CHAPTER IX

RETIREMENT FROM THE PROFESSORSHIP AND LAST DAYS

1904-1915

During 1904 Prof. Geikie began to suffer from an affection of the

knee which troubled him for some years, and proved to be a form of

rheumatism. In October he writes to his son telling him of the progress

of his new book, which was published the next year as _Structural and

Field Geology for Students_, and in a few years’ time ran into a second

edition. With his usual optimism he hoped to have it out early in

the New Year, if not before, but by the following April he was still

busy with proofs, and publication did not occur till June. Writing in

April he says:--“The last sheet of my book will be off to the printer

to-morrow, and the book itself will, I hope, appear before the end of

the month. I shall feel like a fish out of water with no scribbling

on hand. Nothing like it for filling up vacant hours.” When writing

this letter he was on the eve of starting off for a visit to Ayr, in

the hope that a course of bicycling would “supple” the leg. In this,

however, he was disappointed, and in summer he and Mrs Geikie went to

Wildbad in Würtemberg, where he hoped to find a cure.

The baths, temporarily at least, did him much good, but his

fellow-patients, mostly of German nationality, did not please him, and

his letters are full of humorous complaints in regard to them. He was

keenly interested also in the nature of the water, being convinced that

its curative properties were not due to the constituents apparent on

analysis but to some of the rarer elements, such as radium, present

though undetected. The suggestion has been made and confirmed in regard

to other waters since, but his keenness on the problem is of interest

as showing that there was no failure of mental power. His letters to

his doctor son on the physiological effects of the waters are full

of his old _verve_ and clearness of exposition. Characteristically,

however, he breaks off the scientific discussion to speak of the “fat

Fraus and Herren,” whom he and his wife daily watch “as they slowly

waddle and roll to and fro” near the Trinkhalle. His impressions he

sums up in the following verses:--

The typical Frau, to my British mind,

Is preposterous in front and prodigious behind:

Her digestion is sound--for, ’tis very clear,

Her grub she dissolves in an ocean of beer.

Her lord, who is equally round and obese,

Rolls along by her side, with a grunt and a wheeze--

Rolls along, did I say?--they do not roll far,

But rotate within reasonable reach of a bar.

With perhaps some recollection of his early studies of Heine, he takes

eye measurements of the average German lady, and winds up with a vivid

description of an ordinary German’s meal, and a disgusted--“But the

most of these people are gross eaters.”

During 1906, as indeed until his death, he was carrying on a constant

correspondence with Prof. Stevenson of New York, in which many

questions--geological, social, political, personal, and so forth--came

up for discussion. Thus in January 1906 he says, speaking of his sons

and their careers:--“All the birds are out of our nest now, all save

one wee lassie who remains to brighten our hearts with laughter and

song.” By this time his eldest son was established in a practice at

Ayr, the next two were working as mining engineers in Borneo, and the

youngest was studying music in Germany.

During this year the rheumatic knee still troubled him, and a visit

to Harrogate to try the waters there did not produce much permanent

benefit. The summer was spent in Ayrshire, but was saddened by the

sudden death of a favourite niece, who had been almost a daughter of

the house during the long years when the family consisted only of boys,

and was on holiday with her uncle and aunt at the time of the acute

illness which caused her death.

In 1907 his eldest son was married, and there is a charming letter

written to him on his wedding tour, with much wise advice about

matrimony, mingled with personal experiences. Among other things the

writer says:--“When I went on my honeymoon I took a geological hammer

with me, but the geology did not count for much. I think the hammer

was used chiefly for digging up roots and ferns for your mother, or

for knocking off bits of rock that were covered with gay lichens.” The

young couple had gone to Devonshire, and this sent the father back to

Herrick, and that writer’s description of “dull Devonshire.”

In the autumn Prof. Geikie had the pleasure of meeting Prof. Stevenson

of New York, who came to London for the Centenary Celebration of the

Geological Society there. At the end of November he writes to his

eldest son, saying:--“My work at College is easy this winter, for I

feel in much better health than I have done for two or three years.

My lameness is practically cured, and I begin to think that I may yet

be able to go with May to her first ball, and dance a reel with the

nicest-looking girl in the room--as usual.”

In the spring of 1908 Prof. and Mrs Geikie and their daughter, together

with a niece, went to Portugal, which they all enjoyed greatly. In the

early part of this year also the first grandchild, a little girl, was

born. Another event of the year was the translation of _Structural

Geology_ into French.

The correspondence with Prof. Stevenson was still going on, and

there was an interesting letter from the latter in August. He was

contemplating retiral from his professorship, while Prof. Geikie had

no wish to give up his own post, and the two discussed the question of

the desirable age for the event. Prof. Stevenson wished to have leisure

to complete some private work of his own, and his letter contains the

following interesting passage:--

You were a fortunate man: you struck out into an unexplored field and

you lived to correct your own errors. Yours became the monumental

monograph on the Glacial period: the volume is in all libraries

and it never can be ignored safely by even the shrewdest and most

unscrupulous of borrowers. A merciful Providence directed your steps

toward a problem of world-wide interest. Your great-grandchildren will

see your work quoted in all standard treatises. Like the rest of us

you have brought many loads of bricks for the geological edifice, but,

unlike most of us, you have shared in the work of construction.

The summer of this year was spent at an east coast watering-place,

where the weather was wet and cold. Prof. Geikie was frankly bored, and

expresses himself in a letter to his eldest son with a vividness which

will appeal to all who have had a similar experience. The letter is

long--its composition was doubtless the occupation of a hopelessly bad

day--and we shall quote only some extracts:--“Our rooms are so small we

are constantly tumbling over each other and gnashing our teeth at each

other.... I have got to loathe that beach, and to hate the sound of the

waves, and the smells of the village, and the raucous voices of the

natives and their sluttish ways. I have been reading a very interesting

book upon the cemeteries of Etruria. Some of the painted sepulchres

must be quite cheerful, and I really think if one could hire such a

tomb for the summer it would be better than taking a house in Caledonia

stern and wild. Of course we should only sleep in the sepulchre--a

good lamp would give all the light required. We should select one on

a hill-side near to which no motors could possibly come, quiet and

retired, with only sheep and cattle for our neighbours.... From the

doorway of the tomb we could feast our eyes on unrivalled scenery, bask

in the sun, scent the soft zephyrs with the aroma of tobacco, and envy

no man.... The geology would interest me, but what I would chiefly

enjoy would be blue skies, warm sunshine, absence of whirlwinds and

tornadoes, with none of that blighting easterly haar. No wonder the

majority of Scotsmen are Calvinists and Radicals--their country is

enough to make them that--and worse, if it were possible.”

A little later in the letter, however, he admits to having had

one really good day, when he and Mrs Geikie made an excursion

together:--“We had a bag loaded up with grub, kettle, teapot, spirit

lamp, etc., the weight of which was not inconsiderable. I would have

dropped it, but your mother was so happy with the prospect of tea by

the sad seashore, that my heart melted within me. (I must say, however,

that my whole body was in a melting condition before we got back.)”

In 1909 his second grandchild was born, another girl, which brings from

the grandfather the remark:--“Girls are far the nicest, especially when

a father gets old and wants some one to bring him his slippers, or to

fill and light his pipe. Boys are of no use in a family; they only make

noises, damage the furniture, harass their mothers--and, in short, they

are the very devil.” Writing in March to his son, he returns to the

question of his resignation, saying:--“For myself, I don’t feel like

resigning just yet! I can walk like any other Christian, and enjoy my

work as much as ever: and my class keeps up its numbers.”

In the summer he had an invitation to go to Boston to be present at

the inauguration of Dr Abbott Lawrence Lowell as President of Harvard

University, and at the same time to deliver another series of lectures

at the Lowell Institute in Boston. He refused the invitation, however,

though with regret, for he shrank from the long voyage across the

Atlantic. Another pleasant incident of the year was the publication

of Profs. Penck and Brückner’s _Die Alpen im Eiszeitalter_, which was

dedicated to “James Geikie, dem Verfasser von _The Great Ice Age_, dem

Landsmann von John Playfair.”

One of the two authors of the book, Prof. Penck of Berlin, was, as has

been indicated here, an old friend of Prof. Geikie’s. The two first met

in 1883, and, as we have already stated, Prof. Penck had repeatedly

acknowledged his scientific debt to the author of _The Great Ice

Age_, while there was a personal tie in addition. In 1914 Prof. Penck

received the Gold Medal of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, and

was Prof. Geikie’s guest at the time when the presentation was made.

In the summer of that fateful year, however, Prof. Penck was one of the

foreign guests at the Australian meeting of the British Association,

and was in Australia at the outbreak of war. In the opinion of his

hosts, his behaviour, in an admittedly difficult situation, lacked

the perfect “correctness” which was desirable, and this both in

Australia and on the homeward journey. Some indiscretions in the way

of sketching and photographing in the vicinity of military works led

to his being detained for a time in London on his return. During this

period he corresponded with Prof. Geikie on geological matters. After

the latter’s death he wrote to Mrs Geikie from Germany a letter which,

in spite of the circumstances indicated above, and in spite also of

certain phrases which jar, cannot be regarded as anything but sincere.

We quote from it the following passages, which form a notable tribute.

The letter, it should be stated, was written in English:--

James Geikie belongs to those who have influenced most my scientific

evolution. His clear way of seeing things and his reasoning made a

convincing impression on me, and though I never listened to one of

his lectures, I felt always to be one of his students. He was my

master. His _Great Ice Age_ showed me the ways to understand the

glacial deposits of Central Europe: his _Prehistoric Europe_ arose my

interest for prehistoric questions: his views on mountains, valleys

and lakes gave me the base for my morphological work. He made me also

acquainted with English and Scotch, with the life on the other side of

the Channel, with English poetry, for he was a poet himself. And now

he is dead, and he died in the year of the great war, which breaks the

strongest links between our peoples.

