2 6o FOREIGN TRA VEL CHAP, vm 



But over and above these official labours his hands 

 were full of work. He at this time condensed the 

 information on the published Survey maps, and 

 produced a geological map of England and Wales on 

 the scale of twelve miles to an inch, which is still the 

 most serviceable general map of the kingdom. He 

 prepared a Friday evening discourse for the Royal 

 Institution on the geological results of his Canadian 

 excursion, and wrote out a fuller statement of the 

 subject for the Geological Society. He drew up for 

 the well-known volume, Peaks, Pqsses, and Glaciers, 

 a chapter on the old glaciers of Switzerland and Wales. 

 This essay, full of original observation, and suffused 

 with the charm of freshness and enthusiasm, is one 

 of the most important and delightful which he ever 

 wrote. It was reprinted as a separate little volume, 

 and has long taken its place among the choice classics 

 of glacial geology. He now began to write for the 

 Saturday Review, and for a number of years con- 

 tinued to furnish occasional articles to that journal, 

 chiefly on geological topics, but without the techni- 

 calities of the more formal communications to learned 

 bodies. 



His habit at this time, when in country quarters in 

 the autumn, was to write during every available hour 

 of daylight, and only to go outside for exercise when it 

 was too dark any longer to see his manuscript. In 

 the end the strain proved too great both on his brain 

 and on his eyes. In the summer of 1859 he accom- 

 panied Murchison into the North-West Highlands of 

 Scotland, and assisted him in the preparation of his 

 discourse for the British Association at Aberdeen. He 

 seemed tolerably well and merry at that meeting, but 

 afterwards, when out among the hills in the south of 



