1848 DE LA BECHE'S OFFICIALISM 127 



precise in its conclusions. We must not give sections, 

 but diagrams, such as other folk call sections, showing 

 the general run of things ; also only a sketch of the 

 map. The reason is, that as yet the country is un- 

 published, and matters handed in to the Geological 

 Society belong to it. It is a great point, however, 

 to have gained this, for the Survey is not half enough 

 before the public.' 



This was by no means the only occasion on which 

 the Local Director was able to avert such threatened 

 ruptures between the * officialism ' of the Director- 

 General and the ' licence ' of the geologists. De la 

 Beche was by instinct an official, and he had lived so 

 long in intimate contact with ministers and depart- 

 ments that his natural bent of mind was intensified. 

 If there were two ways of getting a thing done, he 

 chose the more official and roundabout rather than 

 the more simple and direct. Probably he was gener- 

 ally right in his choice, but to those who looked on 

 from outside, and were not cognisant of all the facts, 

 he seemed often to be raising needless difficulties and 

 guarding against objections that were never likely to 

 be made. Always courteous and pleasant in manner, 

 he seemed unwilling to give a blunt negative to a 

 request, and thus sometimes, unwittingly, encouraged 

 hopes that he did not mean to fulfil. 



Ramsay seems to have formed a tolerably just 

 estimate of the character of his chief, whose weak 

 points he recognised, while he thoroughly appreciated 

 his excellences. At the time of the outbreak above 



referred to he wrote in his diary that ' has used 



harsh and even unjust terms to Sir Henry, and , 



too, is not fair to him. Sir Henry's devotion to the 

 Museum and Survey sometimes blinds him to other 