I am not superstitious and I do not lay stress on this coincidence

of facts. I hope what I believe he would hope too, that the struggle

of the nations will have one day its end, and that peace will come

again which unites the different nations for great scientific works.

But while the peoples are still fighting, I must express my heartiest

sympathy to my old friend’s wife.

Returning to the chronological order of events in Prof. Geikie’s

last years, we find that the year 1910 was an unfortunate one, for

he had a sharp attack of pneumonia in the spring. From this he made

eventually a wonderful recovery, but the process was somewhat slow.

Before his illness he had begun the book which was published in 1913

as _Mountains: their Origin, Growth, and Decay_, but his health, and

the time it took to collect the beautiful illustrations, delayed its

appearance. A letter from his brother, Sir Archibald, in September 1910

to Mrs Geikie speaks of his wonderful recovery, and goes on to say:--“I

hope he won’t overtax his strength at College. With so splendid an

installation for the Geological Department the temptation to do so must

be great. I don’t know of any college or university that is better

fitted out for geological teaching than Edinburgh now is.”

In this year Prof. Geikie retired from the presidentship of the Royal

Scottish Geographical Society, and his retiral was the occasion of the

presentation of his portrait, painted by Mr A. E. Walton, R.S.A., to

the Society, a replica being at the same time given to Mrs Geikie. The

ceremony of unveiling took place in the Society’s Rooms on 7th November

1911, when Prof. Geikie’s old friend and colleague, Dr John Horne,

gave a short address on the scientific career of the original of the

portrait.

It may be noted here that the fact that Dr Horne had for many years

been living in Edinburgh explains the absence of letters in later

years, for personal intercourse had taken the place of correspondence.

Dr Horne retired from the Geological Survey in this year of 1911, and

in a letter to Prof. Stevenson, Prof. Geikie speaks of a dinner given

to him by present and former colleagues on the occasion of his retiral.

Writing in March, he says:--“Last night Dr Horne (Geol. Survey)

was entertained by his present and former colleagues. My brother,

wonderfully hale and hearty, was in the Chair. Horne retires from the

Survey in June. It seems a short time ago when he first started work in

the Survey as a lad under my guidance. But upon reflection I see the

‘short time’ = 44 years! When I think of it, old age seems to have come

upon me all at once.”

Other incidents of 1911 were a spring holiday in Devonshire and a

summer one in Switzerland, while in autumn Prof. and Mrs Geikie were

at the Centenary celebrations at St Andrews University. Of these,

Prof. Geikie sends a lively description to his daughter. He enjoyed

the proceedings very much on the whole, but found many of the meetings

and entertainments too long for his taste and strength. Of one dinner

he complains that the speakers “not only exhausted time but encroached

upon eternity.”

Towards the end of the year, now that the question of resignation was

beginning to demand an early decision, Prof. Geikie resolved to present

to the University the large collection of books and pamphlets which he

and his brother Sir Archibald had made for the use of the students of

the geological classes. A letter from the Secretary of the University

Court, written at the close of December, says:--“The Court desires me

to communicate to you, and through you to your brother, Sir Archibald,

in conjunction with whom this valuable collection of scientific works

was made, their most cordial thanks. The loyalty to ‘Alma Mater,’ on

the part of Sir Archibald and yourself, has been warmly appreciated by

the Court.”

The chief incident of 1912 was a visit to London to take part in the

celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the Royal Society, of which

his brother, Sir Archibald, was president. In the following year

Prof. Geikie was elected President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh,

an honour of which he was very proud. He held this position while

his brother was still President of the London Society--a somewhat

remarkable coincidence. In writing to congratulate him on the

appointment, Sir Archibald says:--“I hope it will not give as much work

and worry as my Chair here has given me.”

In the early part of 1913 Prof. Geikie delivered in Edinburgh the

Munro lectures, which were published the following year as _The

Antiquity of Man in Europe_, and of it his old friend Prof. Stevenson

says:--“This is no old man’s book.” In 1913, as already stated, the

book on _Mountains_ was published, and was dedicated to the author’s

“Old Friends and Colleagues on the Council of the Royal Scottish

Geographical Society.”

The summer of 1913 was spent in Skye, and there Prof. Geikie employed

his leisure, as so often in holiday times, in writing verses. A few

stanzas may be quoted:--

Tired of Auld Reekie’s stink and din,

My thoughts fly far away,

And bear me on until I win

The shores of Broadford Bay.

O there, I know, the heavens are bright,

Keen is the air and pure,

And calm the day, and still the night,

And rest and sleep secure.

Auld Reekie, very dear art thou,

And yet, tho’ fair to see,

Ten months within thy gates, I trow,

Are quite enough for me.

. . . . .

Ended at last the weary round!

Good-bye to leaden skies:

With every mile we onward bound

Our spirits higher rise.

Onward o’er straths, thro’ mountain glens,

Past shimmering lochs and streams,

Until we view, with all its Bens,

The island of our dreams.

And there we live the life that’s good,

No care, no stress, no strain,

With heart revived and brain renewed,

Lost youth comes back again.

But if, as these verses show, holiday times still as of yore brought a

sudden rebound of spirits, the strain of life was obviously beginning

to tell. A pathetic letter has been preserved which was written to

an old student, now Dr M‘Alpine of the Department of Agriculture,

Victoria, in the spring of 1914. In it the writer says:--“Edinburgh has

changed much within the last thirty years. To me it is a very different

place, for I have seen so many of my old friends and companions pass

away. The ghosts of those I have lost crowd about me, and like every

old chap I feel the pathos of life. But I cultivate the philosophy of

Daft Jamie Gordon, and believe it ‘as weel to dee goin’ as sittin’.’ So

I work away and still find much to interest me in this workaday world.”

In an accompanying letter Dr M‘Alpine recalls an incident of his

student days which made a great impression upon him. One day, while

with a party who were being taken over Arthur’s Seat by Prof. Geikie,

the discussion turned from the igneous rocks of the hill to the

evidences of former glaciation. Prof. Geikie carefully removed the

turf from some rocks near the summit to show the finger-marks of the

vanished ice, and then as carefully replaced the grass in order that

the evidence of the past might be preserved. For one of his students at

least the unconscious act read an unforgettable lesson of reverence.

This message from across the sea may serve to suggest how much gain

came from those years which sometimes seemed to be spent largely in

a weary round of drudgery. It is not only in his books that the dead

man still speaks to the world. That, in fair weather and in foul,

in the prime of manhood and when age was creeping on, Prof. Geikie

led successive bands of often raw youths and maidens over those

hill-sides, has helped to give them an interest which Nature alone

could not give, a charm which untrodden ways can never attain. On those

grassy slopes an old man saw visions and young men dreamed dreams, and

the dreams and the visions have become a part of our island heritage.

In the spring of 1914 Prof. and Mrs Geikie went to stay at Appin. A

friend of the family, a keen entomologist, was to have been of the

party, but was at the last unable to come. From Appin Prof. Geikie sent

her a series of verses to console her for the disappointment, which was

not, he says, really a disappointment, for a heavy storm had destroyed

all insect life in her customary collecting-grounds. A few of the lines

may be quoted:--

O come nae mair to Appin, lass!

Here things are at an unco’ pass!

A tempest rages o’er the land,

Uprootin’ trees on every hand;

Cauld rains and sleet in torrents fa’--

The hills are hidden, ane and a’;

Naething but waves and clouds we find,

Naething we hear but screechin’ wind.

Ahint the dykes, wi’ heads downcast,

The kye seek shelter frae the blast;

Distracted wi’ the wintry weather

The sheep are huddled a’ thagether:

The birds, puir things, are blawn awa’--

Even the sea-mew and the craw.

You needna come to Appin noo

The wiley beetle to pursue:

Clockers and bugs o’ every kind

Are bashed and batter’d by the wind,

And kill’d are a’ the chrysalises--

Dear to the heart o’ learned Misses.

To Appin also the family returned in summer, after Prof. Geikie’s

retirement from the Chair at Edinburgh, and it was there that they got

the news of the outbreak of war. Prof. Geikie gave his last lecture at

Edinburgh on 19th June, and his successor, a former student of his own,

Prof. Jehu of St Andrews, was appointed shortly afterwards.

The rest of the story is soon told, for Prof. Geikie’s hope that his

retiral from the professorship would give him time for his own work

was not destined to be fulfilled. The autumn was spent--as all spent

that fateful autumn--in watching and waiting, but unlike some of his

fellow-countrymen, Prof. Geikie, if he never doubted of the ultimate

result, was yet sure from the first that the war would be long and

terrible. He was not well throughout the winter, for an attack of

influenza in November weakened him, and he seemed to have lost his

power of recovery. Later he suffered from his old enemy, dyspepsia,

though there did not appear to be any particular cause for alarm. On

the 1st of March he died suddenly as the result of a heart attack, some

months before completing his seventy-sixth year.

He died as he would himself have wished to die, without any slow

progress of decay, and without knowledge that the end was so near.

His contributions to science are discussed in the section which

follows: his personal character should be apparent from what has been

already said, without the need of an elaborate analysis. As a friend

wrote to Mrs Geikie in the first days of her loss:--“There was always

an out-of-door atmosphere about him, like a strong wind sweeping over

the moors bringing life and health with it;” for the hills and open

country which he loved had taught him much.

