book M. Falsan spoke with gratifying warmth of _The Great Ice Age_,

and of the many new ideas which he and his confrère had obtained from its perusal. “I feel as if I shall get cocky,” says James Geikie in a letter, “and, as pride goes before a fall, am beginning to dread lest _Prehistoric Europe_ should be damned.” M. Falsan also asked permission to translate _The Great Ice Age_ into French, and there were German offers to translate both _The Great Ice Age_ and _Prehistoric Europe_.

The latter appeared towards the end of November. Copies were sent, among others, to Charles Darwin and to Prof. Ramsay, whose letters in reply were a source of great gratification to James Geikie. Darwin wrote both immediately upon receipt, and later after he had read the book. In the second letter he says:--“Yours is a grand book, and I thank you heartily for the instruction and pleasure it has given me.” That this was not mere flattery is apparent from the keen discussion of certain special points in which he was interested.

The next year, 1881, was one of great stress, though the tale of its external events is soon told. That Prof. Ramsay’s health was failing had long been known, and though his actual resignation did not take place till the end of 1881, the fact that it was impending was obvious long before. It was also known among the Survey men that his retiral would mean extensive changes, likely to affect directly and indirectly most of the members of the staff. As has been already stated, it led to James Geikie’s resignation and his acceptance of the professorship at Edinburgh University. Something must therefore be said in regard to the reasons that induced him to leave highly congenial work for a post which was not, certainly at first, wholly so, and which further, at least in early days, did not materially improve his financial position.

It must be noted first that by this time he was the author of two bulky books (produced, as we have seen, at the cost of great and continuous toil) which had been hailed at home and abroad as “epoch-making.” He had correspondents in most parts of the civilised world; men of mark in their own countries had publicly acknowledged him as a leader of geological thought, a fount of inspiration, an opener up of new paths of research. At the same time, to those immediately above him he was a subordinate, with a very moderate salary, a recipient of orders, with little opportunity for initiating changes or improvements, and was living in a small provincial town, to some extent remote from the main current of public life.

Second, and this is a point which is much less familiar to the general public than in a democratic country it ought to be, his books were not of the kind which bring direct monetary reward to their author. His family was increasing, for his third son was born in this year of 1881; he himself was past forty, and the probability that he could continue to go on working for many years more at the rate at which he had been toiling during the last twenty was necessarily diminishing. 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. But, while this is admitted as a general proposition, there is always the possibility that petty personal interests will intervene in a particular case. James Geikie left the Survey partly under the pressure of such interests, which seemed to threaten his prospects of immediate promotion, and partly under that of friends who thought that the professorship offered more scope for him. Whether he was right or wrong it is difficult to say, but there is evidence that at least at first he regretted his decision. He might have quitted the Survey of his own free will, and would certainly have done this with a pang, but the thought that his decision to leave was not wholly voluntary, made the pang excessively bitter.

Many of the letters of this year of anxiety are too intimate to be quoted. We shall only insert sentences and phrases to make the narrative plain.

One of the first indications of coming events was an attack upon _Prehistoric Europe_ in the early part of 1881, an attack which it seems quite clear was not motived wholly by an honest desire to promote the cause of science. It was this element which made the matter so hard to bear.

The affair has affected me more than I can tell.... You will laugh, but it is true all the same, that I can hardly eat or sleep. For the attack itself I don’t mind, I know that my book is a bit of honest true work, and will outlive the attempts ... to stifle it.... I wish the snow would go and let me out to have a walk. Sometimes I wish that I had kept clear of writing books altogether.... I remember wondering once when Green told me that when he was vexed with anything a romp with his bairns made him quite hearty. It seemed to me overstrained. I don’t think so now that I have bairns of my own. Their quaint and funny ways quite carry you out of yourself.... Dearly as I love life, I can already foresee that the time will come when I shall be glad to lie down and sleep the sleep that knows no waking.... 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.

Later letters of the same spring emphasise the effect which the incident had upon him. “The whole thing,” he writes in one letter, “has worried me more than I can tell;” but a journey south, where, _inter alia_, he lectured at Hull, and led a big geological excursion, helped to change the current of his thoughts, while his reception at Hull gratified him greatly. Fresh letters from continental geologists also, not only praising his book but discussing the bearing of his results upon their observations in various parts of Europe, must have helped to assure him that it was worth while to do honest work, despite detractors. Further, the family moved from Perth to Birnam, where they took a charming cottage at the foot of Birnam Hill, covered with roses, and with a large untidy garden. The early summer was brilliantly fine, and the fresh air and open life of the country must have made it easier to take a more philosophical view of the affair, unpleasant as it was.

