Sir J. S. Flett

“ What was really remarkable in this conversation, I should say, was the readiness and whole-heartedness with which he threw himself into it, the stimulus given by his never-failing interest and occasional enthusiasm, the fine good-nature with which he unquestioningly put himself on equal terms with one who was many years younger than himself, and whose opinions, however confidently expressed, must often have been crude and immature. Neither then, nor at any subsequent time, was there anything whatever that was pedantic or academic about Geikie. ”

“ It is hard living for them, poor devils. There is no shelter in the land, even the heather is low and stunted, and the wind howls in from the Atlantic with a long melancholy sough that is depressing in the extreme. No sportsman ever comes here, for there is nothing to shoot. It is said that there are fine trout in the lakes. It may be so; but the man who could fish such peaty holes and feel happy in the occupation, could only be an escaped convict or downright lunatic. The inn at Lochmaddy was snug, if the country was miserable. ”

“ It is not only in his books that the dead man still speaks to the world. That, in fair weather and in foul, in the prime of manhood and when age was creeping on, Prof. Geikie led successive bands of often raw youths and maidens over those [Pg 143] hill-sides, has helped to give them an interest which Nature alone could not give, a charm which untrodden ways can never attain. On those grassy slopes an old man saw visions and young men dreamed dreams, and the dreams and the visions have become a part of our island heritage. ”

“ To trace the connection between the Ice Age and the present day, and to show the changes which had elapsed since the ice-sheets melted from the surface of Britain, was to him one of the most alluring departments of geology. A good deal of work had been done by Scottish geologists on the study of the raised beaches of Scotland, but no general account of their relation to one another and to the glacial boulder-clay and moraines had appeared before the publication of the first edition of The Great Ice Age. ”

“ Now it is universally admitted, as a general proposition, that when a man without private means has done and is doing important and highly specialised work for his country and for the world, work which does not bring direct pecuniary gain, then it is the duty of those in high places to see that he be established in such a position as to free him from financial anxiety for the future, to enable him to face his responsibilities with a calm mind, to obviate the necessity for his wasting his strength and intellect in hack-work in order to supplement his income. ”

“ In considering this branch of James Geikie’s scientific work we may trace a considerable amount of influence exerted on his thought by James Croll, one of the most remarkable geologists that Scotland has produced. Croll was a man who started life in a very humble position; he educated himself, and by sheer power of intellect and dogged perseverance he attained eminence in scientific work. He was at once a metaphysician and a physicist, but it is only with the latter aspect of his teaching that we are here concerned. ”

“ His new work at Edinburgh was not to begin till the autumn of 1882, and though the house in Edinburgh was taken in spring, the family stayed on in the country all summer, partly to let the new-made professor finish off his Survey work, and partly that all might enjoy the country air. But the respite did not ease the pain of the prospective parting:—“It makes me sad at heart when I think that the old Survey days are for me so soon to end. So life wags—some day soon I shall be ending work for good and all, and then for a long rest, and no heartaches and no headaches. ”

“ I can hardly believe that I am in the same planet where coal and iron are being worked. Here is nothing but the sandstones below the limestones and the Old Red with its trap rocks. The people too are as sleepy and old-fashioned and “respectable” as the rocks they live upon or rather above. This is the kind of land that would be after your own heart. Here are old abbeys and tumble-down castles, and every field and stream has some old-world story connected with it. At first I hardly could thole the quiet of Kelso. ”

“ Thus, although geology was for a long time a very small class, it produced almost every year one or more men who subsequently made a name for themselves in science. All over the world, and especially in the British colonies, there are many well-known geologists who can trace the impetus which decided their careers to the lectures delivered by the genial professor in the dingy old Edinburgh class-room at the top of those interminable stairs. ”

“ At one time I had a notion of writing a detailed memoir on the subject, but I found it would be necessary to visit many parts of the Mediterranean coast-lands which I had not seen and to revisit other parts which I had looked at. I still think there is much interesting work awaiting investigation there—the Italian geologists seem to me to have missed the meaning of some of the evidence which their own maps supply! If I were only twenty years younger I believe I should start off at once—that bothering glacial work quite drew me away from the Mediterranean problems. ”