In sum, he was through and through one of the island folk, a true

native of “this little island, this England,” with its wide, wind-swept

moorlands, its disciplined freedom, its ordered life, and had in

addition the strong individuality of the northerner to whom nothing

comes without labour. Even the _milieu_ in which he was born is

significant, for it was that from which so many of the intellectuals of

Scotland have come; and it is noteworthy that he remained a Scot to the

end, at once fiercely critical of his country and fellow-countrymen,

and full of intense love for the one and of profound sympathy with the

other. He never, like some anglicised Scots, sold his birthright for

a mess of pottage, or faltered in the conviction that he was the heir

of a glorious heritage, won by the toil and sweat of generations, and

the result was to give something of that poise and assuredness which

those who are false to their own traditions can never possess. It

will be clear also that there was nothing of the dry-as-dust pedant

about him, for he was above all things a man, one for whom life in all

its aspects was sweet. He gave freely--to the world of his labours,

to his intimates of his affection, and he received much--honour from

his fellows, and what he perhaps prized more, the love of those who

knew the real man beneath the northern shyness and reserve.

All is transitory--his conclusions may be disputed, new lights may

be thrown on problems which seemed to him conclusively solved; but

the nation which can produce such men can never be poor, and his

uprightness, steadfastness, and simplicity of character enabled him to

leave an abiding imprint upon his day and generation.

PART II

GEOLOGICAL WORK

CHAPTER X

THE GLACIAL PROBLEM BEFORE JAMES GEIKIE

In 1861, at the age of twenty-two, James Geikie, as stated in Chapter

II., became an officer of the Geological Survey and determined to

devote his life to scientific work.

For seventy years, ever since the time of the great discussions

about the theories of Hutton and Playfair in the closing days of the

eighteenth century, the inhabitants of Edinburgh had been keenly alive

to the attractions of geological speculation. These older controversies

had died down, and the science was gradually establishing itself on a

broad basis of recorded facts and observations. It was not yet included

among the subjects which had a place of honour in the University

curriculum, though the professors of natural history since the time of

Jameson had delivered lectures on geology (or geognosy as it was often

called). Prof. Edward Forbes, who succeeded Jameson, and Prof. Fleming

(of the Theological College) were both accomplished geologists. The

Edinburgh Geological Society had been established in 1834, and though

it did not as yet publish _Transactions_, it included many active

geologists in the list of its members. Geology, with its mixture of

open-air activities, hard facts of observation, and rich opportunities

for speculative controversy, has always possessed an attraction for

Scotsmen, and many of them have excelled in it. In the Scottish capital

in the early sixties the burly figure of Hugh Miller was very well

known. His writings, with their curious mixture of geological and

theological matters, of fossil fishes and final causes, were very

widely read at that time, and the sad tragedy of his death, the result

of an overworked brain, was fresh in the memory of all.

A man of very different qualities, but a brilliant and thoroughly

reliable geologist, who held a high place in the intellectual life

of Edinburgh, was Charles Maclaren, one of the founders and for many

years the editor of the _Scotsman_ newspaper. His special field of

work was the geology of the district around the Firth of Forth, a

region filled with the most striking examples of geological structure

and the effects of geological processes. Maclaren was constantly

exploring the phenomena of this neighbourhood, and the results of

his observations appeared regularly as articles in the _Scotsman_.

No doubt this kept the science prominently before the public; few

newspapers at the present time would venture to print columns of exact

and rather technical description of the geological features of the

district in which they are published. Maclaren died in August 1866, the

year in which a second and much enlarged edition of his volume on the

_Geology of Fife and the Lothians_ was published. In the same year the

_Transactions of the Edinburgh Geological Society_ began to appear, but

the Royal Physical Society, a successor of the Wernerian Society, had

for several years been issuing _Proceedings_. Archibald Geikie had read

a paper on the Geology of Strath in Skye to the Edinburgh Geological

Society in 1853, and among the geologists of note who attended the

meetings were Rose, Dr Page, Prof. Foster Heddle, and Dr Hunter of

Carluke. Dr Page, afterwards Professor of Geology at Newcastle-on-Tyne,

was a well-known popular lecturer on geology, and did a good deal to

keep alive an interest in the science.

In later years James Geikie often acknowledged his indebtedness to

Prof. George Wilson, and the stimulus he had received from him when

a young man bent on scientific studies. Wilson was Professor of

Technology in Edinburgh University, a subject no longer included in the

University curriculum. It seems to have comprised parts of dynamics,

mechanical engineering and applied chemistry. Wilson was a man of great

personal charm, exceedingly well informed, and always willing to help

young students along the path of learning. He was interested in geology

also, and undertook to write the life of Edward Forbes, but finished

only the first six chapters, and the work was ultimately completed by

Archibald Geikie.

Although James Geikie was always a great reader, it is not likely that

he had more than an elementary knowledge of geology when he joined the

Survey in 1861. Trained geologists, however, in those days were much

less common than they are now, and the Survey was prepared to enrol

men who had a good general education and showed special inclination

and aptitude for this line of work. Careful personal selection must

have been exercised, for many of those who then joined its ranks

rose subsequently to high eminence in science. In field geology no

better training could have been given than was adopted for these young

men. They were sent out day by day with surveyors who had acquired a

knowledge of field work, and were inspected regularly by experienced

geologists, who corrected their errors and helped to solve their

difficulties. As already noted in Part I. (see p. 20), his first work

was the addition of drift lines to the solid maps of parts of Fife and

the Lothians, and the drifts of the low grounds of Central Scotland

remained to the close of his life the subject which interested him

above all others, and with which he had the fullest acquaintance in the

field.

When Geikie began to map both the solid and drift geology of a hitherto

unsurveyed district, he was sent to Ayrshire and West Lanarkshire,

where he undertook the survey of a large area stretching from

Eaglesham southwards to New Cumnock. His brother was mapping, or had

already mapped, a broad strip extending inwards from the coast-line

and reaching from near Largs in the north to Dailly in the south,

while to the east of him was Peach engaged in the survey of Southern

Lanarkshire. In those days a fairly large area (several hundred square

miles) was assigned to each geologist. The whole district had to be

very carefully examined and the results recorded on topographical maps

on the scale of six inches to a mile. Each geologist was expected

to make a complete examination of his ground and to note all the

particulars regarding it. Petrology was as yet in its infancy, and

no very minute classification of volcanic rocks was to be expected;

but the glacial geology and economic geology were to be carefully

investigated and fossil localities noted, though, for the purpose of

collecting fossils, the assistance of special officers was provided.

The determination of all fossils requiring critical skill was in the

hands of the Survey palæontologists. Each geologist surveyed from a

hundred to a hundred and fifty miles in a field season, which, allowing

for holidays, amounted to seven or eight months, and to do this

required regular hard work, much strenuous walking, and the power of

concentrating on the general features, and not allowing one’s attention

to be absorbed by inconsequent details.

James Geikie seems to have had no difficulty whatever in picking up the

essentials of field geology. He was very diligent and had sufficient

physical strength for his work. In time he became a great walker,

thinking nothing of covering fifty miles in a day. The open-air life

suited him perfectly. He had one of the gifts most valuable to a

field-geologist, sometimes described as “an eye for the country,”

the faculty of interpreting the geological meanings that underlie

surface features. Although never a professed palæontologist he had a

working knowledge of Carboniferous fossils, and he was always a keen

and critical observer of rocks both in a fresh and in a weathered

condition. His early maps, judged even by the standards of the present

day, were astonishingly good, and always give the impression that he

went thoroughly into the evidence so far as it was available. He was

cautious and thorough, and as a result of this his maps show very few

deletions due to changes of opinion as fuller information was acquired

during the progress of his work. From the first he exhibited great

ability as a draughtsman, and his maps and sections are not only very

clear, well-proportioned, and pleasing to the eye, but show also an

individuality which arose from natural gifts, and was not acquired by

copying models.

Although at that time geologists on the Survey were not moved about

the country so frequently as is now the case, but settled down for

several seasons in a well-defined area, James Geikie had no reason to

complain of a lack of variety in the ground allotted to him. His early

stations in Fife and Kinross included stratified and igneous rocks of

Old Red Sandstone and of Carboniferous Age, and in Peeblesshire he

made acquaintance with Silurian rocks, which at that time were still

very imperfectly understood, and presented many difficult problems

then unsolved. It was in Ayrshire, however, that his powers most fully

displayed themselves, and the long period of field work in that county

from 1865 to 1872 undoubtedly saw the development of his abilities

as a field-geologist. In after years many of the best illustrations

both of structural geology and of glacial geology that enlivened his

books and his lectures were culled from the note-books in which he

constantly recorded the results of his observations in that field. From

his letters it seems that he disliked the coalfield geology, which

necessitated the examination of mining plans, frequent attendance at

colliery engineers’ offices, and great absorption in details which are

of little general importance. But no one would have suspected this from

his field maps, which, if we remember how rapidly his work was done,

show much detail of underground structures taken from colliery plans.

In Ayrshire he had for colleagues Sir Archibald Geikie and Dr Peach;

one of these was ultimately to select volcanic geology as his province,

while the other attained great eminence as a palæontologist. Already

James Geikie was absorbed in glacial geology; and each of the trio

of geologists, though doing ostensibly the same work, had already

chosen the special line of investigation in which he was ultimately to

become a master. He had a great affection, too, for the warm-hearted,

hospitable people of the west of Scotland, and in “braid Scots” used

to relate many humorous episodes in which the sturdy farmers and “sma’

lairds” displayed their pawky humour. No full or adequate account of

the work he did in Ayrshire in these years has ever been published.

The short descriptions of sheets 22, 23, and 19, published by the

Geological Survey, were in large part written by James Geikie, but,

owing to the necessities of official publication entailing great

brevity, they contain merely an outline of his main conclusions. The

geologists who revised that ground forty years after the original

survey are unanimous in regretting that more adequate description of

the evidence which James Geikie had collected was not placed before the

public.

