298 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY REORGANISED CHAP, ix 



candidates and lecturing, Ramsay took the occasion of 

 the publication of a new edition (the tenth) of Lyell's 

 Principles of Geology to criticise that work in two 

 articles in the Saturday Review. Resuming the quota- 

 tions from his letters, we may note that on the i8th 

 March he wrote to Mrs. Ramsay : 'Your father would be 

 about as busy as I am if he had to preach six sermons 

 a week, had, besides, twenty-four curates to superin- 

 tend six with him and eighteen constantly writing 

 letters two of them rebellious, with also a bishop 

 staying in his house constantly consulting with him, 

 besides having about four magistrates' meetings a week 

 to attend. These last are my Coal Commissions and 

 Councils.' 



LONDON, i$th May 1868. 



MY DEAR GEIKIE Your argument about recent 

 disturbances in re lakes is a good addition. I have 

 long given up taking any notice of those who oppose 

 me. They are impenetrable, and I feel so sure I 

 am right, that I can well afford to leave the rest to 

 time. But many people have a pernicious fashion of 

 stating that De Mortillet and I came to the same con- 

 clusion the same year. I wish somebody would some 

 day contradict that for me. He says that the lake- 

 basins existed before the glacial period, but how formed 

 he does not say. They were then filled with gravel, 

 etc., and the glaciers scooped out that a very different 

 sort of story, and one that in no way grapples with the 

 subject. Did you see my two reviews of Lyell's 

 first volume of the Principles in the Saturday of the 

 nth and i8th April ? Ever sincerely, 



A. C. RAMSAY. 



Ten days later he wrote to me further regarding 



