Sir A. Geikie's address to the Edinburgh meeting of the
British Association was delivered on Wednesday, and was one of the most popular and interesting of recent years. Of course it was concerned with the subject of geology, and gave a very graphic and not too technical resume of the pro- gress of that science. The most interesting portion of a very brilliant lecture concerned the origin of scenery. Sir A. Geikie brought out very effectively how vast an effect the rush of water has had in sculpturing for us the outlines of the moun- tains, and in washing away the softer and more friable materials which formerly filled the valleys up to the level of the mountain-summits. He gave a very striking verbal diorama retrospective of the scenery from the Castle Rock of Edin- burgh, as the geologist now sees it in his mind's eye. As the busy streets of Edinburgh fade away, copsewood and forest, with lakes that have long since vanished, gleaming through the woodland, take their place, and a rude canoe pushing to the shore startles the red-deer that have come down to drink. Then, looking further back, the picture changes to an Arctic scene, with great fields of snow, and glaciers in the remote north-west marking the lines of Highland mountains. Going further back, vast sheets of ice full two thousand feet in thickness, fill up the whole mid- land valley of Scotland, and are seen to creep slowly eastward towards the basin of the North Sea. Then there is a great hiatus which geologists have not yet learned to fill up ; and behind that, again, the familiar hills and valleys of the Lothians have utterly disappeared; a great inland sea, marked with long lines of active volcanoes, covers the midland valley, some of these volcanoes several thousand feet in height. It was a remarkable review of revolutions in scenery even more gigantic than any revolution which takes place in the habits and customs of men.
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