After leaving Ayrshire he was transferred to Kelso, and subsequently to

the district ranging from Perth to Dunkeld. From a geological point of

view this ground was considerably less varied; but as his note-books

show, he was by this time deeply absorbed in glacial and Pleistocene

geology, and every scrap of information regarding the latest stages

in the physical history of Scotland was most carefully recorded and

its importance weighed. Many of the conclusions he had already arrived

at in Ayrshire were confirmed by fresh evidence in these years. And

the estuary of the Tay, with its rich succession of late-glacial

and post-glacial accumulations, became of great importance in his

interpretation of the “glacial succession,” a subject to which the

remainder of his life was devoted more than to any other.

The circumstances that determined his bent towards the investigation

of glacial geology cannot perhaps be fully elucidated now in the

absence of any statement from his own pen, but it is not difficult

to find many reasons that may have influenced him. In considering

this subject we may glance briefly at the state of knowledge of this

department of geology at the time when he began field work. The years

1861 to 1865 saw a very remarkable development of interest in glacial

geology, occasioned by a sudden appreciation of the importance of

many facts previously well known but imperfectly understood. Many

active geologists in Scotland were coming for the first time to adopt

the views which have ultimately obtained acceptance in regard to the

Pleistocene history of Scotland, and the change of opinion which

was going on was somewhat similar to the still greater change which

took place when evolution first began to take the form of a working

hypothesis or even an established law of Nature, and to sweep away a

great many honoured and treasured theories that had long held sway over

the minds of men.

The superficial deposits of sand, clay, and stones that cover the solid

rocks in the lower grounds of Scotland, often to a depth of many feet,

were considered by most geologists as being of somewhat mysterious

origin. It was well known that they contained boulders transported from

a distance. Around Edinburgh and Glasgow, for example, large blocks

of rock which must have been carried from the Southern Highlands,

fifty miles or more, were familiar to those interested in geology.

That the surfaces of the rocks on which the drift or boulder-clay

rested were striated, grooved, and fluted, was also a well-known fact.

Early in the nineteenth century a favourite explanation of these

deposits, which had been supported by the celebrated Dean Buckland,

was that they were the remains of the Deluge as described in Genesis.

This theory, however, was soon discarded though the name “Diluvial,”

still used by some writers to designate these strata, bears witness

to the former acceptance of that hypothesis. For a long time they

continued to be considered as flood deposits, laid down by “debacles”

of obscure origin. No rational explanation for these powerful “waves of

translation” could be formulated, and they failed completely to account

for the remarkable scratched surfaces on which the boulder-clay rested.

As the study of glaciers advanced, it became clear that moving ice,

bearing debris with it, could produce striations exactly like those

in question, and the boulder-clay gradually came to be considered a

glacial deposit. Very important confirmation of this hypothesis came

from the observations of Mr Smith of Jordanhill on the recent shelly

clays of the west of Scotland. Many of the mollusca which these clays

contained proved to be of species now living in Arctic seas, and the

inference was obvious that at no very distant epoch a glacial climate

had prevailed in Scotland. About the year 1837 Agassiz had been led by

his investigation of the boulder-clay of Switzerland to the conclusion

that at one time the glaciers had extended far beyond their present

limits, and had covered the plains at the foot of the Alps with a vast

confluent sheet of ice. Agassiz, in 1840, visited Scotland with Dean

Buckland, and as the result of his observations had not hesitated to

declare that Scotland also had been swathed in an ice-sheet. British

geologists, however, were slow to accept his conclusions, and the

favourite explanation of the “drifts” was that they had been laid down

at the bottom of a sea in which icebergs floated, transporting great

rock boulders from one place to another.

In 1866 the veteran geologist Charles Maclaren, then at the age of

eighty-four, published the second edition of his _Geology of Fife

and the Lothians_, and in his account of the “alluvial phenomena” of

the district he shows the transitional state in which opinion then

was passing from the iceberg hypothesis to the land-ice hypothesis.

“The dressed surfaces as well as the ‘Till’ or Diluvium [the lower

boulder-clay] seem to have been mainly due to a great envelope of ice

acting for ages; the newer alluvium, on the other hand [the upper

boulder-clay], appears to have been chiefly due to icebergs and ocean

currents. In thus attributing so much to the action of ice during

a long glacial period, it must ever be borne in mind that oceanic

currents preceded this ice action, and that similar currents must have

been in existence to transport the icebergs to which we ascribe the

erratic blocks and boulders. Alternate submergence and elevation of

the north of Europe, combined with ice on land and ice on water (in my

opinion), must satisfactorily explain these diluvial phenomena, which,

as unsettled problems, are still engaging the attention of younger

geologists.”

One of the ablest champions of the land-ice hypothesis

was Robert Chambers, who was widely known as a historian and a member

of the famous Edinburgh publishing firm. As early as 1852 he ranged

himself on the side of Agassiz, declaring that floating icebergs and

currents of water could not possibly be accepted as a satisfactory

explanation of the boulder-clay and striated rock-surfaces. Mr T. F.

Jamieson of Ellon was making a very careful study of the drifts of

Aberdeenshire and the adjacent counties, and had little hesitation

in accepting the theory of an extensive ice-sheet, covering these

districts and filling up all the valleys, as the explanation most in

accordance with the facts which he had observed. He admitted, however,

that subsequently there had been a great submergence during which many

of the uppermost drift deposits had been laid down.

Sir Charles Lyell, whose authority on questions of theoretical geology

at that time was paramount, was also willing to accept the former

existence of glaciers over very extensive regions of the British

Isles, and described moraines that occur in the upland valleys of

Forfarshire, though he considered the drifts of the lower grounds as

mainly at any rate deposited in cold seas in which icebergs floated.

Much more important than Lyell, or at least much more likely to exert

influence on the mind of James Geikie at an early stage in his career,

was Sir Andrew Ramsay, then local Director of the Geological Survey.

Ramsay was a man after James Geikie’s own heart, and there can be no

doubt that his influence on Geikie was very great. We should not be

far wrong, in fact, in regarding Geikie as the direct successor of

Ramsay in the line of scientific thought. Through his whole life James

Geikie hardly departed from the position taken up by Ramsay on glacial

geology, though of course he developed many new and important fields

of investigation. There was a remarkable similarity in their outlook;

they both relied on very much the same class of evidence, depending

specially on field geology as a basis, but prepared to build up

far-reaching deductions from the facts they had observed. Most of the

theories enunciated by Ramsay were strongly and consistently maintained

by James Geikie up to the close of his career. Ramsay also was more

than a glacialist. He left a deep mark in the study of physiography,

the origin and history of British scenery, and in structural geology;

and in these subjects also James Geikie found continual inspiration.

When Geikie joined the Survey, Ramsay was at the zenith of his powers.

He had been for twenty years an active field-geologist on the Survey

staff; had travelled very extensively over Great Britain on geological

work; was a well-known man in London scientific circles; and from

his official position had unrivalled opportunities of making himself

acquainted with the field evidence bearing on all geological questions

then under review. He was endowed with great energy and a warm

imagination; a genial and hearty comrade, very fond of a joke; well

read in poetical and romantic literature; but withal a hard, untiring

worker who never spared himself or any member of his staff where duty

was concerned. The two men were in many ways alike, and no doubt they

were very soon on terms of close friendship; and to the latest days of

his life James Geikie spoke of Ramsay with deep affection and respect.

To the influence of Ramsay we must add that of his brother. Archibald

Geikie was already widely known for his geological work, and second

only to Ramsay as an authority on theoretical questions affecting

British geology. He had been appointed to the staff of the Geological

Survey in 1855, six years before James Geikie, and had rapidly risen

into prominence. Although at first he had given his adhesion to the

iceberg theory, his views had changed under the influence of Ramsay,

and in a classic paper which he read to the Geological Society of

Glasgow in 1862 he had described the glacial deposits of Scotland in

an exhaustive manner. This paper, so full in its details and so lucid

and moderate in statement, produced a great impression, at any rate in

Scotland, and clearly marked out the way along which future progress

was to be made. Though Sir Archibald Geikie subsequently made few

contributions to glacial geology, deserting this field for the study of

volcanoes, and of other parts of physical and historical geology, he

did a very great service to science in so clearly defining his position

on a much debated subject by publishing this paper.

As time went on, some of the younger geologists who had joined the

Survey after James Geikie became enthusiastic workers at glacial

science, and came to earn a reputation only second to Geikie himself in

this department of geology. Of these, we may specially mention Dr John

Horne and Dr Benjamin N. Peach, both of whom became eminent authorities

on the glacial geology of Scotland. In early years they were James

Geikie’s most intimate friends; their observations were always at his

service, and their criticism and advice he greatly valued.

CHAPTER XI

“THE GREAT ICE AGE” AND “PREHISTORIC EUROPE”

The first edition of _The Great Ice Age_ was completed in manuscript

in 1873, and in the previous year James Geikie had already published

a series of papers in the _Geological Magazine_ which clearly

outlined his main conclusions. All the essential features which were

to distinguish his life-work in this highly controversial field are

already recognisable in these papers. The principal characteristic

of _The Great Ice Age_ is its literary ability, the power of lucidly

expounding intricate scientific theories and sketching the evidence

on which they rest in a manner which equally avoids prolixity and

obscurity. Although, as we have shown, he was by no means the first to

champion the cause of land ice as against floating ice as the dominant

factor in the production of the drift, he was immediately accorded the

place of protagonist in this cause. In Scotland his views, at any rate

among his colleagues on the Survey, were those generally accepted. In

England also the Survey geologists were in agreement with him on most

of the essential points, though the submergence hypothesis and the

efficiency of floating icebergs were long held in esteem in the sister

kingdom, and have not yet completely fallen into disrepute. In Germany,

Norway, Sweden, Holland, and in North America there had as yet been no

general enlightenment on the real merits of this controversy. It may be

noted that in the first edition of his _Great Ice Age_, James Geikie

did not deny the fact that a great submergence accompanied the main

glaciation of Britain. He accepted it indeed, though in later years he

saw reason to modify this opinion.

