Aspects of the Life and Works of Archibald Geikie

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k J. Betterton, J. Craig, J. R. Mendum, s R. Neller and J. Tanner Sir Archibald Geikie (1835–1924) was one of the most distinguished and influential geologists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He was Director-General of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, President of the Geological Society of London, President of the British Association, Trustee of the British Museum and President of Geological Society the Royal Society. He was also an accomplished writer, a Geological Society Special masterful lecturer and a talented artist who published over Publication Special Publication 480 200 scientific papers, books and articles. 480

The papers in this volume examine aspects of Geikie’s life and works, including his family history, his personal and E J R . d

professional relationships, his art, and his contributions as a field geologist and . B i N t e e

administrator. Together, they provide a deeper understanding of his life, his career and his e t d l t l

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Cover illustration: Watercolour painting of Glen Sannox, Isle of Arran, Scotland by Archibald Geikie. Geikie visited Arran in 1851 and wrote ‘Three weeks in Arran by a Young Geologist’. © Haslemere Educational Museum.

The Geological Society

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BETTERTON, J., CRAIG, J., MENDUM, J. R., NELLER,R.&TANNER, J. (eds) 2019. Aspects of the Life and Works of Archibald Geikie. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 480.

BUTLER, R. W. H., MATTHEWS,S.J.&MORGAN, R. K. 2018. Geikie’s ﬁeld researches and their geological controversies. In: BETTERTON, J., CRAIG, J., MENDUM, J. R., NELLER,R.&TANNER, J. (eds) 2019. Aspects of the Life and Works of Archibald Geikie. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 480, 149–178, https://doi.org/10.1144/SP480.5

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Aspects of the Life and Works of Archibald Geikie

EDITED BY

J. BETTERTON Haslemere Educational Museum, UK

J. CRAIG Eni Upstream & Technical Services, Italy

J. R. MENDUM British Geological Survey, UK

R. NELLER Haslemere Educational Museum, UK

and

J. TANNER Haslemere Educational Museum, UK

2019 Published by The Geological Society London

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Foreword by Richard Fortey vii Preface by A. Behrens ix Acknowledgements ix

TANNER, J., BETTERTON, J., NELLER,R.&CRAIG, J. Introduction: aspects of the life and works of 1 Sir Archibald Geikie

Geikie’s family history

BETTERTON, J. The Geikie Archive at Haslemere Museum: family and professional material 7

CRIBB, S. J. Early life in Edinburgh and beyond: 1835–55 27

TAYLOR, M. A. Autobiography and documentable fact in the family background and religious 39 afﬁliation of Archibald Geikie (1835–1924)

Geikie’s friendships and professional relationships

TAYLOR,M.A.‘Miller’s most important geological discovery’: Archibald Geikie (1835–1924) 51 as pupil and memorialist of Hugh Miller (1802–56)

BUREK, C. V. Archibald Geikie: his inﬂuence on and support for the roles of female geologists 67

JOHNSTON, H. H. M. Forster Heddle: an intimate friendship 93

SORKHABI, R. Sir Archibald Geikie: the North American connections 113

SANDERS, A. J. A long life’s relationship: Archibald Geikie, Alexander Macmillan and his 139 publishing house

Geikie as a ﬁeld geologist

BUTLER, R. W. H., MATTHEWS,S.J.&MORGAN, R. K. Geikie’s ﬁeld researches and their 149 geological controversies

DEWEY, J. F. The Highland Controversy revisited: Geikie’s compounded blunder 179

SUMMERHAYES. C. P. Archibald Geikie and the Ice Age controversy 183

WORSLEY, P. Archibald Geikie as a glacial geologist 191

MORGAN, N. Geikie’s science in the cemetery 213

Unpublished Geikie material and archival resources

BETTERTON, J. The Geikie Archive at Haslemere Educational Museum 223

BETTERTON, J. Unpublished manuscripts of Archibald Geikie 255

BETTERTON, J. Archival resources 317

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Artistic family

MORRISON, J. Archibald Geikie and landscape painting 319

SCOTT, H. E. The life and art of Walter Geikie (1795–1837) 337

Geological collections

BENTON, M. J. Archibald Geikie and the Elgin reptiles 353

BETTERTON, J. Geikielite: an illustrated account of the co-type specimens 361

MENDUM,J.R.&HOWE, M. P. A. Geikie and the development of petrography, 367 particularly in Scotland

A Scottish industry

CRAIG,J.&UNDERHILL, J. R. Archibald Geikie’s role in the establishment of the 379 Scottish oil shale industry

