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The scheme which De la
Beche had so patiently worked at for some twenty years was now at last
brought to its consummation. He had succeeded in inducing the Government
to build a spacious edifice, extending from Piccadilly to Jermyn Street,
which was to be entirely devoted to the purposes of Geology and its
allied sciences. The main portion of the building was arranged for the
display of specimens of minerals, rocks, and fossils, especially to
illustrate the geological formations and mineral products of the British
Isles. A large series of admirable specimens had been obtained from the
mines of Cornwall and Devon, showing the characters of metalliferous
veins and their accompaniments. Another series represented various
mineral substances employed in manufactures or arts, with examples of
their successive stages of treatment from the raw material to the
finished article. A third series consisted of various stones employed in
building or for decorative purposes. There were likewise numerous
specimens of mining tools and machinery and models of mines and
pit-workings. In every way that could be devised the contents were so
chosen and arranged as to justify the name given to the building, 'The
Museum of Practical Geology.' The old collections at Craig's Court not
only found now a worthier domicile, but they were augmented by many
specimens, which, for want of room, could not previously be exhibited.
But in keeping the
practical application of geology before the eyes of the public, the
claims of pure science were not lost sight of or held in the background.
A fine assemblage of fossils which the Geological Survey had gradually
been amassing was now arranged in due stratigraphical order. The visitor
in walking round the galleries had before him the characteristic plants
and animals of each great period of geological time, all properly named
and grouped. He could thus, text-book in hand, study the fauna and flora
of any particular geological period with a fulness and ease never before
attainable. Geological maps of different parts of Britain were suspended
for reference. Every effort was thus made to ensure that for purposes of
serious study the Museum should be as useful as possible. By this
combination of the systematic and the practical it was believed that an
important step was taken in the development of geological science.
But the Jermyn Street
Museum only carried out more fully and with ampler space what had been
already attempted in the more restricted quarters of Craig's Court.
Though the giving of lectures in connection with the Museum had been
sanctioned as far back as 1839, the want of proper accommodation had
prevented this design from ever being put into execution. But there was
now the possibility of better things, and the great new departure in the
organisation was the creation of a special teaching staff and the
establishment of a definite curriculum of scientific training. Other
countries had long had their schools of mines, yet Britain, with its
enormous mineral wealth, then yielding twenty-four millions of pounds
annually, had never possessed such an establishment. It was known that
vast sums of money had been wasted in fruitless search for minerals,
where a knowledge of geology would have shown that such minerals did not
exist. It was admitted that science, if consulted in such cases, could
direct the search for minerals in new localities, and aid in the proper
and economical working of those already known. Many representations had
been made to the ruling authorities of the country, urging the great
need of scientific instruction in all branches of science capable of
assisting in the development of the mineral industries of Britain. But
it was not until the early summer of 1851 that the idea was finally
launched into practical accomplishment.
The claims of De la Beche
as the originator and the life and spirit of this comprehensive scheme
were never more forcibly urged than by Murchison when, four years later,
the Geological Society awarded its Wollaston Medal to the
Director-General of the Geological Survey. 'Then arose,' he said, 'and
very much after the design of the accomplished Director himself, that
well-adapted edifice in Jermyn Street, which, to the imperishable credit
of its author, stands forth as the first palace ever raised from the
ground in Britain which is entirely devoted to the advancement of
science! ... It is our bounden duty [as members of the Geological
Society] to cleave closely to our offspring, Her Majesty's Geological
Museum - nay more, to use our most strenuous endeavours to have it
maintained by the British Government in that lofty position to which it
has been raised. We must, in short, not only hold firmly to, but act
upon the faith which is in us, and see that an establishment like this,
though it naturally branches off into highly useful and collateral
subjects of art, be never rendered subsidiary to them, but be
permanently and independently sustained on its own solid basis of pure
science. This, our view, will also be taken, I feel confident, by every
enlightened statesman who may be placed in a station to provide for the
future well-being of the admirable Museum, founded and completed by our
Wollaston Medallist." The 12th May was fixed for the formal opening of
the Museum by Prince Albert. Ramsay thus chronicles the events of the
day: ' Over [to the Museum] soon, wound up all I had to do, and then
prepared for our opening. Crowds began to assemble about half-past
eleven. I helped to receive below. By and by the Prince came. We of the
Museum, some of the ministers, etc., sundry Lords once of the Woods, the
Bishop of Oxford, some of the geologists, etc., followed to the vacant
chair. Sir H. read an address, the Prince read a reply. Then we all
walked round, Sir H. leading, and each officer explaining his own
department. And it was over.
