20 PARENTAGE AND YOUTH CHAP, i 



for some days before had been up early and late. 

 Hence, when the morning came, he unluckily overslept 

 himself, and was too late for both steamboat and train. 

 This untoward accident he never ceased to regret. 



The excitement of the Glasgow meeting, the first 

 entry into the company of renowned geologists with 

 whose names he had so long been familiar, the first 

 public exhibition of his own work as a geologist, the 

 first plunge into the sea of active scientific discussion, 

 and the cordial welcome extended to him by men 

 whose achievements he had followed from afar, left 

 Ramsay with many regrets when he came back again 

 to the consideration of his own prospects in life. How 

 gladly would he have taken to science as a calling if 

 only any opening had offered itself. Nine years after- 

 wards, when he had found his place in the active 

 brotherhood of men of science, chancing to meet 

 Professor Johnston of Durham, whose acquaintance 

 he had made at the British Association in Glasgow, 

 he recalled to him an incident of that meeting, 

 which he thus describes : ' On the Sunday of the 

 Association week I chanced to overtake Johnston in 

 Ingram Street, and, talking about geological matters, 

 I told him how I was busy with mercantile affairs, and 

 longed for an opportunity to engage in geological 

 pursuits, after the happy taste I had had of it in 

 working before the coming of the Association. " Stick 

 to your work," quoth he, "and don't forget your 

 geology, and something may arise ! " He spoke truly.' 



The British Association meeting, while it had 

 stimulated his bent towards geological work, threw no 

 light upon the dark outlook before the young man. 

 From a letter of his mother's, it appears that there was 

 at one time some prospect of his going out to Tasmania, 



