342 DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE SURVEY CHAP, x 



BEAUMARIS, ^th 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 