The efficiency of land ice to explain most of the puzzling features

of the drifts was the main thesis which the book was written to

uphold. But there were many subordinate problems which came up for

consideration. One of these is the amount of erosion which the

ice-sheets and glaciers had produced. In this James Geikie followed

very closely in the footsteps of Ramsay; on the origin of rock-basins,

fjords, and sea lochs there is in fact practically complete agreement

in their views. This is the more significant, because Ramsay was at

that time far ahead of educated geological opinion on these matters,

and it is only quite recently that his views have received acceptance

in some of the most influential geological circles.

Another burning question which fell to be considered was the evidence

for or against interglacial warm periods; a question which even at

the present time is almost as keenly debated as it was in 1874 when

_The Great Ice Age_ was published. As years went past and successive

editions of the book appeared, the battle of land ice _versus_ floating

ice may be said to have been definitely closed; and James Geikie’s name

as an expounder of glacial geology came to be more and more closely

associated with his views on the glacial succession (the question, that

is, whether there was only one epoch of glaciation, or several epochs

separated by periods in which the climate was much milder). On this

subject, as on glacial erosion, James Geikie took up his position very

strongly from the first and maintained it to the end.

In considering this branch of James Geikie’s scientific work we may

trace a considerable amount of influence exerted on his thought by

James Croll, one of the most remarkable geologists that Scotland

has produced. Croll was a man who started life in a very humble

position; he educated himself, and by sheer power of intellect and

dogged perseverance he attained eminence in scientific work. He was

at once a metaphysician and a physicist, but it is only with the

latter aspect of his teaching that we are here concerned. Though

quite unschooled in mathematics he was daunted by no difficulties,

and by laborious calculation he worked out intricate problems of

astronomy; and the accuracy of his solutions was afterwards confirmed

by professional mathematicians and astronomers. Croll saw at a very

early stage that to land ice must be ascribed practically the whole of

the glacial phenomena of Scotland. He inferred from a number of facts

that the North Sea had been filled with Scandinavian ice during the

maximum stages of glaciation, and he suggested lines of research to

James Geikie, John Horne, and Benjamin Peach that led to important

contributions to the literature of Scottish glacial geology. Croll

pondered long and deeply over the causes of the Ice Age and the origin

of changes of climate in general, and the result was a series of

papers in which he maintained that changes in the eccentricity of the

earth’s orbit and the obliquity of the ecliptic, accompanied by other

astronomical processes, might produce epochs of cold climate in one

hemisphere with warmer conditions in the opposite hemisphere. These

changes might under certain conditions be sufficient to account for the

existence of ice-sheets. During the later years of his life Croll was

a member of the staff of the Geological Survey of Scotland, and this

silent, reserved, studious man was widely recognised as a most original

thinker.

James Geikie was much attached to Croll, and while he never professed

to be versed in the mathematical branches of science, he was prepared

to accept the accuracy of Croll’s theories. The other causes of

glaciation which had been advanced by various geologists, such as

Lyell’s hypothesis of elevation and depression of the land, he believed

to be quite inadequate, and in the first edition of _The Great Ice Age_

he states Croll’s hypothesis with evident approval, or at any rate

regards it as the only explanation at that time offered which could be

held to be at all in accordance with the facts.

From this position Geikie never receded. In subsequent years Croll’s

hypothesis was the subject of strenuous discussion. Eminent astronomers

like Sir Robert Ball found in it a satisfactory explanation of

Pleistocene glaciation. Equally eminent astronomers like Simon

Newcomb after testing it found it wanting. The subject as a whole

was beyond the scope of Geikie’s work, which was geological rather

than astronomical or meteorological; and in his later years he rather

avoided the discussion of the causes of glaciation, but he made it

clear that in his opinion, if Croll’s hypothesis failed, no other

explanation could be regarded as adequate.

As a corollary of Croll’s theory, it followed that there had been more

than one period of arctic cold in the northern hemisphere, and that

intercalated between the cold periods there were epochs of warmer

climate--interglacial periods, as they are now called. The evidence

for the existence of interglacial periods had appealed to Geikie in

his field work, and he had become convinced that in Scotland there had

been at least one interval of mild climatic conditions separating two

epochs of glacial severity. This may have to some extent predisposed

him to favour Croll’s hypothesis as being in greatest accordance with

the geological facts. For it cannot be said that James Geikie was in a

hurry to maintain the complexity of the Ice Age. In the first edition

of his book, though much engrossed in the description of the beds

intercalated with the boulder-clay and “till,” and obviously inclined

to attribute great importance to them, he says very little about warm

interglacial periods, and the reader is not led to suppose that he

considers the evidence as of overwhelming strength. Three years later

the second edition of _The Great Ice Age_ appeared, and we find that

the author then took up a much more definite position on this subject,

and has made a great advance in his treatment of it. But already in

1873 he was convinced in his own mind that several warm interglacial

periods had interrupted the rigours of the Ice Age, though he did not

attempt to enumerate the interglacial epochs in detail, or to state

fully the conclusions at which he had arrived.

The post-glacial history of Scotland was a subject that early attracted

James Geikie’s attention. He had devoted much study to it, and was in

after years to present a masterly analysis of its stages and sequence.

To trace the connection between the Ice Age and the present day, and

to show the changes which had elapsed since the ice-sheets melted from

the surface of Britain, was to him one of the most alluring departments

of geology. A good deal of work had been done by Scottish geologists

on the study of the raised beaches of Scotland, but no general account

of their relation to one another and to the glacial boulder-clay and

moraines had appeared before the publication of the first edition of

_The Great Ice Age_. That the sea-level had undergone alterations

around our shores was sufficiently demonstrated by the raised beaches,

of which three were very well known, the 100-foot, 50-foot, and 25-foot

beaches. But some authors, such as Chambers and Mackintosh, were ready

to find raised beaches anywhere; gravel terraces at all elevations,

many of which are now known to have been the deposits of glacial rivers

and lakes, and rock escarpments and platforms of very varied origin,

were appealed to as evidence of former submergence beneath the sea.

Prof. Geikie at this stage was not altogether free from a belief in

the great submergence, or at any rate he was not prepared to challenge

its champions; but he knew how little value was to be attached to some

of the evidence cited in its support, and his own studies had led him

to a fuller understanding and a more satisfactory appreciation of the

meaning of the raised beaches and the light they threw on the varied

conditions that had prevailed in Scotland during and subsequent to the

melting of the great ice-sheet. In particular, he maintained that the

higher beaches were associated with the deposits of clay containing

glacial shells that were so well known through the researches of Smith

of Jordanhill, and belonged to a time when glacial conditions had not

completely ceased in Scotland. The 50-foot beach was associated with

the oldest relics of man in the midland valley of Scotland, while the

25-foot beach and lower beaches were laid down in climatic surroundings

differing little from those of the present day. Between the epochs of

depression which these sea-terraces recorded there had been intervals

when the land stood at a higher level, so that the earth movements

had been of an oscillating character, and not merely a succession of

uplifts with intervening pauses during which the beach-platforms were

produced. The buried forests and the peat-bogs furnished additional

evidence of the elevation and depression of the land, and hinted, not

obscurely, at the probability that changes of climate had also taken

place during post-glacial time, the warm continental epochs encouraging

the growth of trees, while the cold, damp, insular climates were

favourable to the accumulation of peat. Although these conclusions were

only sketched out and not fully stated, it is plain to the reader that

already Prof. Geikie had convinced himself of the importance of these

facts.

And in considering what is probably the most controversial problem

which the student of Pleistocene and recent times must investigate,

namely, the relation of prehistoric man to the glacial period, he

followed the same line of thought, considering that the evidence of

the mammalian remains found in caves and river gravels of Northern

Europe pointed to the conclusion that there had been great variations

of climate. The mixture of northern and southern types of animals was

not to be ascribed in his opinion to migrations arising from seasonal

changes, but was due principally to alternations of cold and heat,

each enduring for a considerable time. He advocated also the existence

of man in glacial times, and recapitulating views already enumerated

in some papers which he had published in the _Geological Magazine_,

he argued that the palæolithic gravels of England were to be regarded

as glacial and preglacial, and not, as was widely believed, of

interglacial and post-glacial age.

Lastly, we may mention a feature of the first edition of _The Great

Ice Age_ that was to become more prominent in subsequent editions,

the comparative description of the phenomena described by geologists

of many different countries. For information regarding England he was

largely indebted to his colleagues in the English Survey, principally

Green, Tiddeman, and Whitaker. The Swedish, German, Norwegian, and

continental deposits generally had perforce to be described from the

literature of the subject, a literature already very extensive. Through

his whole life Prof. Geikie was a diligent student of the literature of

his subject. The most important European languages, as already noted in

Part I., he could read with facility, and as he was in constant receipt

of copies of glacial papers from their authors, much of his time was

taken up with a study of the contemporary literature of glaciation. It

was his familiarity with the work of other investigators in this field

of scientific research that gave him his position as the representative

British glacialist, and made his works so widely read and appreciated

by foreign scientific men.

