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The
period of Ramsay's life on the history of which we now enter embraces a
space of about ten years. During that interval he was mainly occupied in
the duties of the Geological Survey, finding time and ability for fewer
extra-official labours than he had been able to accomplish before. His
routine work was not relieved and enlivened by the inspiration of Swiss
mountaineering; but he continued to perform it with faithful
persistence, and to superintend his staff with the same firm and
friendly hand.
It
is one of the duties of the President of the Geological Society at the
end of each of the two years of his tenure of the office to read an
address, which may either deal with the general progress of geology
during the previous twelve months, or may treat of some special branch
of the subject to which the writer has particularly given his attention.
For some years past Ramsay had been brooding upon what Darwin had so
well enforced—the imperfection of the geological record. He was struck
by the extraordinary gaps in the succession of organic remains, even
where there was no marked physical interruption of the continuity of
sedimentation. And he connected these gaps with geographical changes of
which no other trace had survived. He had made a communication on this
subject to the American Association at the Montreal meeting, which had
attracted considerable attention among those present. He had afterwards
made it the subject of one of his evening lectures to working men at
Jermyn Street. But no full exposition of his views had yet been made
public. He therefore chose ' Breaks in the Succession of the British
Strata' as the thesis to be worked out in his two successive
presidential addresses, taking the Palaeozoic systems in the first year
(1863), and the Secondary and Tertiary systems in the second (1864).
Some account of these essays will be given in the concluding chapter of
this volume.
In
the months of January and February 1863 Ramsay gave a course of six
evening lectures to working men in the Jermyn Street Museum on the
Physical Geology and Geography of Great Britain. These lectures were
taken down at the time in shorthand, and were shortly afterwards printed
and published as a small volume. Unfortunately, the lecturer's state of
health at the time prevented him from correcting the proofs with
adequate care. The book consequently appeared full of inaccuracies. But
the nucleus of a valuable handbook was there, and in later years its
author was able to revise and enlarge it, and it now forms his
well-known and admirable treatise on the
Physical Geology and Geography of Great Britain.
Even in the original tract the geological reader can perceive the
outlines of many deductions regarding the growth of the sur face
topography of the land, which the author was able subsequently to work
out more fully. The publication of this book marks a distinct epoch in
its writer's scientific, career. Thenceforward, while he continued to
take interest :n all geological problems, and more
particularly in those which were engaging the attention of his
colleagues in the mapping of the Geological Survey, it was the origin of
scenery which had for him the supreme attraction. The history of lakes,
river-basins and valleys, the influence of geological structure on
landscape, and the effects of that structure and of its accompanying
topographical contours upon the people of the country—these were the;
themes which now engaged his thoughts, and on which he loved to speak
and write.
The
old elasticity of mind which in the past had enabled him to get through
so much mental as well as bodily work still refused to return, and
though n congenial society he could once again be the liveliest and
brightest of a party, he was apt to suffer from such weariness as made
even the simplest duties irksome. Writing to me on the; 5th May 1863
from Dolaucothi, whither he had gone for a little rest, he says : ' I
had begun to consider recovery doubtful, but I now think "there's life
in the old dog yet." All the while I could eat, laugh, sing, fish, and
walk a little (three or six miles), but still I had misgivings. Oh the
charm of this country and its pleasant friends! Since breakfast I have
been at a magistrates' meeting, seeing two affiliation cases disposed
of, and then engineering a brook with the young ladies. This country is
full of drift, with scratched stones and erratics going up to 600, 800,
or 1000 feet, maybe higher. But I have seen no clear section of It, and
do not know if it is stratified. I considered it so long ago, but I
would like to confirm it.'
The
improvement in his condition was not maintained during the summer, and
he looked forward with dismay to the winter, when the necessity for
lecturing would once more meet him face to face. As his lectures were
not written out, but were delivered merely from notes, which he changed
and brought up to date from year to year, he always felt that the
success of a lecture depended almost entirely on his condition at the
time when he had to speak. Even up to the end, though the subject was
quite familiar to him, and he could have discoursed for hours about it
to a group of friends, the formal lecture to a miscellaneous audience,
and still more to a company of students, was a severe mental strain to
him. When it was over he would come out of the lecture-room sometimes so
weary that he could only go home and rest. The prospect of the winter
session of the School of Mines was, therefore, at this time so dark to
him that he seriously proposed to resign his lectureship, if that could
be done without pecuniary loss. He felt that if relieved from all
teaching duty, he could devote himself with more undivided energy to his
duties in the Survey, and that the change would be better for the Survey
as well as for himself. ' If the Treasury throw out my proposal,' he
wrote to me, 'then I am where I was; and as I do not intend to die, I
suppose I must put on half-steam. I wish they could be, consistently
with official etiquette, a little more liberal in the matter, for it is
hard to begin to go back when one has served twenty-two years and more,
and is half a century old, especially when one's
Survey work has been well trebled.' After
some months of suspense, ' the everlasting No' of the Treasury was duly
received. ' So there it is,' he wrote again, 'and I suppose when
February comes I shall try [lecturing]. I feel, I am glad to say, even
better than when you saw me last, and it may, perhaps, not be too much
for sac.'
The
field-work of the Survey was now in full march through the remaining
tracts of the southern counties of England, and Ramsay took an active
interest in it, and in the fascinating problems of physical geography
which it elucidated. On the 7th November he wrote to me : ' The deevil a
holiday have 1 had since I saw you. I have been I don't know where, but
at Wellingborough of late, and Sittingbourne and Tunbridge. On Monday 1
go with Hughes and Whitaker to look at and arrange about Tertiary
mapping between Folkestone and Dover, and then to Lindfield to see the
last of the Weald, that is to say, of the solid rocks there.
. .
By the way, I think I have given up the marine denudation of the Weald.
Atmosphere, rain, and rivers must ha' done it. I'm coming to that, I
fear and hope, and hoping, fearing, trembling, regretfully triumphant,
and tearfully joyous with the alloy of despair at my heart, and the balm
of a truthful Gilead spread upon the struggling soul, bursting the bonds
of antique prejudice, I yet expect to moor the tempest-tossed bark of
Theory in the calm moral downs of Assurance.'
The
second presidential address to the Geological Society was read on the
19th February 1864. At the Anniversary this year the Wollaston medal was
bestowed on Sir Roderick Murchison for his great services to the science
of geology, and it fell to Ramsay's lot as President to present it.
