490 Proceedings of the Royal Society 
of securing a grant from Parliament to ensure a complete geolo- 
gical map of the whole country. This application was eventually 
acceded to by the Treasury, and Dr MacCulloch was empowered 
to extend and complete his survey at the public cost. The map 
on which he laid down his geological lines was that of Arrow- 
smith, on the scale of a quarter of an inch to a mile. It was 
published in 1832, and the memoir descriptive of it appeared in 
1838, the author having meanwhile died from a melancholy acci- 
dent in 1835. 
MacCulloch’s Geological Map of Scotland has long taken its 
place among the classics of geology. The outlines of the geolo- 
gical structure of the country are much more fully traced than 
Boue attempted on his little sketch-map ; and although, like the 
latter, it is, and could not fail to be, full of errors and omissions, 
it must ever remain a remarkable monument of the industry of a 
single observer. It would have been well for MacCulloch’s repu- 
tation had he lived to see through the press, the memoir explana- 
tory of the map. We can hardly believe that, though he had 
written, he would in his calmer moments have published, so much 
intemperate invective against possible critics of his map, or so 
much special pleading which showed only too well how thoroughly 
he was himself aware of the shortcomings of his work. He would 
doubtless have come to see that the only course open to him was 
to show simply what he had done, what he wished to do had his 
materials and opportunities permitted, and to confess that his map, 
with all its imperfections, could only he regarded as a first rough 
draft of what he conceived a geological map of Scotland should be.* 
The Transactions of the Geological Society of London, besides 
the numerous contributions of Dr MacCulloch, were likewise en- 
riched with some valuable papers in Scottish geology by Sir 
Boderick (then Mr) Murchison and Professor Sedgwick. Such were 
* In speaking of future corrections and improvements of his map, Dr 
MacCulloch remarks, that they will not require the energies of “ a refined 
geologist.” “ The rocks are few, and it is easy to learn to recognise them ; 
there is nothing which any man may not attain, on this narrow subject, with 
a few weeks of experience. It will confer no particular fame on any future 
self-constituted geologist, to have done what could have been effected by a 
surveyor’s drudge, or a Scottish quarryman.” [ ! ] — Memoirs to his Majesty's 
Treasury respecting a Geological Survey of Scotland , 1836, p. 17. 