'A terrible damper
occurred which we kept from Sir H. Faraday told Hunt just before the
Prince came that poor old Mr. Richard Phillips had died yesterday. It
was a shock to me. Strange that he should have died just at the opening
of the Museum. I find myself unconsciously repeating his jokes. We shall
see him no more toddling about with a joke for every one.'
As finally adjusted, the
subjects to be taught at the newly-instituted ' Government School of
Mines, and of Science applied to the Arts,' and the officers by whom the
courses of instruction were to be given, were as follows :—
President— Sir Henry T.
De la Beche, C.B., F.R.S.
Chemistry, applied to the Arts and Agriculture—Lyon Playfair, Ph.D.,
F.R.S.
Natural History, applied to Geology and the Arts—Edward Horbes, F.R.S.
Mechanical Science, with its Applications to Mining—Robert Hunt, Keeper
of Mining Records.
Metallurgy, with its Special Applications—John Percy, M.D., F.R.S.
Geology, and its Practical Applications—A. C. Ramsay, F.R.S.
Mining and Mineralogy—Warington W. Smyth, M.A., F.G.S.
His acceptance of the
lectureship of geology in this institution rendered it necessary that
Ramsay should vacate his chair at University College. On the 15th June
he sent in his formal letter of resignation. There was a disposition on
the part of some of the College authorities not to continue the
professorship after he should give it up, but to send the students to
him at the School of Mines. He himself, however, was adverse to this
proposal, and the idea was abandoned. The teachers of the School did not
aspire to be called ' Professors,' and Smyth used almost angrily to
resent the appellation. But Ramsay having for four years worn the gown
in a chartered college, the name of Professor continued to be given to
him, in accordance with the northern proverb, ' Once a bailie, aye a
bailie.'
The preparation of
lectures for the new school was a much less arduous task than that which
presented itself to him four years before. The course he had given at
University College would suffice for his purpose. He had not written out
his lectures, but had only made full notes, and these he used to revise
frequently, so as to bring them abreast of the onward march of geology.
This task had to be accomplished before the beginning of the next year.
But it was not one which pressed heavily on him, even though it included
the preparation of a special introductory lecture designed for the
purposes of the School of Mines.
Warington H Smyth
Ramsay had thus ample
time for inspecting duty in the field during the summer and autumn. Much
of the earlier part of the season was spent in the Midlands looking over
the ground mapped by or assigned to Jukes, H. H. Howell, and E. Hull.
The two latter geologists were recent additions to the staffj and he
trained them for their work. Never was there a more delightful
field-instructor than he. Full of enthusiasm for the work, quick of eye
to detect fragments of evidence, and swift to perceive their importance
for purposes of mapping, he carried the beginner on with him, and imbued
him with some share of his own ardent and buoyant nature. Laziness and
indifference were in his eyes such crimes that indulgence in them marked
a man out for his wrathful indignation, and even for ultimate dismissal
from the service. He would take infinite pains to make any method of
procedure clear, and was long-suffering and tender where he saw that the
difficulties of the learner arose from no want of earnest effort to
comprehend. But woe to the luckless wight who showed stupidity,
inattention, or carelessness! Ramsay's eye would flash, his hand would
whisk the tips of the curls on his head, he would seize the map and rush
ahead, calling on the defaulter to come on and look. And he would keep
up this offended tone until he felt that his pupil had at last been made
to feel his delinquency. Then some snatch of a song or line of an old
ballad or fragment from Shakespeare, appropriate to some phase of the
incident, would come into his head, and instantly it would be on his
lips with probably a hearty laugh, that showed how entirely the cloud
had passed away. If a man had any geological faculty in him, it was
impossible that it should not be stimulated and educated under such a
teacher. And if, unhappily, there was no such faculty, Ramsay soon
discovered the defect, and after full trial the recruit was advised to
seek other fields of exertion.
The inspecting duty in
the Midland region brought Ramsay into close familiarity with a type of
English scenery which contrasted strongly with what, during his Survey
life, he had been chiefly used to in Wales. Thus he writes: '19th
July.—Up into that fine wild part of old England by Cannock Chase. It
truly gives an idea of what much of England must have been in the days
of Robin Hood—wild, undulating, unenclosed ground, covered with heath
and bracken, and here and there sprinkled with oaks, birches, and
alders. In the woods and on the hillsides you may see the wild deer
trooping along, while now and then you raise a lazy heron, or the
whirring grouse and black game.'
'23rd.—Out to Maxstoke
Priory, etc. [Warwickshire], tracing on Howell's fault. What a noble
place that has been, with its piles of building, its great
cathedral-like church, and its perfectly-built encircling close walls of
smoothed stones with buttress and sloping copings! I was charmed and
grieved at the sight of the stately ruins ; scarcely anything remaining
but part of the great church-tower, the gateway, some of the smaller
buildings, now a farm-house, and these beautiful walls. To-night I heard
the Shakespearian word "pudder" used for the first time in conversation.
