﻿iiv 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [vol. lxxii. 



Edinburgh on August 23rd, 1839, and was educated at the High 

 School and University of that city. Having been naturally in- 

 clined to geological studies from early youth, he joined the 

 Geological Survey of Scotland in 1861, and became a District 

 Surveyor in 1869. He was employed chiefly in the Lowlands and 

 Southern Uplands of Scotland, often in districts of which the solid 

 geology had already been examined, and his most important duty 

 was to study, map, and describe the superficial deposits or ' drift. 1 

 Such formations proved to have a special fascination for him, and 

 he spent several vacations in investigating them in the Highlands, 

 Outer Hebrides, and other areas which were beyond his official 

 sphere. The peat-bogs especially soon attracted his notice, and 

 seemed to him to indicate a succession of climatic changes during 

 the period of their formation, which he described in his first 

 important contribution to Pleistocene geology, ' On the Buried 

 Forests & Peat-mosses of Scotland, & the Changes of Climate 

 which they indicate ' Trans. Roy. Soc. Edinb. vol. xxiv, 1867. 

 He tlms gradually arrived at the conclusion that the Pleistocene 

 glacial period had not been continuous, but had been interrupted 

 by several mild episodes or interglacial periods, and his results Avere 

 eventually summarized in 187-1 in his well-known volume on 

 'The Great Ice Age & its Relation to the Antiquity of Man/ of 

 which new editions appeared in 1877 and 1894. This work was 

 supplemented by another on ' Prehistoric Europe' in 1881. 



In 1882 Dr. Geikie succeeded his brother as Murchison Professor 

 of Geology in the University of Edinburgh. In that year he 

 contributed an important memoir on the geology of the Fserde 

 Islands to the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 

 and expressed his views on ' The Aims & Method of Geological 

 Inquiry' in his inaugural lecture at the University. He began 

 educational work in earnest, devoting especial attention to the 

 improvement of geographical teaching ; and in 1881 he became 

 one of the founders of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, 

 which fostered this work. Erorn 1901 until 1910 he was President 

 of that Society, and for many years he was honorary editor of its 

 Magazine. His University students were provided for by his 

 'Outlines of Geology,' which passed through four editions (1880- 

 1903), and his ' Structural & Field Geology for Students ' (three 

 editions, 1905-12) ; while the relations of geology and geography 

 were treated in a more general way in ' Fragments of Earth- 

 Lore ' (1893), 'Earth Sculpture, or the Origin of Land-forms* 



