204 SCHOOL OF MINES AND MUSEUM CHAP, vi 



work of several geologists, it was hardly possible that 

 it should be otherwise. So that portions of the ground 

 required to be revisited, sometimes more than once, 

 and the several surveyors had to meet and discuss the 

 discrepancies or disputed points on the spot. Much 

 anxious work of this nature occupied the autumn of 

 1852. Ramsay took his young wife to Ffestiniog, 

 and from that centre proceeded to clear off all the 

 remaining difficulties up to the Snowdon ground in the 

 north, and Arenig on the east. Whilst there he was 

 joined by five students from the School of Mines, who 

 came for some initiation into the mysteries of geologi- 

 cal surveying. They included W. T. Blanford, who 

 afterwards rose to distinction in the Geological Survey 

 of India, and is now an active member of the Royal, 

 Geological, Zoological, and Geographical Societies of 

 London ; the late H. F. Blanford, well known for his 

 able contributions to Indian Meteorology ; and H. 

 Bauerman, who afterwards became one of the staff of 

 the Geological Survey of Great Britain. 



This Welsh work of completion and revision took 

 longer than had been anticipated. At the close of 

 1852 it was not finished. Selwyn left the Survey at 

 the end of July in that year to take charge of the 

 Geological Survey of Victoria, so that the task of 

 getting the Welsh maps ready for the engraver de- 

 volved mainly on Ramsay himself, with the powerful 

 assistance of W. T. Aveline. The Director-General 

 was waxing more and more impatient. ' MORE (! ! !) 

 examinations in North Wales ! ' he exclaimed to Ram- 

 say ; ' the very sound of such matters sets me adrift. ' 

 He wished to get rid of Wales, and to have the satis- 

 faction of pushing on the Survey over England. As 

 nothing delighted him more than to be able to announce 