Briefly and gracefully he summed up the work of his chief, and added a
little personal touch that gave a special charm to the incident. '
Perhaps on this occasion,' he said, ' I may be pardoned for recalling
the memory of a time I well
Roderick Impey Murchison
remember, when of all the geologists of weight, you, Sir, were the first
who held out the hand of fellowship to me, a young man, when
four-and-twenty years ago I was struggling to enter into the ranks of
geologists.'
With
the close of his second Anniversary address the reign of the President
of the Society came to an end. Ramsay vacated the office, and was now
relieved of duties which, though not onerous, impose sometimes
considerable strain on the occupant, and consume not a little of his
time.
His
views on the origin of lakes involved him in controversy which at this
time he was little fitted to wage. Murchison, in his presidential
address to the Geographical Society, had vigorously opposed the glacial
theory of lakes. Ramsay had refrained from replying to other criticisms,
feeling that if his views were correct they would prevail, and that if
they were not, no amount of partisanship on his part would save them
from dissolution. But when his own chief put out 'an exceedingly
authoritative protest' against his theory, he felt that it would almost
be uncourteous on his part to remain silent. Accordingly, he wrote a
temperate but cogently-argued reply, which appeared in the October
number of the
Philosophical Magazine. His letters about
this time are full of reference to the subject, showing that though he
published little, he was following with the most lively interest what
was said on the subject by others.
He
wrote to me on the 15th May: ' Altogether I am quite pleased with the
rapid progress the lake-theory has made. Lyell amazes me in the matter.
He told me the other day that it must be wrong, and he believed that the
hollows were due only to the disturbance of the rocks. ... Have you
brooded patiently for six months without ceasing over that passage at
the end of Jukes's memoir on the Irish rivers, in which he discusses the
valley of the Rhone above the Lake of Geneva? It is admirable and true,
and by'r lakins ! he never saw the location ! Tell me not where is fancy
bred, but after my Frankland change of climate article comes out,1
if any other good sound argument occurs to you that I have not used.
Bauerman has drawn a wheel so true that Best has to put a heavy weight
on it to keep it from running away!'
Beaumaris, 30th July
1864.
My dear Geikie—I am as
busy as man can be, and am really getting fast on with that big Memoir,
which I trust will be for fifty years a text-book to the Silurian
geology of North Wales. I have read Sir R.'s counterblast in proof
[above referred to], and I told him I must reply to it. How on earth can
he pit Dawson against Logan? Does he remember also that ' he always
thought' that Switzerland was another case of water-drifting? For his
protest and Lyell's I care not a rush. Lyell for years scarcely believed
Agassiz, and used to have a special anti-Darwin chapter till after the
great book [Origin of Species] came out. He is afraid of time now, and
none of them know anything about denudation and the true physical
behaviour of rock-masses. I lately had a very satisfactory letter from
Hooker on the subject. The worst of it is that one can scarcely hope to
convince them, or the old geological world generally. You can't make a
colourblind man see colours. None of them ever mapped a country, as we
have done, and disturbed countries to them will
still owe their mountain features to disturbance alone.—Ever sincerely,
Andw. C. Ramsay.
In the sixth edition of
his Elements of Geology, published in January 1865, Lyell noticed the
theory of the glacial origin of lake-basins, and adduced various
arguments against it. Ramsay once more broke through his resolve not to
get into controversy, and replied to these arguments in a paper
contributed to The Philosophical Magazine for the following April. These
controversies among the geologists were cleverly indicated in good-humoured
caricature by an artist in Punch, who portrayed some leading
characteristic of each combatant. Murchison sits in front cross-legged
throwing up three globes like an Indian juggler. Lyell to a rapt
audience of hammers illustrates the origin of terrestrial features by
breaking open a globe and lifting up a large fragment of it. Ramsay, on
the other hand, is busy by himself in a corner sitting astride his
globe, and digging out his valleys and basins with a big spade.1
But though these disputes
seem to bulk large in the scientific work of the day, they really
occupied a very subordinate place, and certainly in Ramsay's daily work
they were not allowed to take up much time or thought. While he remained
in London, the editorial supervision of maps, sections, and memoirs left
him but little time for extraneous work. His health being now rather
better, he could once more push on the completion of the bulky Memoir on
North Wales. His part had been finished, but the palseontological
appendix by J. W. Salter was still incomplete. That able but uncertain
and procrastinating naturalist had resigned his appointment in the.
Survey during the summer of 1863. and it was difficult thereafter to
secure his continuous services for the completion of his part of the
Memoir. But at last, towards the end of 1865, Ramsay could write and
date his preface, and the work was finally issued to the public early in
1866. It was the most detailed piece of writing which the Geological
Survey had yet published, and it contained deductions and speculations
of the greatest interest in theoretical geology.
The work of the Royal
Commission on Coal, of which Ramsay was an active member, demanded a
great deal of lime during the five years from 1866 to 1870. Besides the
numerous meetings of the Commission and of its committees, he undertook
much additional labour in preparing, with the help of the staff of the
Survey, maps, sections, and other data for the use of the Commissioners.
Now and then, however, some less technical application of geology would
arise to enliven the routine work of the office, as when Dean Stanley
asked whether the geologist could throw any light on the history of the
Coronation Stone at Westminster, round which so many old legends hang.
Ramsay wrote to me about this request as follows: 'Yesterday I was at
Westminster Abbey with the Dean, specially to examine the Coronation
Stone from Scone. It is a reddish-grey sandstone, with three pebbles in
it, one quartz and two dark ones of a doubtful substance, which may be
Lydian stone. It is a hewn stone, with chisel-marks on it, and looks
like a stone originally prepared for building purposes. Macculloch says
it was taken from Dunstaffnage to Scone by Kenneth II. I see according
to your map Dunstaffnage stands on Old Red Sandstone. What is its colour
and character there? Maccuiloch says the stone is calcareous, and so it
is. I am going to write a short report for the Dean, so please let me
know soon.'
