202 SCHOOL OF MINES AND MUSEUM CHAP, vi 



De la Beche received him with the exclamation, 

 ' Oh, you have come back to the very day ; I quite 

 thought you would have taken another week ! ' 



Apart from the general stimulus which a first visit 

 to the Alps gives to a geologist's appreciation of his 

 science, in Ramsay's case a special influence was 

 exerted by the snowfields and glaciers. For the last 

 four years, as we have seen, he had been getting 

 increasingly interested in the various problems pre- 

 sented by the glaciation of Wales. But he had never 

 before actually seen a glacier. The sight of the Swiss 

 glaciers, therefore, quickened his desire to renew the 

 study of the Welsh phenomena, and sent him back 

 with a far more vivid conception of what the condi- 

 tions must have been in the Ice Age among the hills 

 and valleys of this country. Robert Chambers, to 

 whom, as already remarked, may be assigned a large 

 share in first directing Ramsay's attention to the relics 

 of old glaciers in Britain, received a letter from him 

 soon after he returned from his continental tour, giving 

 some account of what he had seen. In his reply 

 Chambers says : ' I am much gratified in hearing from 

 you at all, and particularly so on account of the late 

 tendency of your studies. In visiting the Alps, and 

 looking at what ice now is doing, you have taken the 

 first step required for the study of ancient glacial action. 

 I could have wished you to take the second (as I 

 consider it) in a trip to Scandinavia. Still, even 

 without that, you may be tolerably prepared for the 

 consideration of the corresponding phenomena in 

 Wales. I have read the abstract of your paper in 

 the G. Proceedings? and am really much gratified by 

 the progress you have made in this curious investiga- 



1 See ante, p. 178. 



