328 DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE SURVEY CHAP, x 



I expected. It was curious to find all the supports to 

 one's speculative views crumbling away one after 

 another. So I began again quite dispassionately in re 

 the Rhine, and the result is that I think I have done 

 the gun trick, which is too long to write about. I 

 have also learned a deal of other odds and ends.' To 

 Mrs. Cookman he wrote : ' Ella and I had a delightful 

 journey. I saw at least five of my old friends in 

 Switzerland, two of them, alas ! over eighty years of 

 age, but I rejoice to say quite hale and hearty. But I 

 missed old Escher von der Linth, who is no more. I 

 learnt heaps of things, and will send you a memoir 

 when it is written and printed, on the physical history 

 of the valley of the Rhine. If you and Betha will 

 come out with my wife and me, we'll explore the valley 

 of the Rhone from Geneva downwards, and next year 

 do the Danube from its sources in the Schwarzwald to 

 its mouth, and write joint memoirs on these subjects, 

 for I am rather crazy about rivers just at present, and 

 it will be of great advantage to the world if Louisa and 

 you will get crazy too.' 



The results of this brief continental excursion were 

 quickly brought before the world. On the 4th February 

 1874 Ramsay read an account of his observations to 

 the Geological Society in a paper on the Physical 

 History of the Valley of the Rhine, and on the 27th 

 March he gave a Friday evening discourse on the sub- 

 ject to the Royal Institution. A reference to his views 

 on this question will be made in the succeeding chapter. 



Next summer, as was usual now, he spent some 

 time at Beaumaris, making excursions thence to re- 

 examine ground for the preparation of the Welsh 

 Memoir. With the company and assistance of Mr. 

 Hughes, formerly one of his staff, but who had now 