On the 2nd April 1866 the
Royal Society of Edinburgh awarded to Ramsay the Neill prize ' for his
various works and memoirs published during the last five years, in which
he had applied the large experience acquired by him in the direction of
the arduous work of the Geological Survey of Great Britain to the
elucidation of important questions bearing on geological science.' The
presentation was made by the venerable President, Sir David Brewster,
and Ramsay attended in person to receive it. The ceremony was fixed to
take place at the same time as the visit of Thomas Carlyle to Edinburgh
as Rector of the University, when he delivered his memorable address,
and when the degree of LL.D. was conferred on three distinguished
teachers of the Jermyn Street School— Tyndall, Ramsay, and Huxley. One
of the features of this visit, which Ramsay remembered with special
pleasure, was the dinner of the Royal Society Club. The Royal Society of
Edinburgh, like its sister societies in other parts of the United
Kingdom, has its dining club, limited in number of members, who comprise
the leading resident fellows. But the distinguishing feature of the
northern fraternity is that, while it permits few toasts and no
speeches, its proceedings are always enlivened with songs, often written
for the occasion. For many years it has boasted a succession of
song-writers, one or two of them gifted with great humour, some of whose
songs are known far and wide beyond the limits of the Club. The post-prandial
efforts of Lord Neaves, unmelodious but infinitely witty, belong to a
rapidly-vanishing past, but Sir Douglas Maclagan remains to delight his
privileged listeners. His ' Battle of Glen Tilt' will be popular in
Scotland as long as cultured conviviality holds a place *n the country.
Ramsay heard that and other famous ditties, and used to speak
enthusiastically of the way in which the philosophers of the north play
their ' high i'nks.'
There was another
gratifying presentation a fortnight later. The staff of the Survey gave
their esteemed Local Director a handsome gold watch as a mark of their
appreciation of his long and devoted exertions in the cause of the
Survey, and of his personal kindness and helpfulness to themselves.
At the meeting of the
British Association at Nottingham in 1866 Ramsay again led the
geologists as President of Section C. Since his previous tenure of the
office, ten years before, a custom had crept in that the presidents
opened the business of the sections with a specially composed address.
He had been called unexpectedly and rather late in the day to occupy the
chair, and had not had time to prepare such an address as he could have
wished to deliver to his brother geologists. He therefore discoursed to
them generally upon the influence of geological structure on external
topography, and more particularly upon the influence of igneous rocks.
He introduced, but with some hesitation, his views of the origin of some
so-called igneous rocks, such as granite, from the action of heat, '
with the aid of alkaline waters.' He also found a place for his doctrine
regarding breaks in succession of life, and proclaimed himself once more
a thorough uniformitarian.
After the meeting he sent
me the following account of it:—
My dear Geikie—I had a
week in Anglesey after the British Association meeting, and yesterday
brought up wife and bairns. I shall stay for a Coal Commission meeting
on the nth [Sept.], and if nothing come of that to interfere, shall
immediately take the field thereafter, The British Association meeting
was a good one, and I stayed at Newstead Abbey, and slept in the poet's
bedroom!
In the poet's bed I slept,
And out o' the bed i' the morn,
Out o' the bed I crept,
And blew my sounding horn;
Then down the turret stair
I winded in my glory,
And light winds raised my hair
As I entered the refectory.
And oh for the muffins and tea,
Beef, ham, and venison pasty,
The jam and the honey o! bee,
The marmalade so tasty!
And ever at dinner again,
I swear by heaven and hades,
We quaffed the bright champagne,
And jabbered with the ladies;
And the lights shone overhead,
And the coats of mail they glinted
On the wall o' the hall where we fed.
Nor meat nor liquor stinted.
No more have I to say,
Though the words could come by milliards,
I presided in C all day,
And all night I played at billiards.
Yours ever more,
Andw. C. Ramsay.
The general tenor of his
life among his colleagues in the field during the years up to the end of
1871 can best be gathered from his letters, from which a few selections
are here given :—
King's Arms, Sheffield,
13th August 1865.
My dear Geikie— ... I
have been all about ihe universe ; at Rowsley with Dakyns; there and at
Hathersage and the Snake Inn with Green. That country beats
cock-fighting, for it has no drift, is 2000 feet high, and otherwise
ought to have ice, and has none. Then I have been at Todmorden. the
deadly-lively, with Hu|l I made two speeches at Manchester, and have
also been at Kirkby and Dent and Kendal, and am now here with Tiddeman.
See the last Reader,
yesterday's, and expire. At least Sir R. will, when he sees what I,
being in my right mind, have bequeathed him in my last will and
testament. When I leave this I want to see my wife and babbies a little.
They have been in Anglesey a month, and I have not seen them for
considerablv longer. ... I sent my review of Campbell [' Frost and
Fire'] to Edmonston and Douglas for North British Review].
The City of the Dead, vel
Durham, 31st October 1866.
My dearest Wife — Luckily
it rained to-day when we got to this City of Silence, and therefore,
instead of starting for the hills, I had time to see it, which I have
been doing for three hours and a half, and yet have left a deal unseen.
You can concentrate your energies on the architecture, for there are no
people for certain to look at. Here and there a ghostly figure comes out
of a corner and as suddenly disappears, but whether these shapes are '
human mortals' or not, I am unable to guess. To wind up with, we have
just come from church, where certainly we did hear some sort of angelic
melody. But oh ! the grandeur of the Cathedral, all Norman from end to
end, excepting a sort of Lady Chapel of very early English on the east,
and, what is more, the whole is almost unaltered Norman. Three towers
hath it;, one grand central one, and two at the west end, which take
away your breath with a sense of beauty. The great interior columns are
marvellous to behold, and the roof is grandly groined. The vast pile
overlooks the river, and the west front extends far down the bank, so
that a wonderful dignity of height is given to the building. Then the
bishop's palace (now, alas! a seedy college)—a vast pile, castle and
palace in one, partly Norman, and the cloisters, the close, and lots of
other things, which I must see another day when I can make the
acquaintance of some local antiquary, if such there be in Durham.
Dunford Bridge,
Sheffield, 27th November 1866.
My dearest Wife—This is a
bad place to write from. The reason is, that the post comes in at
breakfast-time, and in these short days we are in a great hurry to get
out, and when we come home again across the moors the post has gone.
After dinner no human being writes letters if he can help it. The above
gives the reason why I did not write yesterday, and may be the reason
why I will not write tomorrow. But to-day I have received several
letters so important that I must stay in a couple of hours to answer
them. . . . The letters of most importance were from Sir R. and Best.
