SKETCH OF SIR ARCHIBALD GEIKIE- 257 



SKETCH OF SIR ARCHIBALD GEIKIE. 



THE most prominent features in Sir Archibald Geikie's geo- 

 logical work are his studies of the effects of volcanic force, 

 beginning in Scotland and extending to many countries ; and his 

 explanations of the fundamental part which geological processes 

 have played in shaping the topographical features of the land, 

 and in the origin of natural scenery. 



Prof. Geikie was born in Edinburgh in 1835 ; was educated at 

 the high school and the university in that city ; was appointed an 

 assistant on the Geological Survey of Scotland in 1855 ; acquitted 

 himself so well in that capacity that when the Scottish branch of 

 the survey was made a separate establishment in 1867, Sir Roderick 

 Murchison appointed him its director. In December, 1870, he was 

 appointed to the new professorship in the University of Edin- 

 burgh of Geology and Mineralogy, founded by Sir Roderick 

 Murchison, with a concurrent endowment by the crown. He held 

 this position till the beginning of 1881, when he resigned it, to 

 take the place of Sir Andrew C. Ramsay as Director-General of 

 the Geological Survey of the United Kingdom, and Director of 

 the Museum of Practical Geology in London. 



The published record of Prof. Geikie's life relates exclusively 

 to his investigations, papers, addresses, and books on subjects re- 

 lating to geology. In this field he has labored with unceasing 

 diligence, and to it he seems to have devoted the whole energy of 

 his active career. Complicated problems presented themselves to 

 him when he entered upon the surveys, of which he was called 

 upon to work out the solutions. One of the first to attract his 

 attention was the relation of the crystalline rocks of the High- 

 lands to the Silurian strata on which they rest, which Murchison 

 had accepted as normal ; an assumption from which logically fol- 

 lowed the hypothesis that these gneisses were altered sediments. 

 Mr. Geikie gradually became dissatisfied with this view, and com- 

 missioned two assistants to review the fields in which the most 

 decisive evidence was to be obtained, instructing them " to divest 

 themselves of any prepossession in favor of published views, and 

 to map existing facts in entire disregard of theory/' From the 

 evidence afforded by this survey, Murchison's view was proved to 

 be a mistaken one ; and for it was substituted the theory that the 

 elevation of the mountains and the metamorphism of the gneisses 

 were the effect of enormous pressure resulting in the folding and 

 breaking of the whole border of the dry land. The mountains 

 have been reduced to their present shape by denudation, by which 

 also much of the evidence of plication has been washed away, 

 while the remains of the disturbed rocks occupy the position 



TOL. XLIII. 18 



