1 877 A GEOLOGICAL CONFERENCE IN THE FIELD 343 



well the pang with which I realised as we climbed 

 a hill-side above Derwent Water that my beloved 

 friend, whom from my boyhood I had looked up to 

 with pride and affection as the very embodiment of 

 geological prowess, had now become an old man. He 

 was then not more than sixty-three years of age, but a 

 life of physical and mental toil and official worry had 

 made him prematurely aged. At the end of the day 

 when we got back to our inn he would often look 

 exceedingly weary, and yet dinner would for the time 

 revive him, and make him once more what he used 

 always to be, the gayest member of a Survey gathering. 

 I remember that on the same occasion he showed 

 how difficult it now was for him to keep pace with the 

 onward developments of his own science. The intro- 

 duction of the microscope as an adjunct to a field- 

 geologist's equipment and the microscopic study of thin 

 slices of rocks for petrographical determination had 

 been recognised for some time by several members of 

 his staff as absolutely essential for accurate mapping in 

 regions of crystalline rocks. I had myself made use 

 of the aid of the microscope for twelve years before 

 this time, and J. C. Ward had adopted the same course 

 in his study of the volcanic district of the Lakes. The 

 party having dined, Ward and I had retired to another 

 room that we might examine under the microscope 

 some of his volcanic rocks, and compare them with 

 the Palaeozoic volcanic series of Scotland. We had 

 been engaged on this task for an hour or two when 

 Ramsay joined us. He sat rather impatiently watching 

 us for a while, and then starting up, left the room after 

 exclaiming, ' I cannot see of what use these slides can 

 be to a field -man. I don't believe in looking at a 

 mountain with a microscope.' 