The Duke [of Buckingham] and My Lords are making sweeping changes, to
which I must reconcile myself, and I believe I can do it without
grumbling, and possibly even with tolerable satisfaction.
First, Scotland is to be
raised to a special branch like Ireland, and Geikie is to be Director.
Second, I am to get another ^100 a year, to continue in charge of
England and Wales, to drop the ' Local' before Director, and to be
ranked as Senior Director. I am to have two ' District Surveyors' under
me, who will be Aveline and Bristow; two first-class senior geologists,
eight second-class, and the rest as before, except that we shall have a
large addition to the staff. There would be no use objecting to
anything, even if there be anything to object to, for the Duke and My
Lords have ruled it, I believe, without reference to Sir Roderick. ... I
think I have written Sir Roderick a very good letter, without any
grumblings at all. I have only compared myself to the Emperor of
Austria, losing not Venice, but his German native dominions, and
increasing his revenue thereby, and I have approved of all the other
details.
Hazelhead, Sheffield, 4th
December 1866.
My dearest Wife — This is
an awful day of wind and rain, and this is my tenth, and I hope my last
letter.
From a very official
letter Sir R. wrote me, I was afraid he had taken amiss the way I took
these changes. But to-day I have had a very long and pleasant letter
from him telling me that that was by no means the case, and that he
wrote the short official simply because the subject was strictly of that
nature, and he was communicating a copy of Cole's official bearing My
Lords' pleasure. He also tells me that the importance of my position is
very much raised, seeing that I shall have three times as many men to
command as Jukes, and four times as many as Geikie. To this I reply, not
satirically, that I feel the compliment of being considered able to do
four times the work of other people, and hope it will be duly considered
when pension time arrives. . . . The gale is tremendous, and the rivers
are flooded.
The changes in the
organisation of the Geological Survey referred to in these letters were
the most important that had been made since the foundation of the
service under De la Beche. The staff in Great Britain was divided into
two, Scotland being made a distinct branch of the Survey under a
separate Director. The title of Local Director for Great Britain being
abolished, Ramsay became Senior Director for England and Wales. Jukes
remained as before Director for Ireland, and the corresponding office in
Scotland was given to the present writer. A new grade, that of District
Surveyor, was created, in order that separate areas in which a number of
the staff were at work might be more continuously supervised. The number
of assistant geologists and geologists was largely increased, and it was
arranged that there should be one geologist for every three assistants.
When the new appointments were all filled up, the Senior Director had
under him a staff of thirty-seven men, the Director for Scotland nine,
and the Director for Ireland fourteen.
As a consequence of this
transformation, Ramsay ceased to have any control over the progress of
the work in Scotland, and no longer paid his annual visit of inspection
to the surveyors north of the Tweed.
But the number of men
whom he now had to superintend in England was larger than he had ever
had before. On reflection, he strongly disapproved of the increase in
the staff, and he particularly condemned the way in which it was planned
and carried out. Though his long experience gave him a special claim to
be consulted in any important changes in the organisation of the Survey,
he never heard anything definite as to what was in contemplation until
the whole scheme was matured and adopted. He used to speak bitterly of
the difficulty of procuring the authorised number of new men, for he
felt sure that a good geological surveyor could not be manufactured by a
board of professors, nor even by a crammer, and could not be discovered
by any ordinary form of examination. The recruit, properly equipped by
his education, could only acquire his fitness for duty by practical
training, and it was, in Ramsay's judgment, impossible with his force of
old hands, constituted as it was, to train at once half their number of
new men. He would have preferred adding to the force by degrees, as good
men could be found and educated for their duties.
It must be acknowledged,
however, that the Department of Science and Art in proposing, and the
Treasury in sanctioning, this great rearrangement and augmentation of
the staff of the Geological Survey, were sincerely desirous to further
the objects for which the Survey was instituted. They wished that, with
as little delay as possible, the public should be put in possession of a
general geological map of the whole country, and this end could not be
attained for many years unless the force were largely increased. There
was an additional reason that had much weight with the Lord President of
the Council. For some years the Geological Survey had been carefully
distinguishing and mapping the various superficial deposits which, in
the earlier days of the work, ;t had not been thought necessary to
discriminate. Apart from their great scientific interest, maps of the
surface geology had innumerable advantages of a practical kind. They
gave information as to the nature and distribution of soils, and were
thus of value for agricultural purposes. They were of essential service
in the construction of reservoirs, and generally in questions of
water-supply. They were of great utility in the laying out of roads and
railways ; and they could be made to furnish valuable evidence in
relation to drainage and sanitary matters. The importance of such maps
being recognised by Government, it was desired to afford greater
facilities for their production. It was now arranged that the practice
of mapping the superficial deposits simultaneously with the solid rocks
underneath them, which had been introduced into the Survey some years
previously, should be continued over all the unsurveyed districts, and
that, as soon as surveyors could be detached for the purpose, the tracts
already surveyed where the surface-formations had not been separated
should be re-traversed for the purpose of inserting them. By this means
a general agronomical map of the whole country would be provided, which
would be of much service for farming purposes, land-valuation, drainage,
water-supply, and many other practical affairs of life. These designs
have since that time been steadily kept in view, and a large part of the
country has now been completed.
The changes in the Survey
staff could not come into operation until the beginning of the financial
year, that is, the 1st April 1867. Steps had been taken before that time
to obtain young men who gave promise of becoming efficient surveyors.
But, as Ramsay had contended, it was extremely difficult to procure the
required number at once, and some time had passed before he could
announce that his complement was complete, and a still longer time
before he was able to replace the incompetent new-comers and make his
corps efficient. There was much disagreeable detail to be attended to
before all these preliminaries were settled, and his letters show that
it gave him a good deal of vexation. But his gaiety of spirit made even
these worries sometimes a subject of merriment. His letters to myself
were at this time more frequent than usual. A few of them are inserted
here:-
Lunnun, 5th February
1867.
My dear Bell-the-Cat —We
must have a profound talk over the colouring of Ayrshire, for there will
be plenty of fault-finders ; and as it belongs to my reign (old Saturn),
and as my aged eyes may never see the Empyrean (Auchendrane2)
again, we must settle it among us, while yet, like the Centurion, 1 may
say to James (the Caledonian apostle), Come, and he cometh. Let him
come, then, with all his maps, and that will do for the blooming Peach's
as well, and all will be settled before the Jovial times begin. If need
be, Bone in a day will draw in the lines (in pleasant places) on a clean
copy, and we will decide and colour the rest.