“ The principal characteristic of The Great Ice Age is its literary ability, the power of lucidly expounding intricate scientific theories and sketching the evidence on which they rest in a manner which equally avoids prolixity and obscurity. Although, as we have shown, he was by no means the first to champion the cause of land ice as against floating ice as the dominant factor in the production of the drift, he was immediately accorded the place of protagonist in this cause. In Scotland his views, at any rate among his colleagues on the Survey, were those generally accepted. ”

“ Among the Scottish geological staff James Geikie’s position as a field-geologist and as a glacialist was fully recognised, and he had the unquestioning support of his colleagues. His life was full of variety and interest. No doubt, like other men, he had made mistakes and had been severely handled by some of his critics. Some of his early work on the Silurian volcanic rocks of Ayrshire, for example, had suffered greatly from his insufficient knowledge of the chemical and mineralogical foundations on which geology rests. ”

“ Scotland had undergone since the melting of the great ice-sheet would be obtained from a minute examination of the peat-bogs which cover large expanses both of the hills and of the plains of his native country. His own botanical training was insufficient to enable him to attack such a problem with success, but for many years he closely studied the geology of the peat-bogs, and never failed to impress on his students that a rich harvest of scientific information might be reaped by any investigator who took this difficult task in hand. ”

“ Edinburgh is, of course, even to-day singularly favoured by Nature in the number and variety of the possible excursions within easy reach of the town, and in those days conditions were still better. In later years, when he took his geological students over Arthur’s Seat, James Geikie used often to lament what he regarded as the spoiling of that park by the construction of roads, which for him took away the feeling of wildness, and part of the impressiveness of the wonderful volcanic scenery. ”

“ Verily I do believe a good wife and loving mother is the only treasure of treasures that is worth striving for in this world!... How much you and I have to be thankful for!
These are a few extracts written to his friend Mr Horne at the moment when the history of the incident was just becoming plain, and at a time also when Mr Horne’s first child had just been born; they throw perhaps more light upon it and upon the character of James Geikie than any ordered narrative could do. ”

“ The land, as I have said, is everywhere intersected by the sea, and sprinkled with innumerable lakes and peaty tarns. Along the flat Atlantic coast there are dreary stretches of blown yellow sands that form hills like those of Barry, near Carnoustie. Near these are a few huts and a kirk and manse! Not a tree, not even a bush higher than heather is anywhere to be seen—peat and rock and water—water and rock and peat—that is North Uist.... I have been vastly pleased with what I have seen, and will have a lot to tell geologists that is new. ”

“ A man of very different qualities, but a brilliant and thoroughly reliable geologist, who held a high place in the intellectual life of Edinburgh, was Charles Maclaren, one of the founders and for many years the editor of the Scotsman newspaper. His special field of work was the geology of the district around the Firth of Forth, a region filled with the most striking examples of geological structure and the effects of geological processes. ”

“ Although James Geikie was always a great reader, it is not likely that he had more than an elementary knowledge of geology when he joined [Pg 152] the Survey in 1861. Trained geologists, however, in those days were much less common than they are now, and the Survey was prepared to enrol men who had a good general education and showed special inclination and aptitude for this line of work. Careful personal selection must have been exercised, for many of those who then joined its ranks rose subsequently to high eminence in science. ”

“ In 1861, at the age of twenty-two, James Geikie, as stated in Chapter II., became an officer of the Geological Survey and determined to devote his life to scientific work.
For seventy years, ever since the time of the great discussions about the theories of Hutton and Playfair in the closing days of the eighteenth century, the inhabitants of Edinburgh had been keenly alive to the attractions of geological speculation. These older controversies had died down, and the science was gradually establishing itself on a broad basis of recorded facts and observations. ”

“ His studies in geography were always in those fields which form the border-land between geology and geography. The history of the development of scenery and of earth-forms in general, and the relation between geological structure and geographical configuration, were favourite subjects for his pen. In this he was a true follower of Playfair. He delighted [Pg 191] also to prepare short notices for the Society’s magazine, describing the results of recent work on prehistoric man, on changes of climate in recent geological periods, and the action of ice in the production of surface features. ”