Old Mr. Brown of the Colesleys said, "It will be a fine day to-morrow,
if the thunder does not pudder up," pronouncing the dd as th. It tells a
singular story to see many of the old farms surrounded by moats in these
parts.'
The weather during part
of the time in Derbyshire was excessively warm, and made field-work
somewhat trying, as the following characteristic letter will show :—
Ashbourne, Derbyshire,
30th June 1851.
My dear Salter—Where you
may be I know not, whether above or below ground, recent or fossil. . .
. Here we are burned up with fervent heat, and our souls are melted
within us. Ginger-beer o' days is the only drink, and we dine at twelve
o'clock at night with bitter beer and soda-water. Our noses are flames
of fire, and our lips breathe smoke as a furnace. Oh for the dim cellars
of the Museum, and a pint of cool stout with an oyster! Then should our
throats be opened, and our lungs sing aloud like a game-cock.
Hip-hip-hurrah for Lord.
So, who is not quite so
bad as he's ugly. With a shout for Sir Henry, the Gov'nor, and a prayer
that his legs may grow stouter; Stout as the legs of strong Samson, who
bore off the gates of a city, Easy as Salter would carry a trayful of
shells oolitic. Up the high gallery - stairs, where calamites ever
reposing, Rest in their timber-glass tombs, delighting the eyes of the
public ; Telling a tale of past epochs, a tale of the forests primeval,
When mighty batrachians crawled o'er the mud that encircled their
rootlets, And the convex Productus clung by byssus to stem and to stump,
sir ; Like to the oysters that stick to the mangroves afar by the Ouorra.—Ouoth
Andw. C. Ramsay.
The approaching
completion of all the work in North Wales, and especially the recent
surveys in Anglesey, where some of the Director-General's mapping had
been revised and modified by his subordinates, made De la Beche desirous
of consulting Ramsay on the ground relative to these changes.
Accordingly, he asked his lieutentant to meet him at Holyhead on his
return from Ireland. The diary thus records the meeting :—
'24th September.—Got to
Holyhead at half-past six, and found Sir Henry perfectly jolly, but very
feeble on his legs. We spent an exceedingly pleasant evening together,
talking on all sorts of subjects most unreservedly ; I felt quite filial
towards him.
'25th.—Wet day. First we
had a spread of the map, with which he was hugely delighted, especially
about the Permian story. Then I wrote sixteen letters, and then we had a
little walk before dinner. He looked quite feeble, and like an old man
in his walk. It quite grieved me to see him, and I felt my affection
growing stronger for him as we walked along, he leaning heavily on my
arm, and using a stout stick besides. In the evening we were again very
confidential. He talked about his daughters, their abilities, Kendall,
and all his past life.
'26th.—After breakfast,
started in a fly and pair for Amlwch, round about by Cemmaes, etc. He
yielded the faults I claimed, and also that the altered rocks were the
same as those on the west side of the island. We got to Amlwch by five,
and took up our quarters at the "Dinorbin Arms." After dinner he talked
of his old friends and acquaintances : Scott, Byron, Madame De Stael,
etc. etc., all of whom he knew more or less.
'27th.—Out in a car
seeing the gneiss, etc., near the smaller patch of granite. That point I
yielded. They are gneiss, and not granite. He was very feeble, and could
scarcely, with the help of my arm, crawl along the hillsides, when for a
little we put up the car at a farm and walked. But there was a sort of
childish good-humour about him that touched me, and I felt as fond of
him as I ever did, before he began to get so dodgy with all of us. We
spent a most jolly evening together again, he being full of jokes, and
making all the servants laugh at his repetitions and kindly talk to
them.
'One thing he said to-day
amused me much. We were sitting on the sea-beach, eating mutton
sandwiches, and watching the action of the waves on the pebbles, when
Sir H. said: " I'll tell you what the old gentleman is saying; he's
saying: ' Only give me plenty of time,' ha ! ha! ha! "
'28th.— Left Amlwch after
breakfast in a large car and pair. Beautiful day. Lunched at Pentraith.
Sir H. in a sort of happy, amiable, kindly vein all day. We put up at
the "George," Menai Bridge. While I am writing he is reading the Bible
and commenting on the Flood and other things in what he calls "that
funny story." The house being full, we are obliged to take to a
double-bedded room that opens directly into the road or yard. Sat
latterly in the coffee-room, an English chatterbox, an Indian-looking
dragoon, a sensible German, and another man being our fellows. We amused
each other pronouncing difficult words for the others to imitate. My
Llanfairpwllgwyngyll puzzled all of them.