Poor Jukes is in a sort
of semi-despair about all this business, and considering that he will be
adding ten more Irishmen to his already Irish lot, I don't wonder at it
His chief man lately informed him that he had given up taking and
recording dips, as he found it to be useless! Jukes simply longs for the
day when he will be able to retire, from age, and wear out the fag-end
of his days, unworried by Irishmen and Boilermen, and I considerably
sympathise with him. . . . Oh for an hour of brave old De la Beche, in
his best days, to look ahead and provide for the future !—Ever
sincerely, - Andw. C. Ramsay.
15th June 1867.
My dear Geikie—I had
barely time to write you yesterday about your summons by Sir R. Jukes is
exceedingly fidgety. He has not a man in Ireland that he can trust to
training others. Also, they are all so unruly, that without rules
(printed) every one will be in rebellion. Even on this side of the water
I have no doubt we are all frightfully mismanaging everything without
knowing it. At least, I have no doubt I am, and I see no reason why you
should not be doing the same. If you feel conscious that you are not
doing the same, that merely proves that you are so blinded by ignorance
and cockyness that you don't know when you are doing mischief. At least,
I believe that is the case with me. Therefore everything must be reduced
to printed rules.
Now I am of this way of
feeling, viz. I don't want to have any duties, and I don't want to do
them ; and if it so happen that you are of the same opinion, then it may
fall out that Jukes may get printed rules for Ireland, and leave us to
that ancient unwritten law which is the Lion of the North, and the
bulwark of the Hammerers' faith.
I think I have now
expressed myself in clear scientific language, and therefore you will
dine with us on Thursday at half-past six.—Yours ever sincerely,
Andw. C. Ramsay.
Kirkby Lonsdale, 3rd July
1867.
My dear Geikie—Yours
received. Papers glanced at, but not yet fairly read.
The rule here is out at 9
a.m.; no letters written before breakfast, except in cases of fire,
murder, rape, and robbery. Home to dinner, and the post just going (as
now), and too lazy to write after dinner, except in cases of abduction,
stabbing, perjury, and earthquakes.
To-day we have been in a
river, the Greta, from ten till five. When too deep for skipping and
missing the stones skipped at, Tiddeman carried us across on his back
(Hughes and me), because Tiddeman wears knickerbockers. I understood
these villain Carboniferous rocks (Upper, Middle, and Lower
Coal-measures; Gannister beds and Millstone grit) better than I ever did
before, and so did all of us. When you don't see a rock for miles except
in a river, and that river is generally full to the brim and more, then
there is usually Tartarus and Thomas to pay, without coin in your
pocket. To make sure to-day, we all plunged into a pool to see what was
in the bottom, but as we never got there, heaven only knows whether it
is shale or Millstone grit.
If I get to the Railway
Hotel, Newcastle-on-Tyne, by Saturday (which is on the cards), then I'll
spend part of Sunday reading your brief.—Ever sincerely,
Andw. C. Ramsay.
To Miss Johnes he writes
on the 17th July from Wirksworth : 'Since I left London twenty-four days
ago, I have been staying at Kendal, Kirkby Lonsdale, Newcastle, Belper,
and here. Kendal is a woollen-making place, but one charming day we
spent on Windermere and in the neighbouring valleys. Kirkby Lonsdale is
charming beyond expression. It lies on the River Lune, which is more
beautiful than Alph, the sacred river. There is no trade in the town,
and the people are very good people, parsons and all ; the gentry are
hospitable round about, if you give them a chance, and the inn is
old-fashioned, full of daughters, lively yet sedate, who, with their
very handsome old mother, do not leave their guests to the mercy of
servants. I sometimes think of taking Louisa there some day on our way
to Scotland, that she may know what an English river is like.'
The British Association
met at Dundee in 1867, and was attended by a large concourse of
geologists. Ramsay formed one of the number, and though he read no
paper, he took part in the discussions and excursions. He was especially
pleased to revisit St. Andrews, where nine years before he had worked
for three months at the Welsh Memoir, and where he had made many
acquaintances. His old friend, Robert Chambers, who had come to live in
the antique university town, was present at the banquet given by the
Senatus to the excursionists, and afterwards had a reception at his
house. This was probably the last time that Chambers and Ramsay met each
other. Chambers looked already much broken in health, though he kept
still his interest in geological progress. He died four years
afterwards.
In the spring of 1868, in
the intervals of examining candidates and lecturing, Ramsay took the
occasion of the publication of a new edition (the tenth) of Lyell's
Principles of Geology to criticise that work in two articles in the
Saturday Review. Resuming the quotations from his letters, we may note
that on the 18th March he wrote to Mrs. Ramsay: 'Your father would be
about as busy as I am if he had to preach six sermons a week, had,
besides, twenty-four curates to superintend—six with him and eighteen
constantly writing letters—two of them rebellious, with also a bishop
staying in his house constantly consulting with him, besides having
about four magistrates' meetings a week to attend. These last are my
Coal Commissions and Councils.'
London, 15th May 1868.
My dear Geikie—Your
argument about recent disturbances in re lakes is a good addition. I
have long given up taking any notice of those who oppose me. They are
impenetrable, and I feel so sure I am right, that I can well afford to
leave the rest to time. But many people have a pernicious fashion of
stating that De Mortillet and I came to the same conclusion the same
year. I wish somebody would some day contradict that for me. He says
that the lake-basins existed before the glacial period, but how formed
he does not say. They were then filled with gravel, etc., and the
glaciers scooped out that—a very different sort of story, and one that
in no way grapples with the subject. Did you see my two reviews of
Lyell's first volume of the Principles in the Saturday of the 1 ith and
18th April ?—Ever sincerely,
A. C. Ramsay.
Ten days later he wrote
to me further regarding the opposition to his lake theory :
3 All the objections make no impression on me,
and I feel it best to leave them alone as far as I am concerned. But I
still hope and intend to apply the view to all time—past, present, and
future—and a good deal beyond at both ends.