Index 401

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Richard Fortey FRS FRSL Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK

classical ‘making good’ scenario that allowed talent and hard work to succeed in Victorian society, at a time when class barriers were starting to display some permeability. He was a gifted man: a shrewd observer as a field geologist, an artist with a rare gift for deconstructing a landscape into its fundamentals, a capable administrator when in charge of the Geological Survey, and a passionate believer in communicating with a wider audience. He was also ambitious, and could be ruthless to those who criticized his work; he was sometimes less than generous to fellow scientists who had insights similar to his own. He was president of the Geological Society of London (1890–92) and it is particularly appropriate to examine Geikie’s achievements – and maybe his shortcomings – in a volume published by the Society itself. Science is the principal focus in the articles that follow, but some essays reveal the other ways this most ver- satile and influential man impacted the development of our science. I was unaware of his pioneering work on the weathering of gravestones, as described by Nina Morgan, and of his involvement (Mike Benton) with the Triassic dating of the famous reptiles from Elgin. The exploration of NW Scotland and what came to be known as the Moine Thrust served to advance the early stages of Geikie’s career. A Scottish field In the darker corners of almost any antiquarian trip in the company of Sir Roderick Murchison bookshop will be discovered volumes on geology in 1860, forensically explored by Butler and his written by Archibald Geikie. Rather neglected now, co-authors, provides an addition to David Oldroyd’s and unappealing in their dark bindings, they were (1990) incomparable account of The Highlands once among the most read geological texts in Controversy. Geikie supported Murchison’s inter- English. Geikie’s Text-book of Geology of 1885 pretation of a simple sedimentary succession close ran into several editions. Even seven years after to the western edge of Scotland, and must have his death in 1924 the Macmillan Science Primers been complicit in dismissing contrary views. It is series were still printing a fifth edition of his short hard to avoid the conclusion that a young man on introductory text Geology (Geikie 1931). In the the make was not going to contradict the dominant mind of the general public Sir A. Geikie embodied and domineering presence in British geology, and British geology in a remarkable way. The story of Geikie assuredly benefited from the association his public achievements is also the story of the con- with Murchison later in his career. It could be said solidation of geology as an independent science. that he eventually made amends when he was in That he could write well and with facility about charge of the Survey by commissioning Ben Peach his subject topped off a career that began in ordinary and John Horne to produce one of the great works circumstances as a barber’s son. M.A. Taylor’s in British geology (Peach et al. 1907) that fully vin- article in this volume casts light on an early period dicated Callaway and Lapworth in their observations about which Geikie was somewhat coy in his own of thrust tectonics. But it is as well to remember autobiography. Geikie’s life story followed the how inaccessible these critical areas were in the

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nineteenth century, and Geikie’s observation that Elles among them. Elles’ friend Ethel Wood (later stout legs were as important as sharp eyes may Dame Shakespeare) was another woman who account for at least some of the perfunctory work gained approval from Geikie, and her drawings for by the young man and his famous mentor: they the Monograph of British Graptolites (Elles & were in too much of a hurry to be done with it. Wood 1901–18), published by the Palaeontographi- In later controversies Geikie showed consistent cal Society, are still admired a century later. Indeed, judgment and certainly did not skimp on the field- this work continues to be used as a research tool, work. Although subsequently overshadowed as a which is testimony to its singular merits. When glaciologist by his brother James, Archibald was I began work in the Ordovician of South Wales himself a pioneer in interpreting the ‘drift’ in oppo- with Robert Owens of the National Museum of sition to Lyell’s view that it could be explained by Wales, a paper by Misses Crosfield and Skeat deposition from floating icebergs, as Colin Summer- published in 1896 was the reference we used to hayes and Peter Worsley explain. Geikie even went get into the local geology of the Carmarthen area to Arctic Norway – quite an undertaking until the – a very competent piece of work. I learned that middle of the last century – to observe till in the these pioneering women field geologists were also making, and to assert the direct action of glaciers encouraged by Archibald Geikie to pursue research. in the Ice Age deposits in northern Britain. Geol- This volume of papers may help to bring back ogists then could evidently turn their attention to Archibald Geikie into the consciousness of some anything that took their fancy, if they had the geologists who maybe only know him as a familiar means. Geikie espoused igneous petrology and name. Who could fail to be impressed by the field exploration on the island of Skye, where the compass of his energy? The only comparable geol- intrusive relationships between gabbro and granite ogist I can think of (his very approximate bodies were in dispute. He roundly condemned the contemporary) is Charles Doolittle Walcott, who account of John Wesley Judd, a pioneer of the use somehow combined running the Smithsonian Insti- of thin sections in petrology, but the intemperance tution in Washington, D. C. with a prodigious of their exchanges in the Geological Society, duti- research career. They don’t make them like that fully recorded in the discussion in the ‘QJ’,is any more. quite shocking to modern eyes – stuff like that still happens in common rooms, but not in public. I am old enough to remember the Geological Society when it still had the ‘parliamentary’-style meeting rooms and open confrontation seemed to RICHARD FORTEY be built into its very structure. On this occasion September 2018 careful fieldwork won the day for Archibald

