of Scotland and Ireland. 147 



south of the Tweed, Macculloch unfortunately found himself too 

 old, too conservative, and too opinionated to accept the new views 

 and to give them the welcome which they deserved. 



In spite of omissions and defects, which it would be easy to point 

 out in any great pioneer work of the kind, Macculloch's Map is 

 a splendid production, and all subsequently published maps of the 

 country have been based upon it. In one important respect the 

 map, as finally published, did not do justice to Macculloch's acumen 

 and research. As is well known, he very early made out the true 

 relations and age of the Torridon Sandstone and its infraposition 

 to the Durness Limestone, in which latter rock he was the first to 

 detect fossils. Murchison and Sedgwick, however, vehemently 

 opposed his views, maintaining that the Torridonian was nothing 

 but Old Red Sandstone faulted down ; and, in deference to their 

 authority, Macculloch allowed his earlier and correct interpretation 

 to fall into abeyance. 



If we seek for the causes of the neglect and injustice with which 

 John Macculloch's great work has been so long treated, they are 

 not difficult to discover. In the first place, Macculloch, excellent 

 mineralogist and able geologist as he undoubtedly must be admitted 

 to have proved himself, was a man with many eccentricities of 

 character — some of them not of the most amiable kind — and. he 

 became extremely unpopular during the later years of his life. In 

 England, and especially among his earlier associates of the Geological 

 Society, his contempt, strongly felt and often offensively expressed, 

 for " mere amateurs " could scarcely tend to make his company 

 agreeable in circles where geology had been so widely cultivated by 

 improfessional workers. 



In Scotland, a supposed want of patriotism, indicated by a tendency 

 to point out faults in the national character of the Highlanders, 

 was a characteristic of Macculloch which made him the subject of 

 the most rancorous attacks. Embittered by this isolation, and 

 smarting under what he regarded as the undeserved neglect of his 

 work and the unmerited aspersion of his character, Macculloch in 

 some of his later works assumed an air almost of omniscience, and 

 poured unmitigated contempt on all advances in geological science 

 in which he had not taken a share. Macculloch died as the result 

 of a carriage accident in Cornwall within a year of the completion 

 of his map, and when it was only just on the point of being issued 

 to the public. The earliest copies published bore the imprint 

 "A Geological Map of Scotland by Dr. MacCuUoch, F.R.S., etc., etc. 

 Published by order of the Lords of the Treasury, by S. Arrowsmith, 

 Hydrographer to the King " ; and one such copy, originally the 

 property of the late John Phillips, which came into my possession 

 on the death of that geologist, I have handed over to the Geological 

 Society, where it is preserved, side by side with the immortal work 

 of Smith. But the title and description of the map were unfortunately 

 merely engraved on a loose sheet to be pasted over the title of 

 the topographical map ; and, after the death of Macculloch, this 

 description was, either by accident or design, usually omitted, and the 



