May 9, 1901] 



NA TURE 



35 



are here to-night, but to express our warm feelings towards an 

 old and valued friend and to congratulate him on his well-earned 

 honours. Sir Archibald, we drink your health, and for our own 

 sakes, as well as for yours, we hope that you have before you 

 many years of health and happiness. 



The chairman then presented Sir Archibald with an 

 illuminated address from his colleagues of the Geological 

 Survey and Museum in the following terms: — "We 

 desire, upon the close of your tenure of office, to express 

 our sense of the high value of the services which you 

 have rendered to these Institutions ; we proudly recognise 

 the high position attained by you in the scientific world 

 and gratefully acknowledge the beneficial influence of 

 your example. That you may long live, after more than 

 forty-five years in the public service, to enjoy your 

 freedom from official cares and to enrich geological 

 literature with your luminous writings is our earnest 

 desire." 



Sir Archibald Geikie replied as follows : — 



Vou may well believe that on such an occasion as this it is 

 hardly possible for a man adequately to express the feelings that 

 overpower him. If " silence is the perfectest herald of joy," 

 this is no less true of gratitude. Hence, were that permissible, 

 I would fain simply thank you in the fewest words for this 

 manifestation of your friendly regard. To you, my lord, I am 

 deeply indebted for all the kind words you have been pleased 

 to say of me and my work, and to you, my friends, my debt is 

 not less for the way in which these kind words have been re- 

 ceived and re-echoed by you. The feeling, next to overpowering 

 gratitude, which rises uppermost in my mind is a bewildering 

 wonder why so much kindly appreciation and good-will should 

 have been in this way showered upon me. And yet on re- 

 flection I recognise that it is only the culmination of what has 

 been so liberally extended tome all my life. When I look back 

 into the past, the vista of fifty years seems to me crowded with 

 friendly faces and helpful hands, ready at every turn with wise 

 counsel or stimulating sympathy and encouragement. Most of 

 these voices have long been silent for ever, but their sound still 

 lingers in my ears It is to their aid and guidance that I stand 

 mainly indebted for anything that I have been able to do in 

 the cause of science, and I should be ungrateful and unworthy 

 if on this memorable occasion I failed to acknowledge my in- 

 debtedness. 



At the outset of my career there were four men who specially 

 befriended me and set me in the path which I have followed 

 ever since. The first of these was James Pillans, professor of 

 Latin (or Humanity as it is called in the north) in the University 

 of Edinburgh. As he was teaching for more than half a century, 

 a large part of the population had passed through his hands. 

 Robert Chambers used humorously to divide mankind into two 

 sections — those who had been under Pillans and those who had 

 not. I am glad to have belonged to the former section. Pillan-.'s 

 name is perhaps most widely known from the savage and wholly 

 undeserved slander of him inserted by Byron in his " English 

 Bards and Scotch Reviewers." As I knew him he was a 

 genial old man, with much of the gravity and stiffness of 

 an eighteenth century pedagogue, but with a kindly nature, 

 a vein of chivalrous sentiment and an enthusiasm for clas- 

 sical literature to which his best students owed much. He 

 was an educational reformer well in advance of his time. In 

 particular, he used to insist on the study of physical geo- 

 graphy as a necessary accessory in all historical inquiry. 

 When the story of the progress of education in this country 

 is fully written, an honoured place will be given to Pillans. 

 Horace was his favourite author, and as I was fond of turning 

 the odes into English verse and illustrating them with parallel 

 passages from other authors, my exercises procured me first 

 his notice and then his friendship, which he continued to the 

 end of his life. Knowing my taste fur geology, he asked me 

 to meet Leonard Horner at breakfast, and in this way in- 

 directly led to my introduction to Lyell and to the Geological 

 Society of London. 



Another teacher whose influence and help were great was 

 George Wilson, well known to chemists for his able researches 

 on fluorine, and to a much wider public for his delightful literary 

 essays. In his laboratory I studied chemistry. It was he who 

 first opened out to me the prospect of employment in the 



NO. 1645, VOL. 64] 



Geological Survey and eventually introduced me to Andrew 

 Crombie Ramsay. 



