96 Obituary — Dr. David Robertson. 



more congenial employments he would be at, "when," as he phrased 

 it, " I am out of the mud," His last report on this sul)ject, printed 

 but not yet published, has, as Mr. Bell says, " a pathetic interest 

 now as being the last work from his hand." The foundation of it 

 was laid in an excursion to Tangy Glen and Cleongart Glen, ia 

 company with Messrs. Home and Bell, in the summer of 1895. In 

 a letter dated June 6, 1895, he gave the present writer an account 

 of that expedition. Much of it was by carriage, but by no means 

 all. Thus, in reference to Cleongart Glen, the geologist verging 

 upon eighty-nine observes that " Here we had, when we left the 

 road, some steep climbing, and at places we had to make sure of 

 the hold of one foot before we ventured to bring up the other." He 

 admits, with his accustomed modesty, that he could not walk quite 

 so fast as his companions. So, to save time, when the inspection 

 was over, he left them to do the packing-up, and started in advance. 

 On his solitary way back he entered a large field in which were 

 a number of cows with a bull. The " lord of the harem," displeased 

 at intrusion, came " crooning " towards him. No harm followed, 

 for the bull's attention was presently distracted by the appearance 

 of the other geologists in a different quarter and by the advance 

 of the placid members of his own family. Meantime Eobertson 

 was not leaving his fate to the chances of external succour ; for, as 

 he explains in a subsequent letter, being on the edge of a nearly 

 precipitous bank, he was prepared to slip down on to a platform 

 roomy enough for his two feet, but " where a bull could not 

 have found footing for four." From this and similar, more or less 

 laborious, excursions he returned in excellent health, with clay 

 enough to last him for months. On May 1, 1896, he writes: "I 

 expect I will have to go to Campbelton some time about the middle 

 of this month, to endeavour to settle, if possible, a long-standing 

 contention whether shells met with in clay beds four or five hundred 

 feet above the present sea have lived and died where they are found, 

 or have been transported there by ice action. I believe in the 

 former, and I am hopeful that the conditions of the Campbelton 

 shelly clay beds will put that beyond dispute, and further explain 

 the relations between the laminated shelly clay and the Boulder- 

 clay." 



In April, 1895, the University of Glasgow conferred upon David 

 Eobertson, in company with Lecky the historian and other dis- 

 tinguished men, the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. It was 

 a fine and, as it has proved, a timely recognition of Kobertson's 

 enduring devotion to science. The honour came late, as it was 

 likely to come, if it ever came, to a man whose unassuming simplicity 

 of character made him far more anxious to do creditable things than 

 to win credit for the doer. Eobertson's heart was perhaps even 

 more wrapped up in marine zoology than in geological subjects ; 

 but that is another story. He was a delightful friend. He was 

 a sterling man. He passed through many changes of fortune, and 

 knew how to make himself happy and beloved in all. 



T. E. E. S. 



