72 SURVEY UNDER OFFICE OF WORKS CHAP, in 



FETHARD, COUNTY WEXFORD, 



\Afth September 1845. 



DEAR RAMSAY When I arrived in London from my Zetland 

 voyage I found you were in Glasgow. Had I known it before, I 

 might have given you a ten minutes' call on the way. I got your 

 note at Oban. On arriving in town I found half a dozen orders 

 from Sir Henry to be off to join him in Ireland ; so after three days 

 in London, I cut away to Waterford via Bristol. . . . 



I am here in a little village near Hook Point, in the midst of 

 Mountain Limestone fossils, examining their distribution all very 

 interesting. The Captain, a very nice fellow named Willson, who is 

 of his staff, and that thorough Welshman, little J., peppery, uncom- 

 fortable, and marvellously stupid and uninformed (as I find on close 

 quarters), are my companions. We make a very merry mess, how- 

 ever, and the Welsh squire's absurdities for he is in misery in 

 Ireland make us laugh. Sir Henry was with us till two days ago, 

 working like a trooper, and when not at work telling funny stories. 

 In a few days I leave this and go with the Captain (who sports a 

 ferocious pair of egg-brown moustaches) to look at the Pleistocene 

 beds in Wexford. Thence I go with Sir Henry to Dublin, after 

 which, route as yet undetermined. When in Zetland I got most 

 important data respecting the history of the animals found fossil 

 in the Pleistocene beds. This makes me very anxious to see the 

 Irish, and I should like much to go with you to Moel Trefaen and 

 thereabouts. 



I have been talking to Sir Henry about Longman's book. 1 I 

 don't see how the Devil it is to be done. One gets no time to do 

 it. Unless it can be done as Survey work, and in Survey time, it 

 seems to me to be quite out of the question, and if we find that it 

 cannot so be done, it would be better to write a joint letter to Long- 

 man submitting such to be the case, and requesting to be freed from 

 the engagement. As it is, it is an unpleasant fiction. What say 

 you ? I have not finished my great work yet from utter want of 

 time, nor when I think over it, do I see how it can be done, unless 

 Sir Henry grants a few weeks' respite. Ever, dear Ramsay, most 

 sincerely yours, EDWARD FORBES A. 



With all the immediate and prospective additions 

 to his duties arising from the reorganisation of the 

 Survey, and happily ignorant as yet of the trouble and 

 worry which they might involve, Ramsay got through 

 the office work of the winter of 1844-45, and soon 



1 This was the new edition of Conybeare and Phillips's Geology of England 

 and Wales, referred to on p. 58. 



