228 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY IN SCOTLAND CHAP, vn 



might thus be placed in most incompetent hands, 

 Ramsay proposed at a meeting of the professors that 

 Sir Roderick Murchison should be their next chief. 

 This suggestion being agreed to, was communicated 

 to Mr. Cardwell, who approved of it. Thereafter, and 

 apparently with a view of strengthening the applica- 

 tion in favour of Murchison's appointment, a memorial 

 urging his claims was prepared by Dr. Fitton, who 

 obtained numerous signatures to it from leading men 

 of science, including Sedgwick, and this document was 

 sent in to Government. Within less than a month 

 from De la Beche's death Murchison was appointed 

 to succeed to the office, and he entered on his duties 

 on the 5th May. Ramsay did not allow even his 

 intimate friends to know how bitter was his dis- 

 appointment at the loss of the prize which his own 

 chief had taught him to believe would certainly be 

 his. It was one of the most trying episodes in his 

 life. But to the distinguished geologist who now, as 

 it were, supplanted him he brought the most un- 

 swerving loyalty, and remained his faithful colleague 

 up to the last. 



Before this important matter was definitely settled 

 Ramsay had started once more for the field. There 

 were two departments of the surveying now in progress 

 in which he took a special interest the Permian 

 mapping of the midlands and the revision of parts of 

 Wales. He first went over the recent Permian work, 

 and while so doing sought for further light upon the 

 question of Permian glaciers, which he had brought 

 fully before the Geological Society on the 2ist 

 February in this year. The subject had been rather 

 laughed at by De la Beche, who said, 'As to the 

 scratching of breccia fragments " 'tis their nature to'' 



