52 Eminent Living Geologists: Br. A. JR. C. Selwyn. 



W. W. Smyth. Eainsay and Selwyn (early in November, 1850) 

 crossed into Anglesey with the object of filling in the unfinished 

 portions and completing the whole" (p. 171). "During the day he 

 and Selwyn traversed the rocky northern coast of the island, charmed 

 with ' the clifiy foregrounds, the white breakers, the great misty 

 plains of Anglesey, and the snow-covered mountains rising beyond 

 so still and grandly.' At night they had the shelter of little inns, 

 sometimes of the homeliest kind " (p. 173), and once they received 

 an invitation to make the Rectory of Llanfairynghornwy their head- 

 quarters for a day or two. It was during this investigation that, in 

 a letter to Ramsay, November 11th, 1850, De la Beche intimated to 

 him that he had recognized conglomerates at the base of the 

 Cambrian series of Anglesey, and that most probably the rocks 

 underlying these were of pre-Cambrian age. Selwyn clearly detected 

 the unconformability of the lowest Cambrian strata upon an older 

 series of schists, but Ramsay on this occasion differed from De la 

 Beche and Selwyn, and on the maps published by him no pre- 

 Cambrian rocks were there shown. 



One is struck by the conviction that the labours of the conscientious 

 geologist ai-e never-ending, for we find that in Octobei", 1851, 

 "There were still points of detail and some questions of interpre- 

 tation of geological structure to be settled in the area in North Wales 

 mapped by Ramsay and Selwyn. Selwyn accordingly had gone 

 back to Dolgelli to look into these, and there Ramsay joined him." 

 Ramsay writes in his diary, October 17th, 1851: "Held a council 

 with Selwyn on the Shropshire sheets, etc. His work there and 

 here [North Wales] is the perfection of beauty " (op. cit., p. 193). 

 " One of the most striking in the whole series of sections published 

 by the Geological Survey " (writes Sir A. Geikie) " runs from the 

 top of Snowdon parallel with the Llanberis valley to the Menai 

 Straits at Llanfair, whence it was afterwards continued across 

 Anglesey. On the other side it was prolonged south-eastwards 

 into the country mapped by Selwyn, and was carried by him into 

 Merionethshire, across Cynicht, Moel Wyn, and Aran Mowddwy, and 

 was continued by Aveline across Montgomeryshire." Sir A. Geikie 

 adds : " The geological structure is portrayed by Ramsay and Selwyn 

 with a boldness and vigour, and at the same time with an artistic 

 feeling, which had hardly been equalled in geological section- 

 drawing" (op. cit., p. 165). 



Ramsay records that in 1851 Selwyn was present, 18th January, 

 at the annual dinner of the Survey, known as " the Royal 

 Hammerers." " And oh, wasn't it a jolly dinner ! " No doubt he 

 had also been present at many earlier gatherings. 



The Welsh work of completion and revision took longer than had 

 been anticipated. At the close of 1852 it was not finished ; and 

 Selwyn relinquished the happy Survey days at the end of July in 

 that year. For, following the blessed example set by his former 

 colleagues, Thomas Oldham, Edward Forbes, and A. C. Ramsay, 

 Mr. Selwyn also became a Benedict, and took to himself a wife, 

 Matilda Charlotte, daughter of the Rev. Edward Selwyn, rector of 



