The Work of the Geological Survey. 
149 
Take, for example, such a tract as that of the North-west Highlands 
of Scotland. In that region the mere physical difficulties of the 
ground are great. With a topography of exceeding ruggedness and 
sometimes of great elevation, with a climate wetter and more 
boisterous than almost any other to be met with in these islands, 
and with quarters often of the most uncomfortable description, the 
geological surveyor needs all his enthusiasm and ardour to carry him 
bravely through these preliminary obstacles. But when he comes 
to unravel the structure of the rocks he finds it almost incredibly 
complex. Day after day he may be seen traversing the same face 
of cliff, creeping from crag to crag, hammer in hand, heedless of the 
eagle that sweeps out from its nest above him or the red deer that 
breaks from its covert in the rocks below, his eye intent on the face 
of each scar and cleft as he pauses to take his measurements or set 
down his notes on map and notebook. He encounters varieties of 
rock which he may be unable to identify by any of the simple tests 
that can be applied in the field. He takes chips of these home with 
him, and if they still offer difficulties he sends them up to the office, 
where they are cut into thin slices and examined with the micro- 
scope, or are chemically analysed, and a report embodying the results 
of the examination is returned to him for his guidance, while he may 
himself study the slides and verify or check the observations which 
the petrographer has made upon them. Again, he may detect in 
other rocks traces of organic remains, the importance of which he 
at once perceives. Such specimens as he can himself collect are sent 
up to the head office for determination by the paleontologists, and 
upon their decision may depend the name to be assigned to the 
fossiliferous rock and the colour and sign whereby it is to be desig- 
nated on the published maps. 
The complication of the “ solid geology ” in these north-western 
regions is enough to tax to the utmost the capacity and the energy 
of the surveyor. But he has besides all this to keep his eye ever 
open to all the varying problems presented by the superficial deposits. 
The ice-stria; on the rocks, the scratched stones high on the moun- 
tain sides that mark where the “ till ” once lay, the varieties of 
boulder-clay, the sand and gravel eskers, the scattered erratic blocks 
and the detection of their probable sources of origin, the moraine 
mounds fringing or filling the bottom of the glens, the sheets of 
flow-peat and the rugged peaty mantle that hangs down from the 
cols and smoother ridges, the recent alluvia and the successive 
stream-terraces, the lines of raised beach and the estuarine silts — all 
these and more must be noted by him as he moves along, and must 
be duly chronicled on his map and among his notes. 
It is obvious that the progress of a surveyor in such ground 
cannot be rapid. If the work is worth doing at all, it should be 
well done, and if well done, it must be done slowly and carefully. 
It is evident also that the total area surveyed in a year, if given in 
square miles, affords no guidance whatever as to the amount of 
labour involved. There may be a hundredfold more exertion, 
physical and mental, required to complete a single square mile in 
