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Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. [Sess. 
Historical Sketch. 
James Geikie was born in Edinburgh in 1839, and educated at the High 
School and University of his native city. In his school-days he was 
interested in the geological features of Edinburgh and its surroundings, 
and made excursions to sections which he expounded to his students in after 
years. He joined H.M. Geological Survey in 1861, and was promoted to 
the rank of District Surveyor in 1869, when his brother, Sir Archibald, was 
Director of the Scottish staff. 
During his service he mapped large areas of the Scottish coalfields, 
especially in Lanarkshire, which gave him excellent opportunities for 
studying the geological structure of the Scottish Carboniferous rocks. He 
thus acquired a keen interest in tectonics, which he retained to the last, 
and was led to discuss the probable physical conditions that prevailed 
during the deposition of the coal- and ironstone-bearing strata in the west 
of Scotland. He also surveyed tracts of Silurian and Old Red Sandstone 
rocks along the northern margin of the Southern Uplands between the 
Cheviots and Ballantrae. Adopting the views then in the ascendant, he 
speculated on the metamorphic origin of granites and contemporaneous 
volcanic rocks in these older Palaeozoic formations. For a time he was 
stationed in Perth, from which centre he mapped tracts of Old Red Sand- 
stone and of the metamorphic rocks of the Highland border. 
Throughout his field work he paid special attention to the glacial and 
post-glacial deposits of the country, and was led to study their develop- 
ment throughout Europe and North America. Ultimately he arrived at 
certain conclusions regarding climatic changes in Pleistocene time, which 
were expounded with great clearness and force in his volume The Great 
Ice Age, published in 1874. Its success was so marked that a second 
edition was called for within three years, and the third edition, brought up 
to date, appeared in 1894. It has been universally recognised as one of 
the standard works of reference relating to the history of glacial and post- 
glacial time. 
In 1882 he issued a volume on Prehistoric Europe, which was supple- 
mentary to his earlier work. In it he dealt with the cave and river 
accumulations which had yielded traces of man and the Pleistocene 
mammals. He described the physical changes that characterised the 
post-glacial and recent periods, especially in the British Islands. In the 
same year, on the promotion of his brother, Sir Archibald Geikie, to the 
post of Director-General of the Geological Surveys of the United Kingdom, 
he was appointed to the Chair of Geology and Mineralogy in the University 