'29th.—Sir H. taken
suddenly worse during the night with English cholera, or something like
it. He was so bad that by and by he got alarmed, and I jumped out of
bed, got a car, drove to Bangor, roused Mr. Charles, the surgeon,
expounded the case, and fetched him out with the needful medicines. Miss
Roberts in a dreadful way about the bed room we were in. I brought in
Mr. Charles, and Sir H. talked and made him laugh so about what he had
eaten and how he felt. . . . The doctor gave him a dose, which almost on
the instant put all right.
'I read Sir Roger de
Coverley, and thought how like the two knights are to each other in many
points of character, such as their jollity and harmless humours.
'Between four and six I
crossed to Anglesey by the ferry, and saw that old affair of Selwyn's
where the Cambrians are supposed to lie unconformably on the older
schists. There is every appearance of a fault there, for there is a good
9-inch quartz-lode between them.
'30th.—Sir H. quite well
and jolly this morning. He vowed that I was his guest here, and that I
must not pay any share in the bill, because I would not have stayed had
it not been for his illness, so I took an opportunity of slipping into
the bar and paying my shot unknown to him.'
There were still points
of detail and some questions of interpretation of geological structure
to be settled in the area mapped by Ramsay and Selwyn in North Wales.
Selwyn had gone back to Dolgelli to look into these, and Ramsay joined
him there.
'11th October.—Held a
council with Selwyn on the Shropshire sheets, etc. His work there and
here is the perfection of beauty.
'21st.—Up in a car as far
as the eighth milestone on the Trawsfynydd road ; then across the
country to Bwlch-drws-Ardudwy. What a magnificent scene ! Had a rough
climb over Rhinog fach. Let any one who wishes to be convinced of the
theory of stratification with subsequent disturbance of beds go there.
Their bare and unbroken continuity from top to bottom of the mountains
on either side of that savage pass is the grandest sight in Wales.
'22th.-—Up to Drws-y-nant
by the coach, and then across the hills behind by Dolnallt, Robell fawr,
and Benglog. Selwyn made out all his points. How he fights with a bit of
ground till he makes it all clear! Truly an admirable workman !
'3rd November.—Made some
good glacial observations, especially at Capel Curig. Selwyn's semi-scepticism
begins to melt.'
These Welsh
peregrinations did not pass without including sundry detours to the
rectory of Llanfair-ynghornwy. At last, on the 15th November, on a
renewed visit to that remote spot, Ramsay and Miss Louisa Williams were
engaged. Among the congratulatory letters which he received regarding
this momentous and happy event in his life he carefully preserved that
which came to him from his dear old chief. It ran as follows :—
London, 18th November
1851.
My dear Ramsay—Yours of
yesterday I have just received in time to say, may you be as happy as I
wish you, and may your intended wife value your right sterling honest
self as I do. If she does this last, you will be sure of the first. May
God prosper you in all ways.—Your ever sincere H. T. De la Beche.
Ramsay's yearning for a
quiet home, with a congenial spirit upon whom he could pour out the full
flow of his affectionate nature, was now about to be realised at last. A
quotation from his letter to Mrs. Cookman, one of the Dolaucothi family,
will best describe how he came to make his choice, and what he himself
thought of it:
'From the first setting
of my foot in Wales I was a doomed man. I was fated not to escape from
it free. Only think of it ! I was done for m the last remaining corner
of Wales, where my geological work was to be done, and just about the
completion of that work, too. It was in the far north-west corner of
Anglesey that I tumbled in head over heels, and was enchained by a maid
of Cymru, as thoroughly Welsh as you are, for she speaks, reads, and
readily translates Welsh, and, like all Welsh folk, is desperately fond
of her country and people. ... I made their acquaintance accidentally
when on a visit to Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald of Mapperton (Somersetshire)
at Beaumaris. Mrs. Williams asked me to call if I came their way, which
I did. I was staying at a bit of a public-house some miles off. Being
hospitable folk, they asked me to leave these comfortless quarters and
stay with them. I did so ; have been back sundry times since, and behold
the result!—a result that considerably surprised both the young lady and
myself, but principally the former, for, as is befitting in such cases,
I was slain long before she knew it. You ask for a description. Do you
suppose I am to be trusted with one? I half suspect not. I'll give you a
very little, however, and you can believe as much of it as you like.
'First, then, she is not
what you would call pretty, but she is sufficiently pretty to please me.
