It is also not without significance to note that his own first work, and indeed generally most of his Survey work throughout his period of service, lay in what is described as the peripheral area of the old glaciation. In any area which is or has been glaciated it is possible to distinguish between a central area where erosion is at a maximum, and where the evidence of the existence of former ice-sheets is almost necessarily masked by the work of later glaciers, and a peripheral area where ice work takes the form of deposition. In this latter area it is often possible to unravel the complex evidence to an extent sufficient to determine the question whether more than one Glacial Period existed or not. It was to this problem that James Geikie devoted much of his attention, and this fact must be regarded as largely explained by the other that his geological field-work was done in Lowland rather than in Highland areas. In so far as the details of the Survey work go, we may note that theoretically the summer was devoted to field-work and the winter to indoor work, at first either in London or at the Industrial Museum in Edinburgh, and later, after the establishment of the Survey Office in Edinburgh, at that office. But this general scheme was modified considerably by circumstances. Summer and winter, notably, had a somewhat different sense from that which the calendar gives. For example, an entry in his official diary for 1863 states, under date 17th February:--“Pack-up in Office for country;” while in the same year field-work seemed to continue, with short interruptions, till December. In the following year, 1864, a start was made even earlier, on 1st February. That somebody was taking too optimistic a view of Scotch weather is, however, obvious from the entries in the diary, where “snow,” “snow,” “snow and rain,” “wet day,” “snow, 8 or 9 inches” follow each other with a steady persistency, which justifies the brief entry on 14th March: “Begin to grow desperate--lock up my razors.” At this time Mr Peach and James Geikie were endeavouring to map the Ochils from Kinross as a centre, and Dr Peach informs the writer that the two made strenuous but mostly ineffectual efforts to get on with their outdoor work at a time when rocks and superficial deposits alike were concealed in a thick mantle of snow. Apparently, however, there were some alleviations, for one of the tantalisingly short entries in the diary mentions a “Pisgah view of Ochils,” obtained apparently from Rumbling Bridge; while Dr Peach states that out of working hours the two toiled hard at their German.