The following year, 1866, found him still in Ayrshire. Little record of it is left, beyond the tale of work, and the publication of his first scientific paper. By this time he had moved to the north of Ayrshire, where he was also in the following year. This year, 1867, witnessed the appearance of his first glacial paper, this being “On the Buried Forests and Peat Mosses of Scotland, and the Changes of Climate which they indicate,” a subject which was to engage his attention more or less closely for the remainder of his life. His spare time was still occupied with the translations, many examples of which occur in his letters to his sisters. Occasionally his muse took less serious forms, as may be seen from the lines given on next page, which appear in a letter much of which is taken up with translations from “that lugubrious poet in whose stanzas the word _weinen_ is rarely omitted--it may be sweetly rendered by the English whining.” The lines mentioned follow some criticisms of the habits of the inhabitants of an Ayrshire town, where the society, in James Geikie’s words, was “eminently peeous and drouthie.” The lines are as follows:-- Takin’ toddy a’ the week, Comes the Sabbath day, Then to Kirk three times they gang, And sleep the fumes away. In the same letter he complains that in this particular town the invariable question put to you by strangers whose acquaintance you make is, “What church do you attend?” He adds that he had not acquired the reputation of a regular church-goer, so that one suspects that something less than the three times a day had to suffice in his case. From this period probably dates an anecdote which he used to tell himself of a somewhat unfortunate visit to a place of worship where, tired out by his week’s work in the open air, and not perhaps greatly interested in the discourse, he fell asleep so soundly as ultimately to fall out of the pew--at the end of which he was sitting--headlong into the aisle. He had the presence of mind to remain there with his eyes closed, and was carried out by sympathetic acquaintances, who thought he had been suddenly overtaken by serious illness. But when the feet of the young men were already at the door, the apparently unconscious patient opened his eyes and winked at one of his friends to indicate that the fate of Eutychus had not overtaken him on this occasion. The bearer opposite, with an innocence which did credit to his piety, had not thought of the obvious explanation of the accident, and in his astonishment nearly dropped his burden. History does not, unfortunately, tell whether his loyalty enabled him to keep the matter to himself and so preserve his friend’s reputation. For these, it must be remembered, were days when a geologist invariably ran the risk of being suspected of “unsoundness,” by the mere fact of his occupation, and was, therefore, one for whom jesting on the threshold of a church was particularly dangerous.