Hugh Miller, by his writings, and still more by the personal 

 charm of his conversation, as he discoursed over the fossil 

 treasures in his museum, finally confirmed my determination to 

 give my life up to geology, if that were found to be practicable. 

 It was he who first brought my name before Murchison, then 

 newly appointed Director-General of the Geological Survey. 



To William Edmond Logan, Director of the Geological Survey 

 of Canada, it is a pleasure to acknowledge my deep indebted- 

 ness. From time to time he used to return to this country, and 

 on each of his visits to his brother, who was a lawyer in Edin- 

 burgh, I was privileged to spend long hours with him, while he 

 spread his Canadian maps on the floor and gave me graphic 

 pictures of his life and work, with the help of his well-filled 

 sketch-books and notebooks. After such interviews, as you 

 may well believe, the determination to become a geologist took 

 deep root. 



At that time, however, now half a century ago, the outlook 

 for employment in a geological capacity was neither very wide 

 nor very clear. Robert Chambers, probably most widely known 

 now as the author of the once famous " Vestiges of Creation," 

 but, I venture to think, best deserving to be remembered for his 

 pioneer work in glacial geology, rather sought to dissuade me 

 from the Survey. I remember that one of the re.asons he gave 

 was that he hardly thought I possessed strength and appetite 

 enough for the life of a professional geologist. He had lately 

 been in Wales with a Survey party, consisting, if I remember, of 

 Ramsay, Selwyn and Jukes, and being the oldest member of 

 the company was unanimously voted into the chair, where he 

 had the duty assigned to him of carving a leg of Welsh mutton. 

 He described the prodigious capacity of the geologists for food, 

 and the incredibly short time that passed before he had nothing 

 but a bare bone in front of him. 



In the early autumn of 1S55 I had an interview with Murchison 

 at his hotel in Edinburgh. He looked a little doubtfully at 

 my youthful and slight figure, but was reassured by Ramsay, 

 whom I had shortly before taken on a geological excursion in 

 the neighbourhood. The chief remarked to me that a pair of 

 good legs were of about as much use as a head to a geologist. 

 I joined the stafi" in the following October. Six years later 

 I accompanied Murchison in a long geological tour through the 

 Highlands, and as the climbing all fell to me, he was quite satisfied 

 as to the capacity of my legs. That expedition secured for me his 

 lasting friendship. He never lost an opportunity of aiding me. 

 Underneath a somewhat stifi" military manner he carried a warm 

 heart. Among all my benefactors there is none to whom I owe 

 so much and for whose memory I cherish a warmer regard. 



The Geological Survey was then a much smaller establishment 

 than it has since become. Originally placed under the Board 

 of Ordnance, its members wore a military uniform ; but on the 

 transference of the organisation to the Civil Service this uniform 

 was discarded, though, as in the case of the " poor workhouse 

 boy," the gilt buttons survived, and with their crossed hammers 

 and crown continued for many years afterwards to be sported 

 on the vests of the Survey men at their annual festivities. Who 

 shall describe the delights of the Survey life in the field, when 

 whit had been the employment only of an occasional precious 

 holiday, became the absorbing occupation of one's life ? We 

 had pessimists on the staff' then as now. One of these continu- 

 ally reminded us that as ours was a service depending for its 

 maintenance upon an annual vote of Parliament, which might 

 some fine day be refused, we should all hold ourselves prepared 

 to find something else to do. 



When I joined the staff the system of Civil Service examina- 

 tions had lately been authorised by Act of Parliament, but had 

 not yet been brought into working order. I used to be warned 

 from time to time by one lugubrious member of the Department 

 that I had better get myself examined in time, otherwise I woiild 

 probably endanger my pension, if I lived long enough to claim 

 it. But I knew that, as the examinations were then framed, I 

 should infallibly be plucked. I could not, for example, have 

 given the precise ages of each of Henry the Eighth's wives, mr 

 could I have done a sum in compound addition three feet long 

 in ninety seconds. So I thought it best to let a sleeping dog 

 lie. I never passed any examination, and I am happy to assure 

 you that the Treasury has not refused me my pension. 



No member of the Survey who served under Ramsay will 

 ever forget the charm of his presence, his radiant good humoiir, 

 his unvarying helpfulness, his acuteness in criticism, his sagacity 



