THE 



GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE, 



NEW SERIES. DECADE V. VOL. VI. 



No. VL — JUNE, 1909. 



I. — Eminent Living Geologists. 



Ramsay Heatley Tbaquair, M.D., LL.D., F.R.S., V.P.R.S.E., F.G.S., 



late Keeper of the Natural History Department of the Royal Scottish Museum, 



Edinburgh. 



(WITH A PORTRAIT, PLATE IX.) 



MANY sciences contribute to the progress of geology, but none 

 is more essential to it than that of zoology. The accurate 

 determination of fossils, which can only be done by a trained systematic 

 zoologist, is a necessity for strati graphical work, and the broad 

 questions of the geography of past ages can only be discussed with the 

 aid of those who understand the distribution of life in the existing 

 world. Dr. Traquair, the eminent ichthyologist of Edinburgh, though 

 scarcely a geologist in the strict sense of the term, may therefore be 

 claimed as one of the leaders in our science, for he has devoted more 

 than forty years to the interpretation of fossil fish-remains, and so laid 

 the foundations of a precise knowledge of extinct fishes which is as 

 important to the stratigraphical geologist as to the biological 

 philosopher. 



Ramsay Heatley Traquair was born on July 30, 1840, at the Manse 

 of Rhynd, Perthshire. He was the son of the Rev. James Traquair, 

 minister of the parish, a Midlothian man, who had married Miss 

 Elizabeth Mary Baj-ly, a native of London. He received his early 

 education in Edinburgh, first at a preparatory school in the suburb of 

 Newington and then at a more advanced school known as the Edinburgh 

 Institution. Eeing of slight physique compared with other boys of his 

 own age, he found himself unable to compete in games of strength ; 

 but being of a quiet and studious disposition and clever at his lessons, 

 he was generally a favoui'ite with his teachers. 



Already as a child he showed an ardent love of Nature, both from 

 an aesthetic and from a scientific standpoint. He eagerly read the few 

 books on popular science contained in his father's library. When 

 about 1 years of age he began eagerly to collect butterflies and moths, 

 as well as shells of mollusca. Then about six years later he began 

 to frequent a little shop in Edinburgh kept by an old woman, 

 Mrs. Somerville, who dealt in minerals, rocks, fossils, and foreign 



DECADE V. — VOL. VI. — NO. VI. 10 