“ With his appointment in 1882 to the Murchison Chair of Geology and Mineralogy in Edinburgh University to succeed his brother Sir Archibald Geikie, a new epoch began in James Geikie’s career. For some years he had been District Surveyor on the Scottish Survey, a post of considerable responsibility, and requiring the exercise of tact and firmness, but one which presented most valuable opportunities to a keen geologist. The Scottish Survey at that time had an exceptionally strong personnel, and in pure field geology was setting a standard of excellence which has rarely been surpassed. ”

“ You have no idea of the lovely shades of blue and green and saffron and orange and gold that streak and flush the sea—the water is so clear and crystalline, too, that one feels as if he should like to throw his knapsack down and take a header! There are few or no houses. ”

“ America had been occupied by a fauna and flora of temperate facies.
Prof. Geikie lived to see very considerable changes in the opinion of geologists on these matters. As time went on much new evidence accumulated to prove that great fluctuations of climate had marked the recent stages of the earth’s history. From many sides facts were reported which tended to support his theories. Gradually it came to be recognised that the ice margin must have withdrawn at times for considerable distances, leaving bare wide tracts of country which became populated by animals and plants. ”

“ The ordinary student he strove to interest and to instruct, and as year by year his classes increased, he had good evidence to convince him that both his subject and his method of expounding it were receiving their full share of attention among the students of the University. But he had a keen eye for merit, and young men who evinced a desire to pursue the path of original research were quickly recognised and encouraged in every way to follow the right lines. ”

“ Geikie’s scientific work, we may be permitted to point out what seems to be the main characteristics of his investigation and teaching. Had he been questioned himself on this point, there can be no doubt he would have given his University courses of instruction a high place in his services to science. He never allowed himself to regard it as routine work, to be hurried through without enthusiasm. [Pg 208] He gave his best to his students, and constantly improved his lectures, excursions, and practical classes, so as to make them as modern and as complete as circumstances would allow. ”

“ As the study of glaciers advanced, it became clear that moving ice, bearing debris with it, could produce striations exactly like those in question, and the boulder-clay gradually came to be considered a glacial deposit. Very important confirmation of this hypothesis came from the observations of Mr Smith of Jordanhill on the recent shelly clays of the west of Scotland. Many of the mollusca which these clays contained proved to be of species now living in Arctic seas, and the inference was obvious that at no very distant epoch a glacial climate had prevailed in Scotland. ”

“ Always ready to take more than his fair share of the drudgery of elementary teaching, he showed the most kindly interest in the progress of his assistants, and encouraged them to carry out original research on their own account. His fine library and wide knowledge of the literature of geology were always at their service, and as the University in those days was by no means liberally endowed with funds for the purchase of scientific apparatus, he often provided at his own expense the instruments necessary for special researches. ”

“ Several of his colleagues came to be recognised in the course of a few years as scientific men of the highest distinction, and among them there was a spirit of camaraderie and of friendly emulation in research which made their daily tasks a constant source of novelty and of unflagging interest. To many of his colleagues, such as Peach, Horne, Jack, Croll, Skae, and Irvine, James Geikie had been indebted for important information and for the most searching criticism, combined with [Pg 181] unselfish appreciation of the value of his work. ”

“ Many active geologists in Scotland were coming for the first time to adopt the views which have ultimately obtained acceptance in regard to the Pleistocene history of Scotland, and the change of opinion which was going on was somewhat similar to the still greater change which took place when evolution first began to take the form of a working hypothesis or even an established law of Nature, and to sweep away a great many honoured and treasured theories that had long held sway over the minds of men. ”

“ Prof. Geikie says:—“Winnipeg is a surprising place for so far distant a region. Here are some 25,000 inhabitants: it is quite a considerable town—with churches, theatres, etc., etc., and a Scientific Society.” Speaking of his journey eastwards he says:—
We left Winnipeg on Wednesday (20th) and travelled all day through rough rolling ground, very rocky and sprinkled with my friends—boulder-clay, morainic gravel and sand, and large erratics. The country was upon the whole rather dreary, dense thickets of spruce fir covering the rocky knolls, and swamps and morasses lying in the hollows. ”