1848 FIRST COURSE OF LECTURES 119 



I learn more than they do.' The course came to an 

 end on the last day of March, on which date the 

 following memorandum was made. * Got the com- 

 posing steam well up and finished the lecture by eleven. 

 Got through it unusually well, and had a round of 

 applause when it was over.' 



We may be sure that in this first course of lectures 

 the young professor touched on many questions about 

 which he was able to lay fresh views and original 

 illustrations before his hearers, drawn not from books, 

 but from long observation of nature. His treatment of 

 denudation and the results achieved by it would be 

 specially full and instructive. His account of igneous 

 rocks and the manner in which volcanic phenomena are 

 chronicled among the older geological systems would 

 be such as at the time could be found in no published 

 book or memoir. His description of the structures of 

 the older sedimentary masses would be marked by 

 graphic detail, arising from minute practical study of 

 the subject in Wales. Those who remember Ramsay's 

 lectures in later years may well believe that these 

 earliest prelections would not be wanting in that sug- 

 gestiveness and foresight which were so characteristic 

 of his style of treatment. In one of his letters to 

 J. W. Salter (2nd October 1848) he remarks: 'Last 

 winter I confidently lectured that these [Welsh] rocks 

 were Silurian, and also that the Grampian clay-slates, 

 etc., would turn out to be ditto, more or less altered.' 



During the winter of 1847-48 in London, besides 

 his lectures, there were various incidents that helped to 

 enliven the daily routine of the Local Director's official 

 duty. Sir Henry De la Beche had been elected 

 President of the Geological Society, and as he now 

 took the chair at the meetings, the fortnightly reunions 



