2 
Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. [Sess. 
of special mention. The Council carefully considered certain proposals 
which would bring our procedure as to the election of Fellows more into 
line with that of the Royal Society of London. These were : (1) that instead 
of each candidate applying for admission, his candidature should be pro- 
moted by several ordinary Fellows ; (2) that the certificates should be handed 
to the Secretary before the end of each year, and that an annual election be 
held early in the following year ; (3) that the Fellows admitted yearly should 
be restricted to a definite number. The Council approved of the first and 
second of these proposals, and as these have been adopted by the Fellows, 
they will come into operation during the present session. 
I have chosen as the subject of my address “ The Influence of James 
Geikie’s Researches on the Development of Glacial Geology,” because these 
researches are the most striking feature of his scientific career. It was 
the sphere in which he laboured with conspicuous success. His work in 
this department was characterised by marked originality and imaginative 
power. They stimulated inquiry, and at the same time they aroused keen 
opposition. But, though involved in controversy throughout his life, he 
never failed to win the respect and esteem of his opponents as well as his 
followers. My aim, therefore, is to indicate some of the essential points of 
his teaching: which marked him out as one of the foremost leaders of a 
distinct school in glacial geology. 
In order to define clearly his attitude to this branch of inquiry in his 
early life, it is necessary to refer to the position of glacial research before 
he began to investigate these deposits. The views of Sir Charles Lyell 
regarding glacial phenomena, supported by Charles Darwin, de la Beche, 
and Murchison, had been widely accepted. Lyell advocated the theory that 
the transported blocks, the striated rock surfaces, the stony clays, sands, 
and gravels had been the work of floating icebergs, which seemed to be 
supported by the occurrence of marine shells in these deposits at a few 
localities at high levels. 
The clue to the correct interpretation of these phenomena was furnished 
by Agassiz. Having carefully studied the effects of glacier action in 
the Alps, which had also been investigated by de Saussure, Yenetz, 
de Charpentier, and others, he wished to examine regions in temperate 
latitudes where glaciers no longer exist. In 1840, he visited a considerable 
part of Scotland, the north of England, and a large part of Ireland. From 
the characters of the superficial deposits and erratic blocks, and from the 
polished and striated surfaces of the rocks in situ , he inferred that masses 
of land ice, and subsequently glaciers, formerly existed in those parts of 
the United Kingdom. He also threw out the suggestion that the Parallel 