' You will see a lot of
curious papers in the volume which I will send to-morrow. I stayed at
Bonn two months. I have given Zirkel of Bonn a letter of introduction to
you. He is going to the Western Isles. He is a fine young fellow, and a
Professor at Lemberg ; he would like, too, to see some work. . . . You
must take old Hibbert on the Eifel if you go there. Van Dechen's big map
of the Drachenfels region is not very good ; there is an explanation of
it in German. Also, the Government geological maps of all the Prussian
Rhine region are published. I can lend you some. Be sure you see the
Miocene coal at Brill, half-way between Bonn and Cologne. I'll give you
letters if you like. Go and see the Moselle and its tributaries—the best
case of valleys cut in a tableland that I know. You must march through
the Eifel— 6s. per day, living like les coques qui se combattentl
Leeds, 18th September
1868.
My dear Geikie—Late,
late, so late; but I will venture now to reply to yours of the 4th,
which work, laziness, and sometimes imperfect health, and consequent
demi-semi-depression, prevented my sooner replying to. Not that 1 am
ill, and yet I am just something or other. It may be that it is only Age
with creeping claw that has caught me in his clutch. If so, so much the
worse for Age, for he has got hold of a bad lot.
Like the men of the '45,
I have been 'out' since the 29th June, all but a fortnight, which I
spent in Anglesey; and also, like the same men of '45, I have had a
controversy with the king, not King Cole, but King Roderick of Siluria.
. . . Some people wonder why I did not reply to Sir R.'s last in the
Geo!. Magazine about denudation and lakes, but I think It is better not
to ' condescend upon it, as we Scotch lawyers say. But why should he be
always troubling our Israel ? Is he afeard that we are becoming
rebellious satraps?
I did not go to Norwich
[British Association Meeting], I stayed away a-purpose to keep out of
any excitement. Last year did me no good, and giving evidence at the end
of June for four days before the Coal Commission for four hours and a
half per day, together with an immediate march and long hours in the
country during the hottest weather, have not improved me. So I stayed
away from Norwich.
D- writes me that the
advanced, scientific thinkers did themselves and science no good at
Norwich. How, I have not heard; but I can well believe it of some of our
friends. . . .
I know the Strahleck,
having been over <t, and very steep it is on the descent from the Col
down to the surface of the glacier on the Grindelwald side. But it is
very different in different years. Hinchliff slid down on the snow from
top to bottom. I think it took us an hour to go down on the rocks. . . .
We have done a deal of
work hereaway, and are fast moving up northwards in a broad line, in the
hope of forming a union with the Northumberland and Westmoreland men,
before you can say whew. We have begun in the Vale of Eden, and will by
and by invade your dominions, if you don't mind your eye.— Ever
sincerely, A. C. Ramsay.
Blanchland, 24th
September 1868.
My dearest Wife—I write
to tell you that I am living in a fragment of an ancient abbey, placed
on the banks of the Derwent, far up the stream. The house is now an inn,
and our window looks out on a plot of grass that may have been in the
middle of the cloisters. The modern church, a fragment of the old one,
re-muddled, looks on our grass; and pear-trees, trained against the
walls, the fruit of which the monks ate, writhe their old branches all
about the stones. Such relics of a beautiful antiquity always fill me
with a sort of regretful feeling. If it had only been possible to
preserve them! How many lovely spots there are in England that one never
heard of till one gets in among them. Howell came with me from Hexham ;
we drove over the hills, twelve miles, after four o'clock yesterday. At
Hexham there are also the remains of a grand abbey. The transept and the
chancel are entire, and are used (though abused), but the nave is gone.
It is as big as many a cathedral, and noble Early English in style.
I must tell you a story
of our friend Noumeran, the Japanese. He had a post-office order sent to
the country, and when he signed his name the postmaster insisted that it
would not do. ' You must sign your Christian name as well.' 'But,' said
Noumeran, 'I am not a Christian; I am a Pagan.' Amazement of the
postmaster, who only knew of Pagans before as of dragons, or griffins,
or fabulous monsters of some sort.
Howell told me a story of
Disraeli. Vernon Harcourt asked a Conservative friend, ' How can you and
your party follow such a man D' ' We look on him as a professional
bowler,' was the reply.
The men wait.—Your most
affectionate,
Andw. C. Ramsay.
Dent, Kendal, 4th October
1868.
My dearest Wife—I begin
another letter to you to-night to tell you something about this place ;
it is so beautiful. The valley is five or six miles long, 'well
watered.' While below it is full of lovely green meadows, bordered with
trees and dotted with old white - washed houses of the dalesmen, all
around great bare hills rise to heights of 2000 and 2200 feet. And the
little town is so quaint, irregular, and clean, with its village church
and absence of shops, that all combined fill the mind with a sense of
repose and old-fashionedness, but rarely met with now in toil-worn
England. And the people are so nice. Last night we spent with the
Sedgwicks in the house where old Adam was born. Mrs. Sedgwick is very
pretty, and only about your age. She has at home six girls and a little
boy. They all crowd round Hughes, and climb on his knees all at once.
I have written to old
Adam Sedgwick telling him how pleased I am to be in his old home, and
how kind Mrs. Sedgwick is, and I hope he will be pleased with my letter.
This vale of Dent filled
Ramsay with delight, which breaks out again and again in his letters.
Thus to Miss Johnes, on the nth October 1868, he writes : ' Dent is not
on the outskirts, but in the core of the world, and the farther you
recede from it in concentric circles, the nearer you get to the outposts
of "civilisation falsely so called." Dent town and the valley of Dent
make a kind of paradise to a man troubled with cares of Geological
Surveys and Coal Commissions. Fancy a valley some six or eight miles
long, well watered, with green sloping pastures and noble trees, with
great peaceful, solemn hills all around; noises unknown from the outer
world, no sounds, in fact, but those made by winds and running rivers,
or dropping rains and cattle, and the voices of " the kindly race of
men," and church-bells o' Sundays. All the children are clean (very);
all the men are stalwart and frank, honest and brave; and all the women
that are not beautiful are comely, some of them stalwart too. Men,
women, and children, Danes by descent, are fair, with blue open
eyes—"statesmen," the men part, in the northern sense of the term —frank
and respectful, for self-respect makes folk respectful to others.
'I have been away from
home for four and a half months, as human mortals usually count them,
but to me the time looks like four and a half mortal years, and I long
to see Louisa and my children again.'