With the publication of the first edition of _The Great Ice Age_ in

1874, Prof. Geikie’s reputation as a glacial geologist of the first

rank was at once established. The book had a cordial reception and a

ready sale. Prof. Green wrote a long and very sympathetic review of

it for _Nature_, and, whether its teachings were generally accepted

or not, the author had the satisfactory proof that it had not been

neglected by the rapid exhaustion of the first edition. Within a few

months he had to set seriously about the production of a new and

enlarged edition. Much of its popularity was no doubt due to the clear

and graceful style in which it was written. The more abstruse parts of

the subject were not discussed with too much detail; great insistence

was placed on the field evidence, and the discussion was such as could

be followed by the general reader who had no special training in

geological work. A studied moderation marked the conclusions arrived

at, and no attempt was made to force a revolutionary interpretation

of glacial phenomena into prominence. A great deal also was due to

the fact that the book embodied not only its author’s work and the

hypotheses he favoured, but also the results of the observations of

many of his colleagues on the Survey who had a very wide acquaintance

with field geology, and were, on the whole, very well agreed regarding

the interpretation of the facts. The author fully acknowledged his

obligations to colleagues on the Survey staff, but at the same time

it was clear that on this subject he was the leader and not merely a

compiler of other people’s results. The dedication to Sir Andrew Ramsay

is especially significant, for from Ramsay more than from any other

geologist had inspiration been received.

Probably the effect of the book was greater in foreign countries

than in Britain. In Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, and the United

States many geologists were actively prosecuting the study of

glacial deposits, and so clear and authoritative a statement of the

observations and conclusions of the Scottish glacialists had much

interest to workers in other lands. This appreciation the author valued

greatly, and it was the cause of a great enlargement in the circle

of his correspondents. He followed keenly the advance of glacial

investigation in foreign countries, and especially the new evidence

brought forward regarding changes of climate during and subsequent to

the glacial period, and the early chapters in the history of man in

Europe.

The second edition, which appeared three years after the first, showed

that the author had been led to modify his views in several important

respects. The great post-glacial submergence he now considered

unproved, following in this the conclusions arrived at by Dr Jamieson

of Ellon in his studies of the Scottish glacial deposits. He recognised

also that the shelly boulder-clay of many parts of Scotland, such as

Caithness, Orkney, Shetland, Dumbartonshire, and Ayrshire, was best

explained on the lines suggested by Dr James Croll as the deposit of

an ice-sheet that had invaded the land after travelling for a time

over the sea bottom. In this we see the influence of Dr Peach and Dr

Horne’s work on the glaciation of Caithness, Shetland and Orkney, and

of Geikie’s own investigation of the glacial phenomena of the Outer

Hebrides. These changes of opinion were undoubtedly well considered,

and have been supported by subsequent discoveries. He also took up a

much bolder attitude on the question of interglacial deposits and the

relation of man to the Ice Age. While still relying to the full on the

evidence cited from Scotland in the first edition of _The Great Ice

Age_ in favour of the existence of more than one interglacial period,

he adduced the results of Skertchly’s work at Brandon as proving

that the palæolithic deposits of south-eastern England are in places

overlain by genuine boulder-clay. More prominence was also given to

the continental evidence for interglacial periods, especially to that

obtained in the Dürnten lignite of the north side of the Alps, and

of the so-called Pliocene beds of Lombardy, which even in the first

edition he had confidently claimed as being really interglacial.

The next important work from Prof. Geikie’s pen was _Prehistoric

Europe_, published in 1881. He continued to keep abreast of the rapidly

increasing literature of his subject, and although the main lines of

his treatment of it required little modification, he was continually

adding to his store of facts. _Prehistoric Europe_ did not receive

the same welcome as _The Great Ice Age_, and this could hardly be

expected. Geologists were by this time familiar with the author’s

main conclusions, and the book in some measure takes us over familiar

ground. But to the general reader it remains one of the most enjoyable

of the author’s contributions to the literature of science.

Having already expounded in his previous works the essential phenomena

of glaciation, he devotes this book especially to the consideration

of many questions of subordinate importance, though in themselves

deserving of full consideration. The interglacial problem, of course,

comes up for treatment, but he has not much to say of it that is

really new to his readers. It is interesting to note, however, that

less insistence is now laid on the Scottish evidence in favour of

interglacial periods, and the British evidence in general, and more is

said of the interglacial beds of Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland,

and other European countries. The feeling seems to have arisen in the

author’s mind that much of the British evidence was not so strong as to

carry conviction, and the work of continental geologists was rapidly

adding details of the highest significance to the store of accumulated

observations in favour of repeated glaciations of Northern Europe. We

may readily believe also that he felt it desirable to enforce on the

minds of his readers the value of much recent research done by his

fellow-scientists in other countries. Many British geologists assumed

and still maintain a very sceptical attitude regarding the value of

the British evidence for interglacial periods, and Prof. Geikie was

undoubtedly right in appealing rather to well-established facts in

adjacent countries than attempting to discuss the minutiæ of sections

often of a temporary nature and by no means well-exposed, which were

familiar to many of his British readers. It is not to be supposed,

however, that he had changed his ground; to the last he maintained the

validity of the British evidence for interglacial periods, though in

some parts of it modifications of his original statements might have

become necessary. In the nature of things the evidence collected from

so small an area as Scotland was sure to be incomplete, and to treat

Great Britain as a region apart was more likely to lead to error than

to correct results.

Another subject which he handled more fully than in _The Great Ice Age_

was the antiquity of the human relics of palæolithic type which had

been found in caves and river gravels. Many British geologists of the

highest reputation held that these were of post-glacial date, but Prof.

Geikie had always contended strongly that some at least of the deposits

containing the implements of early man were interglacial or preglacial.

Time has justified his sagacity, and it is now fairly widely recognised

that these relics date back in some cases to periods anterior at any

rate to the last glaciation of Northern Europe. The old controversy

regarding changes of climate in Pleistocene time reappears in this

volume, and the author stoutly maintains the position he had taken up

in _The Great Ice Age_, that the association of the remains of mammals

of southern and northern types in gravel deposits can be explained only

on the hypothesis that periods of genial alternated with periods of

arctic climate.

But perhaps the main purpose of this book, as seems to be indicated by

the title selected for it, was to discuss the changes that had taken

place in Europe since the melting of the ice of the last stage of the

glacial period. The phenomena of the raised beaches that encircle

our Scottish coasts, with the alluvial or “carse” clays of the river

valleys intimately associated with the beach deposits, and the peat

and buried forests of our moorlands and coasts, had fascinated Prof.

Geikie since the beginning of his glacial investigations, and he felt

that for their proper discussion more scope was required than was

afforded by such a book as _The Great Ice Age_. These problems were

full of difficulties and the evidence appeared often contradictory

or misleading, but he managed to piece it together and to arrive at

a consistent and clearly reasoned interpretation. The raised beaches

indicate, of course, changes of the level of sea and land; but these

were far more considerable than the beaches alone would indicate, as

the submerged forests that in many places are intercalated with the

beach and carse deposits show that at certain stages the land area

had been far more extensive than at present. This was confirmed by

many facts regarding the present distribution of animals and plants in

the British Isles which could not otherwise be logically explained;

and in this field of investigation he gratefully acknowledges the

assistance furnished by his old friend Dr Buchanan White, with whom

he was in close contact since he was then living in Perth. The raised

beaches also were associated with the closing phases of glaciation

in Britain, since both the 100-foot and the 50-foot beaches in the

north of Scotland showed effects of contemporaneous glacial action,

and the older marine shell beds contained shells now living only in

Arctic seas. The interpretation of the evidence to be obtained from the

study of peat-bogs and buried forests was by no means so clear, but

indubitably pointed towards the recurrence of damp cold epochs suitable

for the rapid growth of peat, separated by epochs of a different

character during which the country was overspread by a dense growth

of forest. These hypotheses had long occupied the author’s mind, and

he had pondered deeply over the evidence in support of them. Fuller

investigation in future years was destined to bring out many striking

confirmations of his opinions. It may be said that so far as his

interpretation of the post-glacial history of Scotland is concerned,

the most authoritative opinion of Scottish geologists at the present

time is in accordance with the conclusions which he had arrived at.

This alone makes the book still worth careful study by those who would

appreciate the changes our islands have undergone in the most recent

stages of their geological history, and though notable additions have

been made to the store of accumulated observations, they readily find a

place in the scheme which he has outlined.

CHAPTER XII

EDUCATIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE WORK

With his appointment in 1882 to the Murchison Chair of Geology and

Mineralogy in Edinburgh University to succeed his brother Sir Archibald

Geikie, a new epoch began in James Geikie’s career. For some years

he had been District Surveyor on the Scottish Survey, a post of

considerable responsibility, and requiring the exercise of tact and

firmness, but one which presented most valuable opportunities to a

keen geologist. The Scottish Survey at that time had an exceptionally

strong personnel, and in pure field geology was setting a standard of

excellence which has rarely been surpassed. Several of his colleagues

came to be recognised in the course of a few years as scientific men

of the highest distinction, and among them there was a spirit of

camaraderie and of friendly emulation in research which made their

daily tasks a constant source of novelty and of unflagging interest.

To many of his colleagues, such as Peach, Horne, Jack, Croll, Skae,

and Irvine, James Geikie had been indebted for important information

and for the most searching criticism, combined with unselfish

appreciation of the value of his work. The ground surveyed had most

of it been previously examined only in a quite unexhaustive way,

and had consequently the attraction of novelty; it was also of very

varied structure, and, more important from his point of view, it was

rich in evidence of glacial action. No better training ground for

a field-geologist who intended to devote himself to the study of

glaciation could well be imagined.

Among the Scottish geological staff James Geikie’s position as a

field-geologist and as a glacialist was fully recognised, and he had

the unquestioning support of his colleagues. His life was full of

variety and interest. No doubt, like other men, he had made mistakes

and had been severely handled by some of his critics. Some of his early

work on the Silurian volcanic rocks of Ayrshire, for example, had

suffered greatly from his insufficient knowledge of the chemical and

mineralogical foundations on which geology rests.

