CHAP. VIII. AN EARLY ATTACHMENT. 147 



and I, being young and susceptible, fairly fell in love with 

 her. But, like most very early attachments, mine proved 

 evanescent. Years passed, and I had all but forgotten 

 Jeannie, when one day I received a letter from her, 

 from which it appeared that she was in great distress 

 through the ruin of her relatives. I sent her a sum of 

 money, and continued to do so for several years ; but 

 the last remittance not being acknowledged, I directed 

 Sanderson, my solicitor, to make inquiries. I afterwards 

 found that the money had reached her at Portobello just 

 as she was dying, and so, poor thing ! she had been 

 unable to acknowledge it." 



One of the practical sciences in the study of which 

 Robert Stephenson took special interest while at Edin- 

 burgh was that of geology. The situation of the city, 

 in the midst of a district of highly interesting geological 

 formation, easily accessible to pedestrians, is indeed most 

 favourable to the pursuit of such a study ; and it was 

 the practice of Professor Jameson frequently to head a 

 band of his pupils, armed with hammers, chisels, and 

 clinometers, and take them with him on a long ramble 

 into the country, for the purpose of teaching them habits 

 of observation and reading to them from the open book 

 of Nature itself. The professor was habitually grave 

 and taciturn, but on such occasions he would relax and 

 even become genial. For his own special science he had 

 an almost engrossing enthusiasm, which on such occa- 

 sions he did not fail to inspire into his pupils ; who thus 

 not only got their knowledge in the pleasantest possible 

 way, but also fresh air and exercise in the midst of 

 glorious scenery and in joyous company. At the close 

 of this session, the professor took with him a select 

 body of his pupils on an excursion along the Great 

 Glen of the Highlands, in the line of the Caledonian 

 Canal, and Robert formed one of the party. They 

 passed under the shadow of Ben Nevis, examined the 

 famous old sea-margins known as the " parallel roads of 



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