288 PRESIDENT OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY CHAP, ix 



KING'S ARMS, SHEFFIELD, 

 13^ August 1865. 



MY DEAR GEIKIE - ... I have been all about 

 the universe ; at Rowsley with Dakyns ; there and at 

 Hathersage and the Snake Inn with Green. That 

 country beats cock-fighting, for it has no drift, is 2000 

 feet high, and otherwise ought to have ice, and has 

 none. Then I have been at Todmorden, the deadly- 

 lively, with Hull. I made two speeches at Man- 

 chester, and have also been at Kirkby and Dent and 

 Kendal, and am now here with Tiddeman. 



See the last Reader, yesterday's, and expire. At 

 least Sir R. will, when he sees what I, being in my 

 right mind, have bequeathed him in my last will and 

 testament. When I leave this I want to see my wife 

 and babbies a little. They have been in Anglesey a 

 month, and I have not seen them for considerably 

 longer. ... I sent my review of Campbell [' Frost 

 and Fire'] to Edmonston and Douglas [for North 

 British Review]. 



THE CITY OF THE DEAD, VEL DURHAM, 

 October 1866. 



MY DEAREST WIFE Luckily it rained to-day 

 when we got to this City of Silence, and therefore, 

 instead of starting for the hills, I had time to see it, 

 which I have been doing for three hours and a half, 

 and yet have left a deal unseen. You can concentrate 

 your energies on the architecture, for there are no 

 people for certain to look at. Here and there a 

 ghostly figure comes out of a corner and as 

 suddenly disappears, but whether these shapes are 

 'human mortals' or not, I am unable to guess. To 

 wind up with, we have just come from church, where 



