EDINBURGH AND THE PROFESSORSHIP
1882-1888
Official work in Edinburgh began with the delivery by the new professor
of his inaugural address on 27th October 1882, the subject being “The
Aims and Methods of Geological Inquiry.”
In early days the class was small, and as the income derived from
Sir Roderick Murchison’s endowment was supplemented by the students’
fees, then paid direct to the professor, their number was an important
matter. Further, at the time of the appointment, as for many years
later, geology was not compulsory for any degree, and was not even
an optional degree for the ordinary course in Arts. This meant that
the professor had not a status in the University comparable to that
of those of the Arts professors whose courses were compulsory, or of
the members of the Medical Faculty. On the other hand, it meant that
the students who took the class did so from a genuine interest in the
subject. The fact that Prof. Geikie soon acquired much weight in the
Senate was due entirely to his strong personality, unassisted, at
least at first, by any advantages of position.
The letters of this first winter session are filled, as might be
expected, with the business of settling down in Edinburgh, the buying
of furniture and carpets, the “grind” of getting up the lectures, and
recurring regrets at parting with old friends. A letter to Mr Horne,
written at the beginning of January 1883, illustrates very clearly
the dawning of genuine interest in the new work, still mingled with
longings for the old. The following passages may be quoted:--
I was at the office the other day.... But how the days flash by.
And how the dear old days are gone when you and I and the others
used to chaff and make a noise o’ winter in that office. It makes
me melancholy sometimes when I think of it all. I am Professor in
Edinburgh University, but my heart is in the Survey with my old
Survey chums. Here are tall hats, black coats, pompous windbags--and
in a word, starch and humbug. My boy, I have been caught too old.
Had I come here earlier I might have become “respectable” too--but
it is too late! However, I get on well with my students who, being
young, understand fun and such improvised nonsense as I endeavour
to cheer them with. I fancy some of my colleagues would have their
hair elevated if they heard me. I like the work much better than I
expected, but eh man! I miss the freedom of the country.
The office alluded to above was, of course, the Survey Office, and
Prof. Geikie’s colleagues record that at first he found it difficult
to keep away from it. He generally dropped in on his way to or from
the University to see how things were getting on, and never missed an
opportunity of meeting his old friends. When he began to have students’
parties some of the Survey men were generally asked also, so that the
students might have an opportunity of coming into direct contact with
the men who were making geology in Scotland.
Many allusions in the early letters show that the new professor found
the task of arranging his class work irksome. In certain branches
of geology he had himself taken little interest, having specialised
early, and as at first he had no assistant, all the work fell on his
own shoulders. For microscopic work and some aspects of mineralogy he
had always expressed contempt, as being only suitable for the men who
could not or did not work in the field; and these despised subjects
he now felt himself constrained to “get up” for class purposes, and
this necessity drew from him many groans. One must admit that there
was a certain tragedy in this taking of a man of forty-four off his
own highly specialised work to grind up a subject of practically no
use to him in that work; but such tragedies are frequent when original
thinkers are placed in professorial chairs which demand much elementary
teaching. Preparing for his microscopic class, he complains, means
sitting up half the night, and is “fiddling work,” requiring little in
the way of brains.
A letter to Prof. Stevenson of New York, dated 26th January 1883, is
not without interest in the same connection, in showing the effect of
this drudgery on his own work. In acknowledging one of the former’s
publications, he says:--“I am sorry I have no papers to send you. My
preparations for a new start as professor in our University here
have absorbed nearly all my leisure time, so that several papers I
had chalked out have been laid aside for the present.” A letter to Mr
Horne, written a few weeks later, while the author was invigilating
a class examination, shows where his thoughts turned as soon as the
strain was lifted for a moment. It records the receipt of a letter from
Prof. Nathorst of Stockholm, who had been doing work in Spitsbergen,
and had come independently to the same conclusion in regard to certain
points as James Geikie. The latter adds:--“He says he is delighted
that his conclusions, arrived at independently, should corroborate and
support mine. Very nice.”
The same letter to Mr Horne contains an allusion to an odd form of
compliment which had just reached the writer. A lady in Nova Scotia,
apparently a total stranger, had written to ask if the author of _The
Great Ice Age_ would stand godfather to her baby. The cream of the jest
was, however, that the said baby was not expected to enter this vale
of tears till some three or four months after the date of the letter.
