306 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY REORGANISED CHAP, ix 



sent me his remarks to read what he is going to say 

 when he hands over to me the Wollaston medal, and 

 he says nowt about the lakes. They must be still 

 too strong for his geological stomach. But he has 

 swallowed other things handsomely, and remarks that 

 in the matter of Palaeozoic ice I long stood alone. He 

 may live to swallow all the 4000 feet of Swiss ice that 

 scooped out lakes, and also all the big northern ice- 

 sheet that buried two-thirds of the northern continents. 



Do you think Rlitimeyer shows good cause for his 

 dislocations in the Alps without good mapping done ? 



My paper on the Old Red, etc. etc., has not yet 

 been read. I suppose it will come on upon the 22nd 

 March or thereabouts. They print the papers now 

 entire for convenience before they are read. It does 

 not follow, I believe, that they will necessarily be printed 

 in the Journal. 



Now I must go to prepare a lecture for 2 P.M. I 

 gave one last Monday night on the Origin of the River 

 Systems of England, and the audience liked it better 

 than I did. 



If I write it, And he likes it, 



And I like it, I will like it 



I will send it All the better ; 



To the Royal. For my Geikie 



If they like it, Is judgematick, 



And they print it, And he knoweth 



I will send it All that differs 



To my Geikie. B's between 



If he read it, And feet of bullocks. 



-Yours ever, A. C. RAMSAY. 



About this period Ramsay's pen was more than 

 usually busy. The problems suggested by red strati- 

 fied deposits like the New Red Sandstone and Old 

 Red Sandstone had often been considered by him, 