Probably this criticism taught him to be more careful in speculation

and more critical in accepting evidence. But his field work, as a

whole, was of the highest standard. His field maps of Carboniferous and

Devonian ground proved to be exceptionally thorough and accurate. In

these early years, of course, it was not intended to execute a survey

on a very minute scale. The large area upon which each surveyor was

expected to report each year prevented him from spending more than a

limited time on a small district. Moreover, the literature of the

geology of Scotland was as yet by no means large. Many of the more

specialised branches of geology, such as petrology, were as yet in a

very rudimentary state. Perhaps on that account the field-geologist was

expected to be more of an all-round geologist, and to rely less on the

guidance of specialists than his successors at the present time.

The opportunities presented to him he had made use of to the fullest.

He was a born observer. The retentiveness of his memory for localities

and for geological details was extraordinary; but that he did not

trust to it exclusively his well-filled note-books bear witness. What

distinguished him specially, however, was his power of maintaining

his interest in the abstract questions of geology and the indomitable

perseverance and industry with which he pursued his researches in

spite of the distractions of field work. Not many geologists after an

arduous day in the open air could sit down, as was his habit, and spend

many hours in literary work, or in the task of mastering the papers,

in many foreign languages, in which the progress of glacial geology

was recorded. Even admitting that he was a ready writer, we must

acknowledge that his power of work at this time was enormous, and we

cannot wonder that at times he felt on the verge of a breakdown.

The testimonials which he had printed when making application for

the Professorship of Geology in Edinburgh show how thoroughly his

reputation as a scientist was established in Europe and America. His

book on _The Great Ice Age_ receives high praise from Norwegian,

Swedish, Swiss, German, Italian, and American geologists, and among his

British supporters he could number Darwin, Evans, and Hooker.

It was not, as already seen, without reluctance that James Geikie

decided to leave the Geological Survey. The earnest scientific

spirit in which its work was conducted, the intimate fellowship with

scientific men of kindred spirit, and the free open-air life had great

attractions for him. The academic life was new to him, and must have

seemed at first a cabined and cribbed existence compared with that of

a field-geologist. Yet there is no doubt the choice was a wise one. In

the higher departments of Survey work his duties would have been mostly

of an administrative nature, and much of his time would have been taken

up by routine business, very largely of a non-geological character,

which would certainly have proved uncongenial. His opportunities of

visiting the field would also have been much curtailed. Residing in

Edinburgh, he could keep in intimate touch with his former colleagues

of the Survey, and glean the most valuable results of their work

when they returned to the office each year. They were now beginning

the survey of the North and West Highlands, and were to undertake

investigations of a kind with which he was quite unacquainted. A good

deal of new information on glacial geology was being collected by them

year by year, and of course communicated to him regularly. But the

main work in hand was the unravelling of the intricate history of the

Highlands and the palæontology and petrology of the older rocks of

Scotland. This was destined to yield most brilliant results, and the

Scottish Survey was to become more famous even than it had been in the

days of Sir Andrew Ramsay; but these fields of investigation were not

those which he had chosen for his own especial study, and there can be

no doubt that as a university professor, with ample time for research

in any branch of his subject which appealed to him, he was able to

follow out his own line of work far more untrammelled than he would

have been as an officer of the Geological Survey.

To the execution of the duties of his Chair he devoted himself with

characteristic thoroughness and energy. His brother had combined

the office of Director of the Geological Survey of Scotland with

the Murchison Professorship, but James Geikie was free to give his

whole time to university work. At first, at any rate, he had little

spare time on his hands. Well versed in Scottish geology and in the

physical and structural divisions of the science, he had also a wide

knowledge of stratigraphical geology and of the geological structure of

Europe and North America. He worked hard to increase his knowledge of

mineralogy, petrology, and palæontology, even setting up a laboratory

to carry out mineral assays. Ever a skilful draughtsman, he prepared

with his own hand many drawings of landscapes, geological sections,

and the microscopic structure of rocks. He was always rather averse

to the use of the lantern to illustrate his lectures, and preferred

large wall diagrams, many of which had cost great pains to make. From

every available source he collected specimens of rocks, minerals,

and fossils. He was unsparing in his efforts to make his subject as

interesting to his students as possible, and to relieve them of the

tedious work of taking voluminous manuscript notes. For this purpose he

prepared long series of memoranda, and had copies of them struck off by

a primitive duplicating apparatus.

As a lecturer he had rather an easy-going, colloquial style, which

undoubtedly had the merit of catching and holding the attention of

even the least intellectual of his audience. He spoke fast, and

covered a very large part of his subject in the course of the one

hundred lectures which constituted the work of the winter class, but

by the help of the memoranda above mentioned his students had little

difficulty in keeping abreast of his progress. Brimful of humour and of

fun, he was not above making an occasional joke to his audience; but

this aspect of his character was far more in evidence on his Saturday

excursions. However long the walk and however unpropitious the weather,

there was always a circle of admiring students around him, intent

on catching every detail of the amusing stories, reminiscences, and

snatches of old ballads or songs, of which he had an unfailing supply.

From the first he proved a very successful professor. His course was

at that time optional, in the sense that candidates for the recognised

degrees of the University did not require to take it. Only students

desirous of studying geology for its own sake were to be found on the

benches of his class-room. He had always also a fair number of men who

were not regular students but engaged in professional work, who desired

to widen the range of their intellectual vision, and took an occasional

class at the University. Many of these were teachers occupied all day

in the schools of the city; and to meet the needs of such men he fixed

his hour for lecturing at four o’clock in the afternoon, so as to

give them a chance of attending after their day’s work. Many of these

students afterwards became his attached personal friends, and in this

group were included missionaries home on leave, army men, journalists,

doctors taking postgraduate courses at the University, and planters and

mining engineers enjoying a long holiday at home after years spent in

foreign countries.

At first he conducted all the classes himself, but after a time the

University granted him an assistant, and he started a regular practical

or laboratory course. His relations with his assistants were of the

most sympathetic character. Always ready to take more than his fair

share of the drudgery of elementary teaching, he showed the most kindly

interest in the progress of his assistants, and encouraged them to

carry out original research on their own account. His fine library

and wide knowledge of the literature of geology were always at their

service, and as the University in those days was by no means liberally

endowed with funds for the purchase of scientific apparatus, he often

provided at his own expense the instruments necessary for special

researches. The rooms assigned to the geological department were

miserably inadequate--dark, half-furnished attics, draughty, cold, and

uncomfortable--but much good work was done there.

James Geikie lived to see the conditions of university teaching in

Edinburgh greatly altered for the better. The courses qualifying for

degrees were made much less restricted, and geology became a subject

in the curriculum for the Arts as well as the Science degree. The

number of students increased, and the status of the Chair was improved.

Better-paid assistants were provided, increased grants for the purchase

of apparatus, and a higher stipend for the professor. A very important

addition to the department was the provision of a library of geological

books, the gift of Sir Archibald Geikie and James Geikie in the first

place, subsequently taken over and maintained by the University

Library authorities. The prestige of geology in the University and the

condition of the department in 1914 when he resigned were incomparably

superior to those which existed in 1882 when he was appointed to the

Chair.

In 1894 he became Dean of the Faculty of Science in the University, and

continued to hold this responsible appointment till a year before his

retiral. Although he did not by any means suffer fools gladly, he had

much sympathy with students and with his colleagues, the professors,

lecturers, and assistants, in the difficulties which they encountered

in their work, and he had good business faculties, being careful,

prompt, and industrious. The great esteem in which he was held by all

who came in contact with him was clearly proved by his long tenure

of this exacting post, and his success in smoothing the difficulties

inevitable in university life where so many interests have to be

considered. The time required for this work he gave ungrudgingly;

but as he was at the same time Honorary Editor of the Royal Scottish

Geographical Society’s _Magazine_, and eventually President of that

Society, and served on the Council of the Royal Society of Edinburgh

for many years, he felt that his time for research and literary work

was very seriously curtailed.

If we consult the list of Prof. Geikie’s contributions to scientific

literature which appears as an appendix to this volume, it becomes

evident that with his appointment to the Edinburgh professorship he

began to write on several topics which previously had not specially

engaged his attention. The voluminous notes from which his lectures

were delivered were abridged, rearranged, and ultimately published

as his _Outlines of Geology_. This work was expressly meant for the

use of his own students, and served to relieve them of a large part

of the tedious note-taking which was in those days a heavy burden on

members of the University classes. It found acceptance, however, in a

wider circle, and in time three large editions of the book were sold.

Its most distinctive feature is the ample space devoted to physical

geology, especially the processes at work to-day which throw light on

the structures and origin of rocks. The more technical portions of the

subject, such as petrology and palæontology, he considers in much

less detail. In fact, the book is quite as suitable for the general

reader as for the university student. This book appeared in 1888,

and seventeen years later his second and most successful text-book

was published, the _Structural and Field Geology for Students_. His

natural abilities as an observer, and his thorough training as a

field-geologist, made him especially competent to handle this subject

effectively, and he made judicious use of photographs taken by the

Geological Survey to illustrate the volume. The success of the book

was also in large measure due to his long experience as a teacher and

his clear and easy style; in fact, the foundations of the text-book

were laid in the courses of lectures on structural geology which he

used to deliver in the summer sessions. Something also, no doubt, was

due to there being no really good work on this subject for English

and American students. He was much gratified by its success, for he

felt that he had done something to stimulate accurate field surveying

by students of geology, and field work he always considered the most

educative part of geological training.

Here we may mention also his contributions to _Chambers’s

Encyclopædia_, for which he wrote many of the geological articles.

In 1875 he had prepared a small Elementary Manual for the well-known

Edinburgh firm of publishers, and as successive editions of the

_Encyclopædia_ were printed he continued to revise his geological

articles, so that he had a continuous connection with Messrs Chambers

lasting over forty years.