History, unfortunately, does not record whether or not the infant
put in an appearance, nor whether it had to be baptised as James or
Jamesina, but the professor gave his consent without, as he says, any
ungentlemanly reference to common proverbs.
At the close of this, his first winter session, the new professor
took a party of students on a long geological excursion to the Border
district, his old hunting-ground. During the course of the excursion,
which lasted several days, the party visited Buchtrig, whether wholly
from geological or partly from sentimental reasons does not appear.
Some fine tramps were taken over the hills, and the fact that the
leader had himself worked out the geology of the district must have
added much zest to the excursion.
In May the first summer class in geology was held, this being one of
Prof. James Geikie’s innovations. It was well attended, twenty-six
students taking part, and consisted of both indoor work and excursions.
After this year this summer course became a part of the regular
routine, and while it was a great improvement from the point of view of
teaching, it naturally still further diminished the professor’s spare
time, and placed him at a disadvantage, so far as independent work was
concerned, with his colleagues of the Arts Faculty who then had only a
short winter session.
The summer holiday was spent at Largo in Fife, and the summer was
clouded by the death of Prof. Geikie’s father, who passed away at the
age of seventy-three, having seen both his geologist sons established
in positions of importance.
The work of the following session, 1883-1884, proved easier than the
first, “but just yet the Chair is not a ‘bed of roses.’ It takes up
more time than I had reckoned for.”
[Illustration: [_From an etching by Mr William Hole, A.R.S.A._
A STUDY OF PROF. GEIKIE IN 1884.]
Spring brought two distractions, the Tercentenary celebrations of
Edinburgh University, and preparations for a visit to Canada and the
United States in connection with the British Association meeting
at Montreal. Of the former Prof. Geikie soon wearied, and voiced
his weariness, and perhaps some remains of resentment in regard to
those winter nights spent--fruitlessly from his point of view--in
“getting-up” uncongenial subjects, in a series of verses. These at the
time were shown only to privileged friends, but may be quoted here now
for the sake of those who can see a joke, even if it is partly at their
own expense. They make it clear that the author was not yet wholly
reconciled to academic life.
TO MY ALMA MATER ON THE COMPLETION OF HER 300TH YEAR
1.
Hail stately pile! hail treasure-house of lore!
Dear nurse of many a wit and many a bore!
What mingled thoughts have we in this late time,
Reviewing all the glories of thy prime!
2.
Three hundred years ago thou hadst thy birth,
And now thy name is known o’er all the earth:
In making ropes of sand once great thy skill--
Thy fame is now the scalpel and the pill.
3.
O Alma Mater, ’neath thy learned shade,
How many a plot against mankind is laid!
And ghouls in hundreds every year stalk forth,
To testify to all what thou art worth!
4.
Tramp! tramp! they come, the ministers of death,
At their approach the boldest holds his breath:
“Your money and your life!” they gleeful cry--
And awestruck patients pay their fees and die.
5.
These ghouls thy children are: nor these alone,
O bounteous mother, hail thee as their own!
Nursed in thine arms, the vacant--void no more--
In countless numbers issue from thy door!
6.
Confusion tightly pack’d within each brain--
Or air, compress’d, distending the inane,
Thine is the gas they own, and thine the lead,
The tongue untiring, and the addled head.
7.
To pulpit and to platform see them fly,
For, wind-distracted, they must speak or die;
Bored and perplex’d the audience shifts about,
Those only happy who can snooze it out.
. . . . .
11.
But I, unlucky, whither shall I go,
Who of this lore of thine so little know!
What academic prize to me shall fall,
Content to know a little, and not all!
12.
Forgive me, O my mother, if I still
Keep some brain-space for after years to fill!
Nor chide if I decline this awful cram
Of unassorted victuals for exam!
The spring brought also the offer of the honorary fellowship of the
Geological Society of Stockholm.