His journeys of
inspection now ranged over the whole breadth of the northern counties of
England. On the 21st November 1868 he wrote to me from Barnsley : '
Since I saw you I have been at Newcastle, Bellingham, Morpeth, Ponteland,
Richmond, Harrogate, Pateley Bridge, Otley, Bolton Bridge, Skipton, and
here. I have seen, besides geology, Ripon Cathedral, Knaresboro, Kirk
Hamerton (real Danish or Anglo-Saxon), Bolton Abbey and Fountains Abbey,
besides Skipton in Craven, where, as you very well know, "there's never
a haven."
These inspection tours
brought him into the midst of delightful scenery, interesting geology,
varied historical associations, and pleasant society—a combination of
attractions that never failed to show him at his best. Professor Hughes,
who now holds the Woodwardian Chair at Cambridge, was then one of the
staff with whom the Director had many excursions, and who has kindly
supplied me with the following recollections of his chief. Speaking of
the evenings after the day's tramp was over, he says : ' Ramsay always
threw himself heartily into whatever game or amusement of any kind was
going on, and thus got an insight mto the life of his men, and helped to
make things pleasant for them with their neighbours. So agreeable a
companion at a dinner - party, and so considerate and obliging a guest
at an hotel, was always welcome, and every one asked when he was coming
back, and tried to arrange little plans to make his stay pleasant. He
loved a game of cards or billiards, which he played to win, not with the
bored expression of one who did it just because he was asked to, or
merely to kill time. He was very fond of chorus-singing, taking the bass
with a good deal of skill and great earnestness. Even when there was no
entertainment going on he was generally very lively all the evening.'
London, 2bth, October
1870.
My dear Geikie—I have
been away since July and only came home on Monday last. I have had an
awful battering on the Yorkshire hills of late in thunder, lightning,
and in rain (Williams). . . I am very well, and have been, Barring an
eye which is now rather better than it was before it got worse.
Wife and babbies all
well, and rejoicing more over the desperate willain who has returned
than over ninetv-and-nine just men who stay in the field and do their
work, I'm off again on Monday for Lancashire, about Preston, etc. etc.,
and shall be thereabouts for two or three weeks ; after that to Grantham
and the Oolites. I won't be much at home before the end of December. Sir
R. looks well.
Oh the dales, the dales,
the Yorkshire dales! Lovely, luvely, loovely! Cock-fighting be hanged!
The terrassic system! The Carb. Limestone is a myth proper, and the
Yoredale Rocks ditto. They pass into limestones in the most unprincipled
manner, and now the limestone runs up to the Millstone Grit, and now, to
use a strong expression, it doesn't. Lithology is the only science, and
as for definite horizons, they no more exist than nadir or zenith, the
equator or Fergus the First.—Ever sincerely, A. C. Ramsay.
Jermyn Street, 16th
February 1871.
My dear Mister G.—I have
gotten yourn. I believe I have Riitimeyer's book, and that I looked it
over, but I am a poor ignorant son of a sea-cook, and cannot read
German. But I get bits translated for me by Ella or the Missus. As
Rutimeyer does not agree with me, of course he is wrong! Desor's paper
(French) I have read, on the origin of Jura valleys, lakes, etc. etc.,
and thought it ' Walker.' I do not think I have seen any German treatise
of his on the subject.
I am glad you are writing
that paper for Nature; it will come in rather pattish. Prestwich sent me
his remarks to read—what he is going to say when he hands over to me the
Wollaston medal,' and he says nowt about the lakes. They must be still
too strong for his geological stomach. But he has swallowed other things
handsomely, and remarks that in the matter of Pala;ozoic ice I long
stood alone. He may live to swallow all the 4000 feet of Swiss ice that
scooped out lakes, and also all the big northern :ce-sheet that buried
two-thirds of the northern continents.
Do you think Riitimeyer
shows good cause for his dislocations in the Alps without good mapping
done ?
My paper on the Old Red,
etc. etc., has not yet been read. I suppose it will come on upon the
22nd March or thereabouts. They print the papers now entire for
convenience before they are read. It does not follow, I believe, that
they will necessarily be printed in the Journal.
Now I must go to prepare
a lecture for 2 P.M. I gave one last Monday night on the Origin of the
River Systems of England, and the audience liked it better than I did.
Yours ever, A. C. Ramsay.
About this period
Ramsay's pen was more than usually busy. The problems suggested by red
strati-tied deposits like the New Red Sandstone and Old Red Sandstone
had often been considered by him, and he discussed the subject in two
papers communicated in January and March 1871 to the Geological Society.
One of these dealt with the red rocks of Palaeozoic age, and the other
with those of later date. He was likewise turning his thoughts more
frequently and earnestly to the history of topography, and especially to
the origin of river-valleys. He gave a series of lectures on that
subject during this year, and afterwards condensed the substance of one
or two of them into a paper on the ' River-courses of England and
Wales,' which was read before the Geological Society on the 7th February
1872.
Much anxiety was felt
during the year 1871 as to the health of the distinguished
Director-General of the Geological Survey. On the 30th November 1870 he
had a stroke of paralysis, which at the time deprived him of the use of
his left side. But he rallied so far as to be able to take carriage
exercise, and to attend to a good deal of business. It was evident,
however, that he would never again be fit to resume his place in the
scientific world, though he might possibly linger long. Trenham Reeks,
his faithful secretary, and Registrar of the School of Mines, used to
see him at his house daily, bring official and other letters, arrange
about the answering of them, and despatch frequent bulletins to members
of the staff as to the condition of the chief. Murchison never again set
foot in the Museum in Jermyn Street.
But as there was no
immediate prospect of serious change in Sir Roderick's condition, Ramsay
took the field among his men in the spring of 1871. Some further letters
from him show what he was doing and thinking about during the summer and
autumn of this year.
24th March 1871.
My dear Geikie—I write a
second note. If you refer to my book on North Wales, you will see that I
state that the Lingula Flags and Cambrian are conformable, and pass into
each other, and that the Llandeilo and Bala beds lie unconformably on
both. Officially I still call the Lingula Flags Lower Silurian, because
of the Director-General's classification, but theoretically I consider
the Lingula Flags more closely allied to the Cambrian. In the first
paper I sent you you will see, however, that 1 consider 1 the Cambrian
(below Lingula Flags) as a fresh-water formation. The Llandeilos and
Balas are, however, nearly as closely connected with the Tremadoc Slate
and Lingula Flags as the Upper Silurian is with Llandeilo and Bala beds.