The letters of early summer show at least a perceptible recovery of balance and cheerfulness. His third son was born in June, and in answer to congratulations he says:--“A _third_ boy was a great disappointment--a girl would have ‘completed’ all the family any reasonable man could desire!”

The arrival of the baby prevented him from accompanying Dr Helland on a projected trip to Iceland in early summer, but, rather curiously, an opportunity to visit the island occurred a little later in the same year, for he went to report on some sulphur mines.

On 17th September he writes to Mr Horne:--“I have just returned from Iceland, where I have had some very hard but very interesting work. What a country! Fancy me riding eleven hours over lava-beds, mountains, etc., devil a road or even path! However, all was fresh and new.”

By this time the question of changes in the Survey was becoming acute, and James Geikie was beginning to debate with himself as to whether he ought to try for the Chair in Geology at Edinburgh for his children’s sake. The indecision he found very unsettling. “I can settle to nothing--reading and writing are alike out of the question.” More than a month later he writes:--“I am pulled two ways--my own desire and wish is to remain in the Survey.” “My repugnance to that Chair,” he says a few days later, “increases as the days go past.”

Perhaps nothing, however, shows better his fundamental repugnance to all the weighing of questions of worldly advantage, to the scheming and plotting and wire-pulling which go to the making of appointments, than a letter written to Mr Horne in the thick of the conflict. This begins with an account of information which had reached him in regard to the position of affairs as to the Edinburgh Chair, and glides off insensibly into an account of letters just received from Prof. Penck and Prof. Gandry, the one a German and the other a French geologist. Both letters contained much of great interest to him, and the letter becomes a full discussion of the points raised, the question of his own future meantime sinking entirely out of mind.

Obviously he wanted to be let alone and allowed to do his work in peace, to have reasonable security for his children. In one letter he laments his own lack of worldly wisdom, and his willingness to take advice from his various friends; and the rather pathetic balancing of the advantages of one apparently possible position against another, merely meant that his mind was set on other things altogether, and that in consequence he allowed himself to be swayed by the different influences brought to bear upon him. His own candour and frankness made him singularly willing to accept advice offered under the guise of friendship, without stopping to investigate the question whether his advisers were or were not wholly disinterested. But his unwillingness to be separated from his old colleagues remains the dominant note, even when he yielded to what seemed sound arguments brought to bear upon him. His instant response to kindliness is shown by the following quotation:--“Isn’t old Ramsay a trump. He wrote me a short, but such an affectionate letter that I declare I could not read it without wet eyes.”

His final decision to apply for the Chair was due to the receipt of a private letter which informed him that the Home Office was prepared to appoint him immediately on his sending in an application, on the ground that he was the man obviously best fitted for the post. It was also indicated to him informally that the reputation which he had obtained owing to his books was such that any other testimonial was unnecessary. Inquiries had been made which had satisfied the Home Office that no other possible candidate had such high qualifications for the post. In announcing to his friend Mr Horne the receipt of this flattering though unofficial letter, James Geikie cannot forbear adding:--“I shall quit the Survey dead against my desires. But yet I feel I am doing best for myself and for my children.”

Both his natural modesty, and perhaps the painful memory of his controversy in the spring, made him uneasy about the fact that the appointment was made without, as he says, any chance being given to other possible candidates. Thus he forwarded the unasked-for testimonials, the writers including all the leading men of the day in his own branch of science. But amidst all the bustle of arranging about the testimonials, and about the leaving of his work and the finding of a house in Edinburgh, the note of regret recurs constantly. “I can’t realise that I am leaving the Survey. How vexed I am--no one can tell.”

Not all his own regrets, however, could quench his enthusiasm for the service he was giving up. Thus he took up cudgels with the utmost vigour for his friends on the Survey, whose interests he thought likely to be affected by certain proposed changes. These changes he thought regrettable not only on this account, but also because they seemed to him contrary to the interests of the whole Survey.

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. My heart gets heavy whiles at the thought of leaving the green fields over which I have wandered so long and happily. After forty years of life it is almost too late to change. But what I have done I hope will turn out for the best. Anyhow, I hope you fellows will not forget the old comradeship, but come often and see me. I can’t yet realise that I am leaving work in the field, and going into town to become fat, greasy, and respectable.” And so the summer months slipped away, and autumn brought Edinburgh and the new sphere.