Age about your own, perhaps a trifle younger. She can scarcely be called
musical, albeit very fond of it. I mean, she is not much of a player,
and but a poor singer, mid she knows it. But what of these things? I can
vouch for her heart and mind. I have met with few girls so well read,
and with none so witty. Her love of knowledge is so great, and her
memory about ten times as big as mine, that I do consider myself a lucky
fellow to have caught a wife that takes an interest :n all the pursuits
that most interest me, and who did so long before I knew her. But she is
not a blue. It takes a time to find it out. Then she is so full of mirth
and humour, keeping us all laughing. I was always fond of laughing, you
know. What more can I say? Her family can't understand how it is
possible to live without her, and all the neighbouring poor will miss
her almost daily visits.
'The marriage takes place
in June, and if the French and Austrians only let the poor Switzers
alone, I hope to carry her up the Rhine to Basle, across to Inierlaken,
thence over by the Jungfrau to the valley of the Rhone, down to Martigny,
round Mont Blanc, and down the Arve to Geneva; not galloping, but taking
it leisurely, and staying at the pleasantest places for a few days, as
the humour seizes us.'
Returning to London
towards the end of the year, Ramsay resumed his old place and his old
duties.
But everything seemed
gilded now by the brightness that had at last risen upon his domestic
prospects. He opened his course of geological instruction with an
Introductory Lecture ' On the Science of Geology and its Applications.'
The course began on the 6th January, and consisted of thirty lectures,
given on Tuesday and Friday. To make the Museum and its contents more
widely known, and to diffuse a taste for science among the people,
evening lectures to working men were organised as part of the
educational work of the Jermyn Street establishment. Each of the six
teachers of the school gave a single evening lecture, so that the course
consisted of six lectures, tickets being only obtainable by those who
could show that they were truly artisans, and a registration fee of
sixpence being charged for the course. Afterwards each teacher gave a
course of six lectures. The instruction thus afforded, and still
continued up to the present time, has been eminently popular among the
class for which it was designed, large crowds sometimes assembling in
front of the Museum door at the hour when the tickets for some specially
attractive series of lectures are given out. In that first winter of
1851-52 Ramsay chose as his subject 'The Utilit} of Geological Maps.' So
much were the lectures appreciated by the working men that they were
repeated later in the spring.
A few jottings from
Ramsay's diary of this period are here Inserted. Of the meetings of the
Geological Society he writes :-—
'20th February (1852). —
Geological Society Anniversary, Willis's Rooms. President [W. Hopkins]
pretty well supported — Goulbourne, Sir C. Lemon, Pusey, Sir H., Lyell,
Murchison, etc. I observe our body annually creeps higher and higher up
the table. We are now next the bigger wigs.
'25th.—Good scrimmage
between Sedgwick and Murchison on the Lower Silurian and Cambrian
question. It was not an enlivening spectacle. Sedgwick used very hard
words. Murchison made a spirited and dignified reply. He appealed to me,
and I aided in a speech giving a history of the survey of Wales.
'24th March.—Logan's
paper [On the Footprints occurring in the Potsdam Sandstone of Canada
and Owen's Description of the Impressions and Footprints of the
Protichnites from the Potsdam Sandstone of Canada] passed off well.
Murchison made what Sedgwick called a speech characterised by a sort of
bacchanalian joy at the tracks turning out not to be tortoise tracks,
and Sedgwick himself rejoiced that the old resting-place of' his mind
was not disturbed by such a terrible innovation. He did not like to be
too much disturbed. Lyell was disappointed, he said; then Forbes
followed, and Owen rebuked them in his reply for entertaining any other
feeling than that of joy at an error being corrected, and a scientific
truth partly elucidated. Mantell proposed that they were the tracks of
great trilobites, but no one seconded him, or rather every one
dissented, Burmeister's paper having gone so far to prove that
trilobites had soft membranaceous appendages and no true feet.'
One entry regarding the
Royal Institution Friday evenings may be quoted : ' 5th March.—I leard
Dr. Mantell give a most amusing lecture on the Iguanodon and other
Wealden reptiles. It was so clever and witty, that throughout it was
greeted with rounds of applause. His raps at Owen through that Quarterly
article were very characteristic.'
The field-work done by
the Local Director this summer included the inspection of the mapping of
Worcestershire and adjoining areas. He in particular traced the
boundaries of the Permian breccias between the Bromsgrove Lickey and the
Clent Hills, and had his curiosity kindled by the extraordinary
character of these rocks. At intervals he renewed his study of them
during the next few years, and came to the conclusion that they proved
Lhe existence of Palaeozoic glaciers—an announcement which he made at
the Liverpool meeting of the British Association in 1854.
