no K. M. .1011NSTON MKMOIUAI. l.KlTrilK. 



PART I. 



BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 

 OF R. M. JOHNSTON. 



The .creat honour and privilege has been conferred 

 upon me by the Fellows of the Royal Society of Tasmania 

 of inviting me to deliver the first of the Memorial Lectures 

 to a truly great man, one who always gave of his best, and 

 whose whole life was one of loving and faithful service, the 

 late Robert Mackenzie Johnston. From my heart I thank 

 you for this privilege. 



Already a grateful countrj' has published a fine work 

 in "The R. M. Johnston Memorial Volume," embodying his 

 chief papers and pamphlets and giving a summary of his 

 biography, with a foreword from one who perhaps knew 

 him best, the Hon. Sir Elliott Lewis. The Royal Society 

 of Tasmania in its volume for 1918 has also given a short 

 biography and a complete list of his published papers. 

 Under these circumstances, I do not propose to more than 

 very briefly touch upon his life work, but will review briefly 

 some recent geological I'esearches inspired largely and to 

 a great extent built on the foundation which Johnston so 

 well and truly laid. 



Though one shrinks from treading on such holy ground 

 as that of the life of a vanished friend, one is nevertheless 

 drawn to do so by the strength of one's lovj for him, for 

 in the simple phrase of the country of his birth, he ^vas "a 

 lovely man." 



Born in 1845 at a little fishing village in the Black Isle, 

 on the shore of the Moray Firth in Scotland, he died in 

 Hobart in 11)18 at the age of l^i years. His father had a 

 small croft, on which he owned a humble cottage. 



Young Johnston was educated at the village school, and 

 derived much inspiration from the works of the famous 

 stone-mason geologist, Hugh MillerT who lived in the neigh- 

 bouring town of Oomarty. His early taste for geology 

 may be traced to this source. He left school very young, 

 and for two years was herd laddie and harvest hand on a 

 neighbouring farm. In spite of hard work he found time 

 for some reading, and the ambition t^vcw strong within him 

 to see something of the great world. When only a laddie 

 of 14 years of age he showed the great strength of his 

 character in breaking from all his surroundings. In the long 