Geikie, and Judd retired bruised. Many critical geo- ELLES, G.L. & WOOD, E.M.R. 1901–18. A Monograph logical sites were illustrated by Geikie himself, of British Graptolites. In 12 Parts. Palaeontographical and helped in his geological debates. The Geikie Society, London. archive in the Haslemere Museum houses a ﬁne col- GEIKIE, A. 1885. Text-Book of Geology. 2nd edn. lection: art could align with science when it Macmillan & Co. Ltd, London. was needed. GEIKIE, A. 1931. Geology. Science Primers. Macmillan & I also remember a stool in the ancient lift in Co., London. the Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge, in the 1960s. OLDROYD, D.R. 1990. The Highlands Controversy. Chicago University Press, Chicago, Ill. The same stool was that sat upon by G. L. ‘Gertie’ PEACH, B.N., HORNE, J., GUNN, W., CLOUGH, C.T., Elles in her latter years, when the renowned grapto- HINXMAN, L.W. & TEALL, J.J.H. 1907. The Geological lite expert had become rather stout. I was delighted Structure of the Northwest Highlands of Scotland. to learn from C.V. Burek that Archibald Geikie Geological Survey of Great Britain, Memoirs. HMSO, (eventually) came to be helpful to female geologists, London.

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In Sir Archibald’s autobiography there is a photo- looked out of the window to see what Sir Archibald graph of my father, Derick Behrens, with his was doing. She was clearly impressed and called to grandfather entitled ‘Fellow-Students’.Onmy him saying that she was very pleased that he was engagement to my future wife, my father gave us a working to make the road surface better. At this copy of a book which had belonged to Sir Archibald, point she reached for her purse and took out a six- a collection of letters by Adam Sedgwick to William pence that she gave to him. Sir Archibald received Wordsworth, the poet, on the geology of the Lake the coin with some embarrassment, but thanked District. This volume was an author’s copy, had her before returning to his work. The carriage then been presented to Sir Roderick Murchison, and resumed its journey. had, presumably, then been passed to Sir Archibald. Later that afternoon Sir Archibald arrived at his My wife’s maiden name is Sedgwick, although we destination and was able to get washed and dressed have been unable to find any family link to the before dinner. He then arrived in the dining room geologist. only to be sat next to the lady that had given him My father had a fund of stories about both his the sixpence earlier in the day. She was very embar- grandfathers, and these were treasured relationships. rassed, but Archibald assured her that he would One of these stories tells of the occasion, at a time treasure the sixpence for the rest of his life. He did when Sir Archibald had become a celebrated scien- – the sixpence hung from his watch chain. After tist, when a Scottish landowner invited him to be his death it was given to his grandson, Derick the guest of honour and after-dinner speaker at his Behrens and it has remained in the family. great house. Sir Archibald was not one for unnecess- My sister has also reminded me that our father ary pomp, or expense, and rode to the great house gave her a piece of advice that Sir Archibald had on horseback. At some point on his journey he given him: each morning to make a list of all the became fascinated by some rocks that he saw by things needing to be done during the day, making the side of the road and stopped to look at them. sure by the evening that they were actually done! He tied up his horse and found his geologist’s From these stories, and from reading Archi- hammer and started to work on the rocks in order bald’s autobiography, a picture emerges of a to find out more about them. The road was dusty fascinating man, equally at home with the poetry and soon his clothes were covered in a fine powder. of Horace as with his geologist’s hammer; a While he was engrossed in this work a very skilled watercolourist, a man with a wide range of smart carriage came by and stopped. Inside the car- interests. My father was the richer for having been riage was a very smartly dressed woman who his ‘fellow student’.

ANDREW BEHRENS Archibald Geikie’s great-grandson

Acknowledgements

A great deal of work has gone into curating, research- for upgrading the storage of the collection and ing and raising the proﬁle of the Archibald Geikie for improvements to the Museum’s gallery dis- collection at Haslemere Educational Museum. play devoted to Geikie. In 2012 the Museum Shell UK Ltd provided two grants towards research, received funding from Statoil (UK) Ltd (now storage and documentation. Grants also came Equinor) to digitize and transcribe part of the Geikie from the Curry Fund of the Geologists’ Association Archive.

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