In August he started for New York, this being his first journey across
the Atlantic. He enjoyed the voyage very much, being one of the very
few passengers who were able to appear at meals during a stormy period
met with soon after leaving Ireland. Later the weather improved and
the party became very lively, Prof. Geikie participating in all the
entertainments and gaiety which went on. “I feel already 20 per cent.
better in mind and body,” he says; “twenty years younger am I too, or
I would not enjoy such high jinks as go on here.” Several friends were
made on the ship, and one of these, a Boston gentleman, showed much
kindness to Prof. Geikie on his arrival in New York. Thanks to him, it
was possible to see something of the city during a brief stay there,
the incidents including a visit behind the scenes of a theatre, where
the stage manager announced that he had read _The Great Ice Age_.
From New York the journey was continued to Chicago, which did not make
a very favourable impression, and on to St Paul, much of geological
interest being seen _en route_. From St Paul the party went to
Winnipeg, the furthest point west reached. The crossing of the prairies
made a great impression on Prof. Geikie. He says:--
I have often pictured the prairies to myself, but somehow the picture
never comes up to the reality. How strange it is to gaze over a
seemingly limitless extent of grass-land as flat as any Scottish
haugh-land. The sky was exquisitely bright--white clouds sailing over
a delicate blue--but the colours of the prairie surpass my powers
of description. The wild flowers fairly took my breath away--there
were blues, purples, whites, and yellows, the latter predominating.
Standing outside of the car one never tired watching the changing
hues--here were broad belts of yellow, there patches of blue and
white and purple. Or all the colours were commingled in a dazzling
confusion. The rails are laid flat on the prairie and the sweet
flowers grow up to the rails. Butterflies in absolute clouds--great
big fellows--danced and flitted about, and now and again a flight
of birds appeared. But huts or houses were seen only at very wide
intervals--sometimes many miles were passed without any sign of human
habitation. I enjoyed the ride of 500 miles through the prairies much
more than anything else I have yet seen. It was a new experience.
What an expressive silence seemed to overhang the vast stretch of
grass-land. A heavy storm of rain and sheet lightning suddenly came
on and drove us into the car at sunset. When I woke this morning at
four o’clock and looked out of the carriage window I saw an exquisite
sunrise--a beautiful pink flushed all the east, and the prairie fairly
gleamed with golden yellow and blue.
[Illustration: [_Photo by Gutebrunst, Philadelphia._
PROF. GEIKIE IN 1888.]
The notes on Winnipeg and on the journey thence to Toronto are
interesting as showing how little future developments were expected at
this date. Of Winnipeg, described as being “in the far west,” Prof.
Geikie says:--“Winnipeg is a surprising place for so far distant a
region. Here are some 25,000 inhabitants: it is quite a considerable
town--with churches, theatres, etc., etc., and a Scientific Society.”
Speaking of his journey eastwards he says:--
We left Winnipeg on Wednesday (20th) and travelled all day
through rough rolling ground, very rocky and sprinkled with my
friends--boulder-clay, morainic gravel and sand, and large erratics.
The country was upon the whole rather dreary, dense thickets of spruce
fir covering the rocky knolls, and swamps and morasses lying in the
hollows. Here and there where the ground was more open the prairie
flowers flourished, and butterflies and dragon-flies fluttered and
darted about in the sunshine. Night overtook us while we were still in
the same monotonous country. A number of British Ass. folk had joined
us at Winnipeg, among them Prof. Ramsay,[4] a nephew of _my_ Prof. R.
The night we passed in the sleeping-car, and next morning found us
still sweeping along through the same kind of forest land. Very fine
evidence of ice-work was seen all the way--just like what I know in
Wester Ross and Sutherland. We breakfasted at a rough station in those
dreary backwoods. Houses are few and far apart in such a desolate
region, and I can’t see how the railway can ever pay. We passed over
1000 miles of land, most of which seemed to me as barren and hopeless
as the poorest tracts of the Outer Hebrides. The trees are small
miserable sticks, and everywhere one sees rising above these small
trees tall ragged and naked trunks, marked with fire, showing that
much forest land must have been destroyed by fire in earlier days. We
stopped at last at Port Arthur, at the upper end of Lake Superior,
where we spent the day and night. This is a small backwoods town of
some 2000 or 3000 inhabitants. The view over Thunder Bay is fine, and
I enjoyed a walk into the country.
[4] Later Sir William Ramsay.
Next day the party sailed down the lakes to Owen Sound and took train
for Toronto. From here Niagara was visited, and after that the journey
continued to Montreal.
