 233, 324, 326

St. Moritz, 352

Salt lakes of ancient times, 358

Saltcoats, Ramsay's boyhood at, 4, 13,
123

Salter, J. W., 79, 104, 119, 130, 142,
160, 162, 168, 175, 189, 206, 212,
214, 230, 237, 283, 324

Sanetsch glacier, 273

Saone, valley of the, 339

Saturday Review, Ramsay's contribu-
tions to, 260, 266, 322, 364

Scenery, Ramsay's investigations of
origin of, 63, 67, 160, 278, 307,
3J7> 334 (see "Glacial Geology"
and " River Valleys ")

Scheideck, 327

School of Mines, institution of, 183,
185, 339

Schonbein, Professor, 198

Science and Art Department, estab-
lishment of the, 207, 208.

Science, College of, at South Kensing-
ton, 312

Scotland, Geological Survey of, 209,
219, 290, 291, 314, 3I5> 342

Scott, Ramsay's opinion of, 245, 354

Scrope, G. P., 239

Sea, geological influence of, 85, 86,
88, 90, 359

Sections, horizontal, of Geological
Survey, 44, 52, 113, 147, 163, 167,
203, 356

Sedgwick, A., on Arran, 15 ; on
Geological Survey, 38 ; discussion
with Greenough, 64 ; paper on
Wales, 77 ; on Survey sections, 93 ;
opposes R. Chambers, 103; speeches
at the Geological Society, 77, 123,
124, 144, 177 ; at Murchison's, 146;
at British Association, 166 ; contest
with Murchison, 197 ; on Protich-
nites, 197; on Silurian rocks, 230;
birthplace of, 302 ; Ramsay's re-
marks on, 324

Selkirk, Lord, 124

Sella, Quintino, 273, 345

Selwyn, A. R. C., appointed to Geo-
logical Survey, 66 ; with Ramsay in
Wales, 75, 79, 80, 105, 108, 133,
135, 137, HO, 153, 158, 161, 162,
1 68, 170, 173, 193 ; joint paper with
Ramsay, 124 ; horizontal sections
by, 164 ; detects the unconform-
ability below the Cambrian rocks of
Anglesey, 172, 192; at the Survey
dinners, 175 ; resigns his appoint-
ment in the Geological Survey, 204 ;
revision of work of, 329

Sharpe, D., 178, 240

Sharpey, Dr. , 1 1 8

Sheean, Mr., barrister, 145

Shelley, Lady, 104

Shelve, 79

Shropshire, 121, 193, 211, 230

Sibson, Dr., 268, 272

Siebengebirge, 262

Silliman, Professor, 252

Silurian and Cambrian controversy, 52,

53, 77, 79, 90, 134, 197, 324
Silurian, Upper and Lower, line be-
tween, 206, 230
— volcanic rocks, 334
Sion, Rhone Valley, 272, 273
Sismonda, A., 139

396

INDEX

Sittingbourne, 280

Skipton, 303

Slieve Croob, 320

SHgo, 315, 320

Smith, C. H., 40

Smith, James, of Jordanhill, notice of,
18

Smith, W. , father of English Geology,
40, 358

Smyth, Admiral W. H., 64, 146

W. W., mining geologist to

Geological Survey, 66 ; with Ram-
say in Wales, 99, 105, 137 ; work
in Anglesey, 17°; at Geological
Society, 124, 144 ; as a writer of
"Survey songs," 142, 160 ; at the
annual dinners of the Survey, 142,
160, 175

Snowdon, geology of, 106, 132, 134,
135, 136, 150, 163, 164, 204

Somerset, 121

Somerset House, 122

Sopwith, T., 42, 78, 166, 177

South Kensington, College of Science
at, 312

Soyer, the French cook, and the
"Red Lions," 179

Spencer, Herbert, 310

Lord, 349

Spring Rice, T., Chancellor of the
Exchequer, 38

Stachelberg, 266

Staffordshire, geology of, 147, 211

Stanger, Dr., 29

Stanley, Dean, 284

Steno, 116

Still, H., 38

Strahleck Pass, 254, 300

Stratigraphy, Ramsay's contributions
to, 357

Strickland, H. E., 18, 78, 166

Studer, B., 240, 327

Subsidence and denudation, 85

Suffolk, 314

Surrey, 21 1

Surveyor, life of a geological, 45; winter
work of, 60 ; in London, 60

Sussex, 211

Swansea, 135, 346

Switzerland, Ramsay's visits to, 195,
198, 202, 203, 253, 266, 272, 327,

352
LyelFs views of the glaciation of,

240
Switzerland and Wales, Ramsay's

work on old glaciers of, 260

TARANNON shales, 230

Tay River, Ramsay's impression of

the, 344
Taylor, J., 30
Tenby, 28, 29, 33, 43, 176
Tennant, C., 31
Teplitz, 266

"The auld rocks ayont the sea," 242
Theodul Pass, 268
The Old Glaciers of Switzerland and

