42 TEOCEEDINGS OP THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIEir. 



of the volcanic tracts of I^ortli "Wales. His elucidation of the 

 Snowdonian region, the heauty and, considering the small scale of 

 his maps, the wonderful accuracy of his mapping, the vivid realiza- 

 tion afforded by his sections of the essential structures of difficult 

 mountain-ground, and the minuteness of detail in his descriptive 

 Memoir, combine to form at once a masterpiece of geological work 

 and his own fittest and most enduring monument. The late Henry 

 D. Eogers, who knew from long personal experience what geolo- 

 gical surveying involves, once remarked to me that nothing had so 

 impressed him with the geological prowess of Ramsay and his 

 colleagues in the Survey of Wales as a visit he paid to the Snowdon 

 country with the Survey Maps in his hands. And I feel sure this 

 must be the judgment of every competent observer who takes these 

 maps with him through that interesting district. 



To the general body of geologists perhaps our friend was best 

 known from his contributions to the literature of Ice and its geolo- 

 gical effects. So much has been written on this subject since he 

 began his labours that most readers have very little idea of the 

 state of the question at that time. Euckland had recognized traces 

 of ice-scratchings in different parts of Britain. Lyell had found 

 relics of vanished glaciers among the hills of Forfarshire, and 

 Darwin among those of Wales. Agassiz not only confirmed their 

 inferences as to the former presence of valley-glaciers, but boldly 

 asserted the existence of evidence that the whole of Scotland and the 

 north of England had been covered with a moving sheet of ice. These 

 early pioneers, however, had few followers. What seemed then to 

 be the extravagance of Agassiz's notions no doubt helped to retard 

 the pursuit of an enquiry which was laughed at by the old steady- 

 going philosophers who stood firm on the ancient ways. Vast as 

 the modern literature of glacial geology is, it can hardly be said to 

 have begun to exist when Eamsay broke ground as an enquirer 

 into the superficial drifts, scratched rocks, and perched boulders of 

 iS'orth Wales. With all the enthusiasm of his nature he threw 

 himself into the study of these phenomena, visited Switzerland 

 again and again, climbed into snow-fields, scaled peak, pass, and 

 precipice, wandered over and crept under many a glacier, traced 

 the erratic blocks from the ice-surface far up the mountain-slopes 

 and far down the valleys, and thus made himself master not only 

 of the ways of the existing glaciers, but of the work done by them 

 when they were hundreds of feet thicker and thousands of yard& 

 longer than they are now. With this wide experience he prose- 