From Montreal Prof. Geikie went south to Philadelphia, where he found
the heat very trying, and then back to New York and on to Boston. The
latter town attracted him greatly. “I feel more at home in Boston than
I have felt since leaving Auld Reekie. The people are more like our own
people too.” Here he met and made many friends, and tells an amusing
experience with a German lady doctor, who made wine from grapes grown
in her own vineries. She and Prof. Geikie got on very well together,
and the latter was invited to visit the vineries and taste the wine.
Having received a private warning, the professor resolved to display
extreme abstemiousness when confronted with the fluid, but the lady
ceremoniously proposed the health of her guest from across the seas,
who felt constrained to return the compliment with a brimming goblet.
Fortunately the proceedings came to a close soon afterwards, and Prof.
Geikie and his friend were able to hurry home to the latter’s house in
order to correct the influence of the concoction with a modest “dram.”
They took a long drive afterwards, and no results followed, apparently,
beyond the acquisition of a conviction that the climate of Boston was
unsuited to the juice of the grape.
Shortly afterwards Prof. Geikie returned home, and in December he
writes to Mr Horne bemoaning the amount of work which he found waiting
for him. He says:--“But know one thing, O Horne, that here in Auld
Reekie I am pestered to death with correspondence. People scribble on
all sorts of subjects, and expect answers, and I begin to hate the
sight of notepaper. And so the letters that I ought to write and like
to write remain unwritten, while those I detest to write take up more
time than I like to waste. You should have seen the piles waiting for
me on my return from Yankee land--some of the rubbish is not answered
yet.” He goes on in the same letter to say:--“I find living in town
more expensive than the country, there are so many calls upon one, and
the class does not pay as well as I had hoped. But that is mending
and I have good hopes.” He also speaks of a “pot-boiler” he was busy
with, to wit, his _Outlines of Geology_, which though far advanced at
this time did not appear till more than a year afterwards.
The same note occurs in other letters of the following year, and a
projected visit to the Hebrides in the summer of 1885 had to be given
up owing to “circumstances over which I have no control (_i.e._, empty
purse).” “Living here is not so easy as in the country,” he adds again.
But he also says:--“I have got into the ways of my new sphere and jog
along very comfortably.”
More interesting than the “pot-boiling” of which he speaks frequently,
was his work in connection with the Scottish Geographical Society,
in which he took an active part in the autumn of 1884. Thus in the
letter already quoted he says:--“I have been sair taigled with that
Geographical Society, but I think it will do; and I mean to work it
to some purpose. We are going to bring out the first number of a
Geographical Magazine in January, for which I have promised to write a
short article on the Physical Features of Scotland.”
At the first meeting of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society,
it may be noted, which was held on 28th October 1884, Prof. Geikie
moved--“That this meeting, recognising the scientific and general
utility of a national society for the promotion of geography,
resolves that a Geographical Society for Scotland be now formed.”
He was associated with the Society till his death, and took a very
active part in its management, as Hon. Editor from 1888 onward, as a
Vice-President, and for the period 1904-1910 as President. Beginning
with the first number also he made frequent contributions to the
_Scottish Geographical Magazine_, contributions of great scientific
importance, and in addition was always ready to put his knowledge and
experience at the disposal of the Acting Editor. During a long period
of years his work for the Society must have made large inroads upon his
time and energy, and thus geography in Scotland, no less than geology,
owes him a great debt of gratitude.
No very noteworthy events took place in the year 1885. The _Outlines
of Geology_ was finished, though it did not appear till after the New
Year, and in autumn a visit was paid to Louisa, Lady Ashburton, who
became a great friend of the family. The visit was to Lady Ashburton’s
country house at Loch Luichart in Ross, and was very enjoyable, many
drives being taken to surrounding places. On the homeward journey Prof.
and Mrs Geikie stayed with their friends Mr and Mrs Horne at Inverness.
The party at Loch Luichart was evidently a very gay one, and Prof.
Geikie, freed from strain and at leisure, seems to have been full of
life. Letters from members of the party, written on receipt of Heine’s
_Songs and Lyrics_, which saw the light in the autumn of 1887, are full
of allusions to the visit and to the songs that had been sung during
the drives, allusions which cast a pleasant light on the geologist’s
human side.