North Wales, by A. C. Ramsay,

260, 338

Thomson, Professor Thomas, 2, 31
Thun, 266
Thuringia, Ramsay studies the Roth-

liegendes of, 229
Tiddeman, R. J., 288, 296, 309
Time, geological, 86
Todmorden, 288
Topography, see Scenery
Traill, W. A., 319

Training duty on the Geological Sur-
vey, 187

Trawsfynydd, 213
Trefan, 150, 151
Trefgarn, 232
Trefriw, 158
Tremadoc, 153

— group, limits of, 308, 329, 332,

335, 336, 338
Treves, 263, 344
Trimmer, J., 80, 337
Tunbridge, 280
Turin, 273
Turnberry, 145
Turtmann, 201, 273
Tylor, A., 144

Tyndall, J., 253, 254, 256, 267, 271
Tyn-y-groes, 213
Tyrone, 315

UNCONFORMABILITIES, 336, 357
Uniformitarianism, 286, 346, 363
University College, London, Chair of

Geology in, 101, 103, 108, 115,

184, 336
Unter Aar glacier, 200, 254

VALAIS, 273

Val d'Aosta, 273

Van Voorst, J., 180

Venice, 352

Verses by A. C. Ramsay, 76, 95, 113,

H5> !57> 161, 169, 176, 189,241,

242, 287, 306, 311
Vestiges of Creation, 77, 103, 137

INDEX

397

Victoria, Geological Survey of, 204

Visp, 267

Volcanic rocks, mapping of, 51, 52,
79, 82, 83, 99, 100, 135, 137, 172,
214, 231, 265, 309, 333, 334,

343
Ramsay's general account of, 259,

334, 335. 356
Vosges, 327, 360

WALES, NORTH, Geological Survey of,

75, 79, 105, 121, 124, 133, 137,
138, 144, 148, 161, 162, 190, 193,
203, 204, 206, 211 ; Memoir of,
212, 213, 236, 243, 259, 282, 283,
284 ; new edition of Memoir of,
324, 329, 332, 333, 334, 337, 347 ;
Ramsay's closing years in, 317 ;
value of Ramsay's work in, 355

Wales, South, geological survey of, 42,
50, 53, 56, 73, 75, 77, 9°, 104,
124, 144 ; imperfection of early
maps of, 205, 206, 229, 231 ; re-
vision of, 229-235, 237, 324, 325

Warbarrow, 180

Warburton, H., 64, 102

Ward, J. Clifton, 313, 330, 332, 342,

343

Warwickshire, 188, 211
Weald, denudation of the, 280, 359
Wealden formation, 335
Wellingborough, 280
Wenlock group, unconformability of,
112 ; strata below, 230

Wernerian school, Ramsay's opinion

of the, 155
Westminster Palace, 9 ; selection of

building-stone for, 40
Westmoreland, 314
Wheatstone, C., 159
Whitaker, W., 280
Wight, Isle of, geology, 133, 180
Wigtownshire, 223, 315
Williams, D. H., 43, 66, 83
Miss L., Llanfairynghornwy,

173, 174; her engagement with A.

C. Ramsay, 193
Wilson, W. L., 212, 217

John, 129

Wiltshire, 121, 211

Wirks worth, 297

Wollaston Medal, 123, 144, 185, 280,

306

Woods and Forests, Office of, 41, 207
Worcestershire, 198, 211, 219
Wrekin, 148

Wright, Thomas, 237, 261
Wrottesley, Lord, 166
Wyley, A., 212

YEOVIL, 78

Y Foel Fras, 162

York, British Association at, 348

Yorkshire, 211, 304, 305, 314

Yspytty Evan, 213

ZERMATT, 254, 256, 267
Zirkel, F., 262, 299

THE END

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