The marriage of Professor
Ramsay and Miss Louisa Williams took place at Llanfairynghornwy on the
20th July, and two days later he found himself for the first time in his
life in a foreign country. Reaching Ostend, the newly-married pair made
their way slowly through Belgium to Cologne, up the Rhine to Basle,
where they called on Schonbein and supped with Peter Merian, thence to
Zurich, and so into the Oberland and the western Alps. For the first
time Ramsay now beheld true mountains and actual glaciers. At the first
distant glimpse of the Alps he says that he ' opened his eyes so wide
that he feared they never would close again.' What geologist can ever
forget his first transports at such a sight! How Ramsay's eye caught up
the points of special geological interest, while at the same time
revelling in all the glories of mountain form, may be shown in a few
citations from his diary.
'7th August.—As we
crossed [the Lake of Lucerne] to Weggis, for the first time we saw a
glacier far away towards the summit of the Uri Roth
Stock—I clearly saw the
curved transverse crevasses and a distinct trainee of stones. It was an
event in our lives. From Brunnen to Fluelen the contortions of the rocks
exceeded anything I ever saw in the most intricate old rocks of Wales.
Whole mountains were reversed, 4000 or 5000 feet high. I got a good
notion of these contortions, but very little of the absolute character
of the rocks, for I had no chance of touching them.
'11th.—Were rowed by two
men and a woman to Interlaken. The scenery is so large and grand, the
cliffs so great, the strikes, dips, and contortions of the great masses
of strata so enormous and so grandly exposed, and the immense slopes of
talus below, scarred with frequent torrents, give such overwhelming
ideas of the incessant effects of atmospheric disintegration. England,
Wales, and Scotland gave me no idea of it before. At Interlaken we saw
descending from the Breithorn a genuine glacier, not very large
apparently, for it was twelve miles off. We had a little geological
scrimmage among the limestones.'
One of the most
interesting features of this Swiss tour was an excursion which Ramsay,
leaving his wife for a couple of days at the Grimsel, made with
Dolfuss-Ausset to the Ober Aar glacier. He gave an account of this
expedition in his article on Swiss and Welsh glaciers, published seven
years later in Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers; but the original narrative
in his diary contains a few personal details which may find a place
here.
'17th August. -Went with
the guide to find the " Pavilion " of M. Dolfuss. It was perched upon a
rock some miles off. He is a great gaunt man, and stood on a rock with a
blue bonnet on his head, and a veil wrapped round it. As soon as he knew
who I was he hospitably asked me to dine with him, and immediately after
proposed that I should join him in an excursion to the Ober Aar glacier,
which, after a little hesitation, I acceded to. So we descended nearly
to the lower end of the Unter Aar glacier, whence I despatched a note to
Louisa, saying I had found an opportunity I had waited for for
thirty-eight years, and that I could not be back till to-morrow. We then
climbed up by a brook with four men, and long ere sunset reached the
Ober Aar glacier. There we had coffee and supper and buffalo-skins, and
by and by my messenger returned with a delightful note from Louisa. The
men then cut grass and made a bed in the windowless hut. We spread our
buffalo-skins upon it, had a glass of hot brandy and water, put a pipe
in our cheeks, and speedily fell asleep as jolly as sand-boys.
'19th.—Awoke early, long
before daylight, a little damp and sore in the bones. At half-past three
M. Dolfuss roused himself and blew a blast on his horn, whereupon all
the men got up and lighted two fires, one in the stove indoors, and the
other on a flat stone outside. It was a glorious morning; I thought I
had never seen stars before. Venus seemed to swim in the heavens, a ball
of light, and not as if a hole had been punctured in a bluish covering
through which the light shone. It was glorious, too, to watch the light
gradually growing on the snowy peaks of Oberaarhorn and the other peaks
that enclosed and nursed the glacier. At a quarter to five we started,
and were soon on the ice, five men carrying the burdens. At first we
were in groups where the ice was solid and the crevasses distinct. These
required some careful dodging, though there never was any real danger.
By and by, as we got
higher into the regions where snow had lately fallen, it was needful to
be more cautious. We saw three chamois. We then walked in a row,
following carefully in each other's footsteps, the foremost man sounding
the snow with his pole. About half-past ten or eleven we reached the
snow-shed where the glacier descends in the other direction into the
valley of Viesch. Then we climbed up on a flat rock whence Monte Rosa,
Mont Cervin, and the whole of the magnificent panorama of the Alps burst
upon me. The Finsteraarhorn was close at hand, towering above us in
black and white majesty. On the other side were all the mountains that
bound the valley of the Grimsel, partly hidden by white clouds, through
which the peaks rose as islands. The whole looked more glorious than I
can describe. About one o'clock we began to descend. On the Grimsel side
it was very rough and steep. [At last from a point 600 or 800 feet above
the hotel] M. Dolfuss blew his horn, and the men gave a yoodle. Met
Louisa on the top of a roche moutonnde opposite the inn. Then came M.