* * * * *

His work as a geographer next claims our attention. The fields of

geological research which he especially cultivated have a very close

connection with geographical science. In the Scottish Geographical

Society, as already stated, he took a deep interest from the start.

For many years his face was a familiar one on the platform at the

lectures delivered by eminent geographers and distinguished travellers

in Edinburgh, and as these lectures are always very well attended,

probably his connection with the Society made him better known to

the general public than any other of his numerous activities. These

functions also brought him into contact with many explorers and

scientists who came to Edinburgh to lecture, and were the source of

many friendships which he valued highly. During the latter years of his

life the Geographical Society claimed almost as much of his attention

as his academic duties, and as he was fortunately assisted by very

competent lecturers in the University, he could spare the time required

to fulfil both functions.

His studies in geography were always in those fields which form

the border-land between geology and geography. The history of the

development of scenery and of earth-forms in general, and the relation

between geological structure and geographical configuration, were

favourite subjects for his pen. In this he was a true follower of

Playfair. He delighted also to prepare short notices for the Society’s

magazine, describing the results of recent work on prehistoric man, on

changes of climate in recent geological periods, and the action of ice

in the production of surface features. The magazine proved a useful

vehicle for conveying to the public the results of his wide reading

on topics such as these. Many of the articles which first appeared in

its pages were subsequently issued in book form, or were used in the

preparation of the third edition of _The Great Ice Age_, and the other

scientific treatises which he produced.

In 1893 he collected the most important and interesting of his

scientific lectures and addresses into a volume to which he gave the

title _Fragments of Earth Lore_. The book was published by his friend

Dr Bartholomew of the Edinburgh Geographical Institute, and served to

introduce the results of some of his researches to a wider circle of

readers than they would otherwise have reached, as they had originally

appeared in publications as widely different in purpose as _Good

Words_ and the _Transactions of the Geological Society of Edinburgh_.

Most of the papers, as was to be expected, treat of the progress of

glacial geology, and one of these is of special importance. It is

entitled “The Glacial Succession in Europe,” and was reprinted from the

_Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh_. It shows considerable

progress along the lines which his work on glacial and interglacial

periods had previously followed, and was the precursor of the third

edition of _The Great Ice Age_, in which the new developments of this

branch of science were to be more fully expounded. Among the other

papers are several which are excellent popular scientific articles,

such as the sketch of the “Geology of the Cheviot Hills,” originally

issued in _Good Words_ in 1876. These essays show him at his best as

an exponent of the simpler and more attractive themes of geological

literature. He had an easy, fluent style, and had he chosen to do so,

might have attained great popularity as an exponent of science for the

million. The fine illustrations of this book deserve special mention,

especially the maps, which owe much to the skill and artistic taste

of Dr Bartholomew, who in this matter had the cordial support and

co-operation of Prof. Geikie. Ever since his days on the Geological

Survey he had set a very high standard in the preparation of maps, and

paid the greatest attention to their artistic qualities as well as to

their excellence as scientific documents.

His book on _Earth Sculpture_ followed in 1898, and in this particular

field soon came to be recognised as a standard work. It was published

as one of a series, and the limitations of space probably did not

allow very complete discussion of so large a subject: in fact, it is

only a sketch of the relations between geology and surface features;

but the subject was one for which he had a great liking, and he dwelt

on it lovingly in the lectures which he delivered each winter to the

University students. In this, of course, he followed the Scottish

tradition, which since the days of Hutton and Playfair had assigned

to this branch of geology a special importance. The writing of this

little book accordingly was a real pleasure to him, and he drew nearly

all the illustrations for it with his own hand, feeling that the only

difficulty was to keep himself within the limits which necessity

imposed. His immense knowledge of geographical literature supplied him

with abundant material to illustrate the operation of natural agents in

giving rise to modifications of topographical form, and the change of

subject-matter from the always more or less controversial questions of

the glacial history of the northern hemisphere afforded stimulus to his

pen.

CHAPTER XIII

INTERGLACIAL CONTROVERSIES

The second edition of _The Great Ice Age_ was sold out about the

year 1892, and the author set himself to the task of preparing a

third edition, incorporating all the most recent investigations. The

task was necessarily a very severe one, as an enormous increase had

taken place in the number of workers in this field, and the evidence

had accumulated at a very rapid rate. Prof. Geikie always regarded

this work as his principal contribution to geological literature, an

opinion which most of his critics seem to have shared; and certainly

the labour he spent on the third edition of his _magnum opus_ was

sufficient to entitle it to a high place in the history of glacial

investigation. With indomitable perseverance he undertook the work

of mastering the literature, and the number of papers he read may be

inferred from the fact that his collection of pleistocene and glacial

pamphlets, which now form a part of the noble library of the University

of Edinburgh, numbered over one hundred and sixty volumes. He aimed at

making the book not only a compendium of information on the subject

of which it treated, but also a critical review of the conclusions

which might fairly be drawn from the evidence to hand; and in this he

not unfrequently differed from the authors of the papers he cited, a

proceeding which was likely to awaken feelings the reverse of grateful.

The subject-matter was now, of course, so vastly enlarged that only

the more important contributions could be adequately noticed, and

much interesting detail had to be passed over or handled only in the

briefest way. Many of the old controversies which had bulked largely

in the first and second editions of the book had been decided, or had

been so fully discussed that there was no pressing need to devote

much space to them; but the subject as a whole was not less involved

in uncertainty and debate, for new topics of discussion had arisen,

hardly less keenly disputed than the old ones. In the main lines of his

argument Prof. Geikie still followed the teaching of Ramsay and Croll

and the geologists of the old Scottish school, and though, for example,

no longer inculcating the necessity of a great glacial subsidence, he

maintained most of the positions he had taken up in his early days.

In one respect, however, the work marked a great advance, for he now

believed it possible to subdivide the history of _The Great Ice Age_

into a succession of glacial and interglacial periods with far more

minute detail than he had hitherto attempted. In this he showed a

boldness which some critics might call rash, but which has been in

very large measure justified by the results of subsequent research. He

came to be recognised as pre-eminently the defender of interglacial

periods; and to this aspect of the book far more attention has been

directed than to any other. James Geikie, in fact, was soon considered

an ultra-interglacialist, if we may coin a ponderous but perhaps

expressive term. The technical details of the evidence cannot be

discussed in this place; it will be sufficient to say that he believed

there was good evidence in Scotland and in Europe generally for the

former existence of no less than six glacial periods separated by

intervals of milder climate which were truly interglacial.

At the time the book was published it is no exaggeration to say that

he was alone in holding these views. Glacial investigation had made

considerable progress in Scotland since 1877, when the second edition

of his book was issued; but most Scottish geologists, though in

agreement with Prof. Geikie on many points, would hardly have followed

him in the extreme position which he took up. That interglacial periods

had existed they generally admitted, but the searching criticism to

which the evidence in favour of them had been subjected had revealed

that much of it was of an indecisive character, if not actually

untrustworthy; and no British geologists of that time had Prof.

Geikie’s wide knowledge of the glacial literature of other countries.

They were consequently often unable to appreciate how far the

continental evidence filled up the gaps which were painfully evident in

the record of British glacial history. In certain circles, in England

especially, the evidence for interglacial periods was regarded with

sceptical distrust, if not completely disbelieved; but on Clement

Reid, his former colleague on the Survey, and one of the most skilled

and critical glacialists then living, it had produced a different

impression. He saw clearly the necessity for admitting the existence of

at least one interglacial period; but between his position and that of

James Geikie, who believed in five interglacial periods, a great gulf

intervened. Perfectly aware of his apparent isolation, and supremely

confident in the accuracy of his results, James Geikie pressed

strongly on his readers the necessity of appreciating more fully the

significance of the facts, and in consequence his book became very

obviously an argument in favour of Pleistocene and Recent oscillations

of climate rather than a critical and impartial review of the evidence

available. In every case he went as far in support of his conclusions

as the facts in his opinion could be interpreted to lead; and the

treatment of British glacial questions showed undoubtedly a stubborn

courage and a determination to make the best of his case, which only

his confidence in the general sufficiency of the evidence for the whole

of Europe could be held to justify.

In foreign countries generally he found more support, though

everywhere, it may be admitted, his views must have been regarded as

extreme. In Germany glacial investigation was still in a comparatively

backward state, but in Penck, Brückner, and Partsch (names subsequently

to figure most prominently in the story of the advance of this

department of science) he found disciples and supporters of the

highest value. The investigations of these geologists had led them

independently to the belief in the repeated glaciation of the Alps

and the mountains of Central and Eastern Europe. Their chief results

were still to appear, but enough was known of their conclusions to

define their attitude. In Norway and Sweden, though many notable

investigations into glacial geology had been made, no general consensus

of opinion had been reached as to the stages into which the glacial

history of that country must be subdivided, and Prof. Geikie still

found his old friend Axel Blytt the nearest in agreement with his

views among the Scandinavian geologists. In France the existence

of interglacial periods had warm defenders and keen opponents; but

attention was being directed more particularly to the successive phases

of palæolithic culture, in the study of which French geologists and

anthropologists have always been in the forefront. But in America a

school of geologists had arisen in which Prof. James Geikie had found

not only warm personal friends but also powerful supporters in his

theoretical views, and a most notable contribution to the third edition

of _The Great Ice Age_ are the chapters by Prof. Chamberlin (_cf._ Part

I., p. 120), in which the glacial history of North America is reviewed.

The literature of the glacial geology of that continent has now swelled

to enormous dimensions, and to describe the phenomena in a critical

and discriminative manner was beyond the powers of anyone who had not

devoted many years to a personal examination of the evidence; but

in Prof. Chamberlin an exponent was secured who was not only in very

substantial agreement with Prof. Geikie in his conclusions, but was

also exceptionally familiar with the facts.