The Tremadoc Slate I consider an upper part of the Lingula Flags.—Ever
sincerely, A. C. Ramsay.
King's Arms, Kendal, 1st
October 1871.
My dear Geikie— I'm
smoking a pipe on a Sunday. Hallelujah, hallelujee! I send you my two
last [papers on Red Rocks] to Edinburgh, not knowing where you may be. I
have had a very pleasant letter from De Koninck about them. He will
write again, but at present he seems equally surprised and pleased.
Besides twelve sent here and there in England, I think I will devote the
rest of my copies to Continentals and Americans, for Englishmen can read
them in the Journal. . . .
I came here last Tuesday,
and, weather permitting, have been daily among the Silurian Green Slates
and Porphyries. The more I see of them, the more am I convinced that all
of them I have seen form part of a great purely subaerial volcano = the
Welsh marine or semi-marine set. I am assist-' ng at a bit of mapping
which Aveline cannot make up his mind about, and I have made up mine.
... I hope to leave this on Tuesday or Wednesday for Kirkby Stephen. It
is tough work here, driving twelve miles and then climbing, like a
climbing boy, mountains from 2000 to 3000 feet high during equinoxious
gales. Sir R. continues just the same.—Ever sincerely,
A. C. Ramsay.
London, 13th December
1871.
My dear Geikie—Austen has
decided to take the Presidency of the Geological Society.4
That is well. But the Society is not flourishing in papers. I am glad we
are to have a strong President, and we must try to get a strong council,
made of men of mark. When Dallas wrote me the other day, asking if I had
no papers to fill the void, I replied that I had none ready, and of
course could not write for the sake of writing. I also said that they
might have more were it not that authors of theoretical papers were
afraid to send them in for fear of the fatherly care of the Council.
Green's last paper was squashed, by - in particular. You will see it in
the Geological Magazine. I have a great mind to send in a paper entitled
' The Wonderful, the Councillor,' with illustrations, by Rutley, of
living examples. When at Clapham (Ingleborough) last Friday I explored a
cave 800 yards long with Tiddeman.—Ever sincerely,
A. C. Ramsay.
London, 13th December
1871.
My dear Geikie—Yesterday
I took a leaf out of the Book of Othello, and became ' perplexed in the
extreme,' all along of a miserable trusteeship that I hold. The
consequence was that all day I stood prostrate at the feet of Europe,
having therefore an aversion to all legitimate business, in the evening
I plucked up ' hart o' grease' and wrote to S. Kensington asking about
the Survey Annual Reports. I have to-day had an answer saying that My
Lords meet on Monday, and the question will come before them. ' That is
all we know on Earth, and all we need to know.'
Having done this, I went
at half past four and played with Herbert Spencer a game of billiards at
the Athenaeum. He beat me. Being beaten, I went home and ate a turkey,
and then proceeded to lay about me all round and make everybody
miserable, all because a woman 200 and odd miles off is an ass, and
gives me a deal of deilish bother.
The poet [his son Allan]
came home yesterday from Uppingham with a prize for mathematics under
his oxter. We are all very well at home, both the cats having
disappeared. I hope they are not at the bottom of the water butt!
Several of the dritt maps
have been engraved. We are now in a state to publish. I will tell
Bristow to send you a coloured specimen copy for your criticism before
any are issued. I hope we may manage to do so early next week.—Ever
sincerely,
Andw. C. Ramsay.
London, 11th January
1872.
My dear Geikie—Yesterday
in the Council of the Geological Society I proposed Croll as a proper
man to receive the Wollaston Fund for the year. . . . The President and
others hailed my proposition. One objection raised was that Croll's
researches involved no personal expense. Prestwich and I thought that of
no importance; but nevertheless if you can tell me anything on that
score I shall be doubly armed—
And on the top of
opportunity, Quell the base scullion rogues, whose envy dull Would
squash the light of Genius, and instead Display a dirty, spluttering,
farthing dip, And swear that 'tis the sun.
So look alive, my pigeon,
and help in this good cause. ... I can do nothing till my third edition
of Physical Geology and Geography is in the press. I am now at the last
lecture of it. I will turn it into chapters. It will be nearly twice as
long as it was, and so much modified (I hope improved) that it may
almost be said to be a new book.—Ever sincerely,
A. C. Ramsay.
Sir Roderick Murchison
died on the 22nd October 1871, and the office of Director-General of the
Geological Survey once more became vacant. When he accepted the
appointment it was with the expressed intention of holding it only for a
short period. ' I will tide you over a few years,' he said to Ramsay at
the outset. But he retained the position for sixteen years and a half.
Of his geological labours, and more especially of his connection with
the Geological Survey, a full account has been given elsewhere. These
matters have therefore been only cursorily referred to in the foregoing
chapters.
The death of their
Director-General necessarily gave rise to considerable anxiety among the
officers of the Survey. They hoped that their friend and colleague, who
had been passed over at the time of De la Beche's death, would not be
passed over again. Rumour, of course, was busy with reports of various
kinds—the Jermyn Street establishment was to be broken up, there was to
be no new Director-General, or an outsider who was variously named was
to be once more put over the service. But, happily, these predictions
proved to be false. After four months of suspense, Ramsay received from
Lord Ripon, who was then Lord-President of the Council, a letter dated
26th February 1872, asking him if it would be agreeable to him that he
should be nominated to the vacant post. It was explained that the delay
had arisen because various questions connected with the several branches
of the establishment in Jermyn Street had been under consideration. The
appointment thus offered to him did not embrace the School of Mines. A
great scheme was in contemplation for the formation of a College of
Science at South Kensington, for which the Jermyn Street School would
form an excellent nucleus ; and it was therefore considered expedient to
sever the tie which from the beginning had united the School of Mines to
the rest of the organisation planned and carried out by De la Beche. A
fortnight later I had the following note from Ramsay: '16th March.—I was
yesterday summoned to attend a meeting of the [Committee of] Privy
Council at South Kensington. The result is I am Director-General of the
Surveys, Museum, and Mining Record Office. Bristow succeeds me as
Director for England and Wales, Howell succeeds Bristow (as District
Surveyor), and Ward gets up to be geologist.' Thus at last he had
attained what had been the height of his ambition. After thirty-one
years of faithful service he was now placed officially at the head of
the organisation of which he had so long been the life and soul. |