Dolfuss, looking tall and rough. We sat together at dinner, and were
exceedingly merry. M. Dolfuss seemed a great favourite with the landlord
and all his people, and his gaunt yet stately appearance at table
created quite a sensation.'
At Turtmann they were
delighted to fall in with Von Buch and Merian, who were on their way to
Monte Rosa, and would fain have persuaded Ramsay to accompany them. But
he had promised to be back at his Survey post by a particular date, and
so he reluctantly parted with them, went round by Chamouni, had a
scramble on the Mer de Glace, and by the 2nd September was once more in
London.
De la Beche received him
with the exclamation, ' Oh, you have come back to the very day; I quite
thought you would have taken another week !'
Apart from the general
stimulus which a first visit to the Alps gives to a geologist's
appreciation of his science, in Ramsay's case a special influence was
exerted by the snowfields and glaciers. For the last four years, as we
have seen, he had been getting increasingly interested in the various
problems presented by the glaciation of Wales. But he had never before
actually seen a glacier. The sight of the Swiss glaciers, therefore,
quickened his desire to renew the study of the Welsh phenomena, and sent
him back with a far more vivid conception of what the conditions must
have been in the Ice Age among the hills and valleys of this country.
Robert Chambers, to whom, as already remarked, may be assigned a large
share in first directing Ramsay's attention to the relics of old
glaciers in Britain, received a letter from him soon after he returned
from his continental tour, giving some account of what he had seen. In
his reply Chambers says: 'I am much gratified in hearing from you at
all, and particularly so on account of the late tendency of your
studies. In visiting the Alps, and looking at what ice now is doing, you
have taken the first step required for the study of ancient glacial
action. I could have wished you to take the second (as I consider it) in
a trip to Scandinavia. Still, even without that, you may be tolerably
prepared for the consideration of the corresponding phenomena in Wales.
I have read the abstract of your paper in the G. Proceedingsand am
really much gratified by the progress you have made in this curious
investigation. Your observations on the drift on the flanks of Carnedd
Llewelyn and Carnedd Dafydd are exceedingly interesting, and indeed the
whole article is one calculated greatly to advance the question.' There
can be little doubt that this first trip to Switzerland finally fixed
the bent of Ramsay's mind in all his later geological work. Though still
busy with the many problems presented by the structure of the older
rocks, these no longer absorbed his attention, nor exercised that
fascination which they had hitherto done. He now threw himself more and
more into the study of the origin of the superficial contours of the
land, and among the various agents by which these contours had been
moulded and modified, he specially devoted himself to the investigation
of the work of ice. Though the bold generalisations of Agassiz in regard
to the former glaciation of Britain had been published twelve years
before, they had met with but small acceptance among the geologists of
Britain. J. D. Forbes, Buckland, Darwin, Charles Maclaren, and Robert
Chambers had indeed traced the relics of vanished glaciers in various
mountain groups of Scotland, the Lake District, and Wales. But a broader
treatment of the subject was needed, and among those who led the way to
this more comprehensive investigation, and who made the Glacial Period
one of the most absorbingly interesting of all the geological ages, a
foremost place must always be assigned to Sir Andrew Ramsay.
In the course of
preparing for the engraver the various sheets of the map of North Wales,
and the Horizontal Sections across the same region, a number of
difficulties presented themselves. In an area of some complication, and
where the survey had been the work of several geologists, it was hardly
possible that it should be otherwise. So that portions of the ground
required to be revisited, sometimes more than once, and the several
surveyors had to meet and discuss the discrepancies or disputed points
on the spot. Much anxious work of this nature occupied the autumn of
1852. Ramsay took his young wife to Ffestiniog, and from that centre
proceeded to clear off all the remaining difficulties up to the Snowclon
ground in the north, and Arenig on the east. Whilst there he was joined
by five students from the School of Mines, who came for some initiation
into the mysteries of geological surveying. They included W. T. Blanford,
who afterwards rose to distinction in the Geological Survey of India,
and is now an active member of the Royal, Geological, Zoological, and
Geographical Societies of London; the late H. F. Blanford, well known
for his able contributions to Indian Meteorology; and H. Bauerman, who
afterwards became one of the staff of the Geological Survey of Great
Britain.
This Welsh work of
completion and revision took longer than had been anticipated. At the
close of 1852 it was not finished. Selwyn left the Survey at the end of
July in that year to take charge of the Geological Survey of Victoria,
so that the task of getting the Welsh maps ready for the engraver
devolved mainly on Ramsay himself, with the powerful assistance of W. T.
