1876-1877 TESTIMONIAL FROM PUPILS 339 



On his return he set to work at once on the report 

 of his examination of Gibraltar with reference to the 

 question submitted to him. But materials enough of 

 a more generally interesting geological character had 

 been collected which it seemed a pity to bury in the 

 pages of a departmental blue book. The fellow- 

 travellers accordingly worked these materials up 

 into a conjoint paper, which in the spring of 1878 was 

 read before the Geological Society. 



A pleasant incident diversified Ramsay's London 

 life during the winter of 1876-77. His pupils at the 

 School of Mines had raised among themselves and 

 former students about ^100, with which they pur- 

 chased a set of three handsome silver dessert pieces, 

 half a dozen old Dutch parcel gilt spoons, and some 

 other table ornaments. These they presented to their 

 much -esteemed teacher as an expression of their 

 gratitude and good-will for his eminent services to 

 the School, and for the benefit they had themselves 

 derived from his teaching and his influence. 



How much his thoughts turned to foreign lands 

 and the geological questions there awaiting solution 

 is well shown in his correspondence at this time. 

 Thus to Mrs. Cookman he wrote : ' I have planned 

 a route to San Remo in the hope of going there to 

 fetch you home ; viz. that Louisa and I first go to 

 Mulhouse or Basle, and then find our way down the 

 Saone to Lyons, where it joins the Rhone, then work 

 up the Rhone to Geneva, and back to Lyons, and so 

 down the remainder of the Rhone to Marseilles, with 

 a possible divertissement into Auvergne. There is 

 something to find out about the valleys of the Saone 

 and Rhone that I know nothing about, and which I 

 think no one but myself has yet dreamed of. On the 



