146 Professor J. W. Judd — Earliest OeoJogical Maps 



a place in succeeding volumes. Macculloch was the fourtli President 

 of the Geological Society, occupying the Chair from 1816 to 1818. 

 In 1819 Macculloch published, in two volumes with an Atlas, his 

 "Description of the Western Islands of Scotland, including the 

 Isle of Man, comprising an Account of their Geological Structure, 

 with Remarks on their Agriculture, Scenery, and Antiquities." 

 The maps and sections of this work must be admitted to be of 

 extraordinary merit, when the imperfect topographical data at the 

 author's disposal are taken into account. His sections, illustrating 

 the relations of igneous to stratified rocks, are of great value, and 

 exhibit a very marked advance on anything of the kind that had 

 ever been produced before. 



In 1826 Macculloch, who had collected a vast mass of information 

 concerning the geology of Scotland, received a commission from the 

 Loi'ds of the Treasury to construct a geological map of the country. 

 While he was thus employed, Macculloch received a regular salary 

 from the Government, and, when the map was completed, it was 

 engraved and coloui-ed by the order and at the cost of the Treasury. 

 Macculloch finished the field-work in 1832, and by the middle of 

 1834 the coloured map was ready for publication, and was, with 

 accompanying memoirs, sent in to the Treasury. 



Unfortunately, however, various circumstances seem to have 

 delayed the publication of the work. There being no Ordnance 

 Map of Scotland at the time, Macculloch was compelled to employ 

 the best private map which then existed — that of Arrowsmith — 

 on which to insei't his geological work. All who have endeavoured 

 to do any serious geological mapping in Scotland, before the 

 publication of the Ordnance Map, will sympathize with Macculloch 

 in his disappointments — frequently verging on despair — in trying 

 to adequately represent the geological structure of the country on 

 such an imperfect topographical basis as that of Arrowsmith's Map. 

 Macculloch's Geological Map of Scotland, which has recently been 

 characterized by a very high authority as " perhaps the most 

 remarkable achievement of the kind which up to that time had been 

 accomplished by a single individual," long remained almost unknown 

 to and neglected by geologists. In 1851 Mnrchison referred to 

 it as being " usually known as Macculloch's Map," and as being 

 " so replete with errata that it would be a waste of time to attempt 

 to enumerate them." 



Macculloch belonged neither to the school of the Neptunists nor 

 to that of the Plutonists, and not to take a side in those days of 

 embittered controversy was in itself almost accounted a crime. In 

 the accuracy of his mineralogical and petrographical knowledge, 

 and in his insistence on the importance of such knowledge to the 

 field-geologist, he resembled the disciples of Werner ; but by the 

 accuracy of his description of the relation of igneous to sedimentary 

 masses he did more than any other geologist to confirm and establish 

 the principles so well shadowed forth by Button. When William 

 Smith's teaching of the value of fossils in classifying strata had 

 spread, so as to meet almost universal acceptance among geologists 



