336 DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE SURVEY CHAP, x 



is that by and by, having no occasion to lecture 

 students, I may take to lecturing her instead.' 



To Mrs. Cookman he reported that he had given 

 his farewell lecture on the Qth May, * fifty-five minutes 

 being devoted to a broad resume of geological subjects, 

 and eight or ten to taking farewell of the students, and 

 of my post of Professor of Geology. In that theatre 

 I had lectured for quarter of a century, to say nothing 

 of three previous years at University College. Glad 

 as I am to stop, the severance cost me a sort of pang, 

 and for a moment at the beginning of the valedictory, 

 I almost thought I was going to break down a tend- 

 ency which my watchful wife observed, but which 

 probably no one else did. In point of fact, I bit my 

 under-lip, and swallowed something like a young 

 potato in my throat. A sprinkling of extra strangers 

 came, and all my children were there to hear Papa's 

 last lecture.' 



On the 22nd June he formally sent in his resigna- 

 tion of the lectureship, and the task which had once 

 been so light and joyful, but which in these last years 

 of failing power had become an increasing burden, was 

 now happily removed. He told me that he would be 

 financially a loser by the change, ' but the relief will 

 counterbalance that.' 



\QthJuly 1876. 



MY DEAR GEIKIE On Thursday I take my 

 family to Beaumaris. Etheridge will join me by and 

 by to have a bout at the rocks of Lleyn (north horn 

 of Cardigan Bay), where I begin to believe I shall find 

 the Arenig Slates lying directly on the Cambrian, 

 without the intervention of the Menevian, Lingula, and 

 Tremadoc beds, and involving a vast unconformity. 



