142 SURVEY OF THE SNO WDON REGION CHAP, v 



As reminiscences of the winter season of i 

 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 hdcl 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. 