In the early part of 1886 the _Outlines of Geology_ appeared, and was
so successful that a second edition was called for less than two years
afterwards. During 1886 also Prof. Geikie’s fourth son was born.
As the year went on, signs of strain due to the process of adjustment
to the conditions of town life began to make themselves apparent, one
of the most distressing symptoms being insomnia. A sleeping-draught
which gave five or six hours of sleep was welcomed with a fervour which
tells a pitiful tale. Perhaps in some ways even more serious for one
who was lecturing daily was loss of voice, which occurred at Christmas.
The brief vacation failed to produce permanent improvement, and the
early part of the year 1887 saw a losing struggle between ill-health
and James Geikie’s strong sense of duty. As soon as the spring vacation
freed him he went off to the Canary Islands to recuperate. A letter
from Teneriffe, dated 18th April 1887, indicates a characteristically
rapid rebound of spirits:--“This place is a paradise on earth!” The
hotel (at Orotava) he describes as “simply fairy-like. It is bowered
in trees, palms and others. Fountains and lakes are all round, lovely
gardens one blaze of gorgeous colour, and rich green, cool colonnades
with lounges where you can sit and dream and gaze on the sunlit sea.
The mornings and evenings are simply heavenly.”
During his stay Prof. Geikie climbed the Peak on foot, an exhausting
excursion in the heat, and one for which he was probably not fit.
His account of the effect of rising above the mountains noontide
cloud-cap is interesting:--“When we got above the clouds the sight
was very grand. The upper surface is approximately level, and, rising
above it, the higher ridges and mountains look so many islands in a
tumbled and rolling sea. But such a sea! Imagine the sun blazing down
from a perfectly clear and cloudless sky--the mountain tops rugged
and serrated, and coloured red and yellow--and the cloud-sea shining
with the most silvery brilliance. Now and again the wind would cause
the clouds to rise up like billows and roll for some little distance
up the hill-slopes above the general level of the cloud-sea, but the
invading billows were soon torn to shreds and disappeared.” Of the
top he says:--“What a weird scene it was. Here were numerous extinct
volcanoes, craters looking raw and red just as if they had vomited
forth yesterday. The ground was sprinkled all round with slags and
cinders and volcanic sand and dust, and not a blade of grass was to be
seen.”
Prof. Geikie did a certain amount of geologising during his stay in the
Canaries, and said in his letters home that he was greatly the better
for his trip:--“My voice is as strong as ever, and I feel braced up in
every way.” Unfortunately the improvement did not last after his return
home. He had a disappointing summer, and with winter the insomnia
returned. He could do little save his class work, and this was a sore
struggle. But the fact of his being cut off from his own special work
had the effect of turning his attention again to the German poems, and
the book, as stated, finally appeared in the autumn of 1887. A good
many of the letters acknowledging receipt have been preserved, for the
poems had always been very dear to him. A pathetic letter from Lady
Ramsay records the pleasure which the book gave to Sir Andrew Ramsay,
now an invalid and sadly changed from what he had been in his prime.
She had read some of the verses to him as he sat in his bath-chair at
Beaumaris, where the family were now living, and they had brought back
some flashes of his old animation.
Prof. Geikie’s health continued to give cause for anxiety throughout
the winter of 1887-1888, and in summer he and Mrs Geikie went to the
Engadine, in the hope that the high altitude and bracing air would
do him good. As the weather became colder they went down into Italy,
coming home eventually by sea from Naples. Some charming letters to the
boys, who were left at home, and to others of the family connection,
have been preserved, but deal for the most part only with the usual
incidents of travel in the Alps. “The boys” were by this time old
enough to be keenly interested in butterflies, and their father
gives some humorous descriptions of his attempts to increase their
collections.
Among the minor incidents of the tour were a meeting with Huxley at
the Maloja, and the delivery by Prof. Geikie of a lecture on the Ice
Age at Pontresina to an audience of two to three hundred people. The
latter part of the visit to the Engadine was marred by the cold, and
the altitude did not seem to suit him so well as he had hoped. On the
journey through Italy a stop was made on Lake Como, of which Prof.
Geikie speaks with the same enthusiasm as of old. On the whole, the
tour seems to have been very beneficial, and to have been an important
factor in restoring him to health.