Aveline. The Director-Generar was waxing more and more impatient. 'More
(!!!) examinations in North Wales !' he exclaimed to Ramsay ; 'the very
sound of such matters sets me adrift.' He wished to get rid of Wales,
and to have the satisfaction of pushing on the Survey over England. As
nothing delighted him more than to be able to announce a large area of
square miles as surveyed in a year, so was he correspondingly chagrined
that this prolonged detention of some of the most active members of the
staff in Wales should seriously reduce the mileage that could be
reported. Much of the summer of 1853 was still required for completing
details in some of the Welsh ground, and both Ramsay and Aveline worked
hard, sometimes together, but more generally apart. Frequent letters
passed between them when they were separate, for Ramsay had set his
heart on getting North Wales satisfactorily completed. He had himself
been engaged in the work, and felt his credit at stake till he saw the
survey finished as fully and accurately as he could achieve. His views
were well expressed in a letter to I)e la Beche, not only regarding
North Wales, for which he was himself responsible, but with reference to
South Wales, and to all the southwestern part of England which had been
completed and published before he joined the staff, in a more rapid,
less detailed style than had subsequently been gradually introduced,
mainly by his own exertions. Writing in the autumn of 1853, when Sir
Henry's patience was all but gone, he says (21st November): 'I cannot
but think that when, by new lights shining out, omissions or errors are
discovered, it is better to mend them, as soon as we know the way, than
to leave them open to amateur carpers. It was anything but pleasant the
other day to hear of errors and omissions in Mal-vernia, some of which
by accidental visits I knew to be true. You have often spoken of going
down to Devon and Cornwall with me to mend the lines there, and I
heartily wish the Silurian lines in South Wales and May Hill were mended
and brought into harmony with those in the north, by the now easy
addition of the dividing line between Upper and Lower Silurian,
following out what I did years ago at Builth.
'As these maps stand,
their authority is in great part gone, and any one can point out their
inconsistencies. I do not, however, even now dream of mending South
Wales without special orders, since having been done by others, and
before my time, I have no actual responsibility in the matter. When a
personal responsibility to you and the public weighs upon me, I cannot
rest till I have done my very best as long as I am allowed to do it.
To his colleague, Salter,
he was still more outspoken about the defects of the maps of South Wales
: 'When I joined the Survey in 1841, Sir Henry and Phillips did the
mapping, and I took lessons and looked on admiringly. I have no doubt
that almost all South Wales is bad, Silurian and all. There was no
system in the work. I suspect my work at St. David's and Fishguard is
pretty nearly the best of it. 1 even separated out the Cambrian, but it
was not used. From Builth to Pembroke is a mull, Llandovery and all.
Certain I am that Sir Henry had no ground for putting my Llandeilos
above the Castell Crag Gwyddon rock. I had nothing to do with it. Sir
Henry began to map it, and left it off unfinished. The whole is only
about ten stages better than Devon and Cornwall."
Some of the maps and
sheets of Horizontal Sections of North Wales having now been published,
Ramsay took a useful step in the spring of 1853 by reading to the
Geological Society a brief outline of the general succession of rocks
and geologic al structure of the region, so far as these had been
determined by the Survey. In this paper he passed over the contention of
his colleague Selwyn, which, as we have seen (pp. 172, 192), was also
his own original impression, that the Cambrian rocks of Anglesey are
underlain by a far more ancient series of schists. He now published his
belief that these schists are the metamorphosed equivalents of the
Barmouth and Harlech grits, and the Llanberis and Penrhyn sandstones and
slates—an opinion which he maintained to the last. The paper is
interesting as the eailiest account of the successive groups in the
older Palaeozoic rocks of North Wales, as finally worked out by the
Geological Survey.
Among the incidents of
the summer of 1853 the most notable in Ramsay's life was the birth of a
daughter on the 3rd June at Beaumaris. It gratified him to think that in
Wales, which had almost become his adopted country, and which, by the
ties of marriage, had now grown doubly dear to him, his child should
have been born.
An important departmental
change this year affected the Geological Survey. Once again it was
transferred to a new set of masters. The exchange arose in this wise.
One of the consequences of the Great Exhibition was the impulse given to
the recognition of the importance of Science in national progress. In
1853 a comprehensive scheme was carried out by Lord Aberdeen's
Government, whereby a 'Department of Science and Art' was established
under the charge of the Board of Trade, of which the President at that
time was Mr. Cardwell. The control of the Geological Survey, the Museum
of Practical Geology, and the School of Mines was transferred from the
office of Woods to this new department. Three years later, that is in
1856, another change was made, whereby the Department of Science and Art
was transferred to the Privy Council, and was administered by the Lord
President of the Council, assisted by a member of the Privy Council, who
is called the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education.
This arrangement is still maintained. |
