SKETCH OF ANDREW CROMBIE RAMSAY. 263 



After their marriage, Professor Ramsay and his bride, Miss 

 Louisa Williams, a Welsh lady, took a wedding tour through Swit- 

 zerland, and Professor Ramsay got his first view of a real glacier 

 " far away toward the summit of the Uri Roth Stock," while crossing 

 the Lake of the Pour Cantons, and observed the enormous contor- 

 tions of the rocks of the region. He made also a special excursion to 

 the Upper Aar Glacier. These experiences " quickened his desire to 

 renew the study of the Welsh phenomena, and sent him back with a 

 far more vivid conception of what the conditions must have been in 

 the Ice age among the hills and valleys of this country." He 

 " threw himself more and more into the study of the superficial con- 

 tours of the land, and among the various agents by which these con- 

 tours had ben molded and modified he specially devoted himself to 

 the investigation of the work of ice "; and among those who led the 

 way to a more comprehensive investigation of these phenomena, 

 " and who made the Glacial period one of the most absorbingly inter- 

 esting of all the geological ages, a foremost place must always be 

 assigned to Sir Andrew Ramsay." 



The Government School of Mines, and of Science applied to 

 the Arts, having been established on the removal of the Geological 

 Museum to new quarters in 1851, Professor Ramsay was appointed 

 lecturer on geology and its practical applications. This com- 

 pelled his resignation of the professorship in University College. 

 Besides the course of thirty lectures given twice a week, he delivered 

 his courses in the system of evening lectures to artisans in which 

 all the teachers engaged, giving six lectures each in the season, and 

 which have been up to the present time eminently popular among 

 the class for which they are designed. Professor Ramsay's first 

 course, on the Utility of Geological Maps, was so acceptable that its 

 repetition was called for. Among the results of the impulse given 

 to the recognition of the importance of science in national progress 

 that followed the Great Exhibition of 1851, was the establishment of 

 the Department of Science and Art, under the control of the Board of 

 Trade and afterward of the Privy Council, to which the Geological 

 Survey, the Museum of Practical Geology, and the School of Mines 

 were transferred. It was also decided to extend the Geological Sur- 

 vey to Scotland, and Professor Ramsay was sent there in 1853 to 

 arrange for its operations, which were begun under his immediate 

 direction in the smmer of 1854. The onerous duty, which nobody 

 was so competent as he to perform, of preparing, from his sur- 

 veys, a connected description of the geology of ITorth Wales, was 

 undertaken, and became his chief indoor labor for twelve years. 

 The chief of the survey. Sir Henry de la Beche, died in April, 

 1855. Professor Ramsay had been led by Sir Henry to suppose 



