2oo NATURAL SCIENCE. March, 



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 ! ' ' About Disraeli we are told this story, — " 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." There is an interesting account of Lyell out with 

 some Survey men in Dorsetshire, — " We all like Lyell much. He is 

 anxious for instruction, and so far from affecting the big-wig, is not 

 afraid to learn anything from anyone. The notes he takes are 

 amazing ; many a one has he had from me to-day. He is very help- 

 less 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. Logan says it is vanity that prevents his 

 always doing so. I think it is custom, and perhaps his wife." Of the 

 meetings of the Geological Society accounts are numerous. There 

 have been changes in the procedure of this body, but in other respects 

 things are much as they were when Ramsay, on hearing tljat there 

 was a lack of papers, wrote as follows, — " They might have more 

 were it not that authors of theoretical papers are afraid to send them 

 in for fear of the fatherly care of the Council. Green's last paper 



was quashed 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 illustrations, by Rutley, of living 

 examples." 



We must pick out no more plums, not because it is unfair to the 

 book, for that can well spare a few from its abundance, but because 

 space fails us. Two more extracts only really must be inserted. 

 One shows Ramsay, as Local Director, in the field. " 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. . . . 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 his head, 

 he would seize the map and rush ahead, calling on the defaulter to 

 come on and look. And he would keep up his 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." 



Our last extract shall be the concluding verse of Ramsay's 

 famous Survey song, "The Lay of Sir Roderick the Bold and the 

 Emperor of all the Russias," which is sung to the air of " The Auld 

 wife ayont the Fire." The song relates how the Knight, with 

 De Verneuil and Count Keyserling, went at the invitation of the 

 Czar " to map the rocks ayont the sea, that rise upon the Ural," for, 

 as the Czar said, " 'Twill be droll but you will find a bed of coal, 

 and I'll sing Tooralooral." 



