ANNIVEKSAKY ADDKESS OF THE PRESIDENT. 4^ 



equals in the power of luminous exposition and happy illus- 

 tration. His range of experience in the field was so wide that 

 there were few departments on which he did not speak from actual 

 personal knowledge of the facts. His students soon recognized this 

 feature of his lectures. He told them much that they could not find 

 in books, and many a time the outlines of his own published ideas 

 were first sketched to his pupils, much as the results of his personal 

 unpublished observations, were also given in the discussions at the 

 Geological Society. The young men who passed out from his teaching 

 into all parts of the world retained an affectionate regard for him ; 

 and he had the joy of seeing his lessons bear fruit in the stores of 

 new knowledge of the geology of distant lands which from time to 

 time they sent home. His well-known work on the * Physical 

 Geography and Geology of Great Britain ' was originally given as a 

 short course of lectures ta working men, and gradually expanded in 

 sQCcessive editions into its present form. 



Before closing this brief and inadequate outline of the life-work 

 of Sir Andrew Ramsa}', I may refer to a class of his writings much 

 less generally known to the world at large, but, when they appeared, 

 fully appreciated by his wide circle of friends — the articles, chiefly 

 anonymous, which he contributed to the periodicals of the day, and 

 especially to the Saturday Review. These show him at his best, as 

 he touches lightly on geological topics, or discusses some historical 

 question where geology can be of assistance, or deals with literary 

 ^r social subjects widely apart from science. I remember one 

 of his essays on the relations of geology to poetry, in which 

 he showed how the very language , of geological disquisition 

 arranged itself in rhythmical measure, and where he quoted the 

 first sentence of Lyell's * Elements of Geology ' (with, I think, 

 some slight verbal change) as two lines of English heroic verse. 

 He had a tolerably wide acquaintance with our literature, and took 

 especial pleasure in its poetry. Keats was one of his favourite 

 authors; he was never weary of the quaint turns in the 'Ode 

 to the Grecian Urn ' or of the antique massiveness of ' Hyperion.' 

 Ballad poetry too had many charms for him ; and as in these respects 

 I shared his tastes, I can recall many a ramble with him when 

 field-work and rock-sections, which we had met to discuss, obtruded 

 themselves as an unwelcome interruption in the full career of our 

 repetition of Border ballads. 



Sir Andrew's claims to recognition for the value of his scientific 

 work were amply acknowledged early in his career and up to the 



