It is certainly a pity that the men who can work and would fain devote themselves to original investigation, are often prevented doing so by the necessities of life. I am not so sure, however, that some of them would do work if they were placed in an independent position.... I’m much afraid that man on the whole is a lazy beast, and needs some kind of whip or bribe to make him live laborious days. During the course of 1900 Prof. Geikie had a pretty compliment paid to him from across the Atlantic. On his first journey across he made the acquaintance of Mr Louis Elson, a professor of music at Boston. The friendship so begun was kept up in later years, and Mr Elson dedicated one of his books, _Shakespeare in Music_, to “Prof. James Geikie, LL.D., D.C.L., of Edinburgh University, with cordial remembrance of many pleasant conferences on this and kindred topics.” Another American recognition of his work was the naming by the U.S. Geological Survey of Mount Geikie, in the Wind River range of the Rocky Mountains in Wyoming, in his honour. The mountain reaches a height of 12,546 feet. The information has been kindly supplied by Mr J. G. Bruce of the Forest Service, Lander, Wyoming. In the spring of this year Prof. Geikie made a tour with a friend to the Pyrenees, a tour which made a great impression upon him, and seems to have been an unqualified success. Some charming letters to his wife describe incidents of the journey, the letters, like all similar family correspondence, being full of regrets that no members of his own household accompanied him. Though the visit was made very early in the season, in the month of April, and the snow still lay deep in the high valleys, the weather was almost perfect, and the two friends took many long excursions. Among these was one to St Bertrand de Cominges, which attracted Prof. Geikie strongly. In a letter written from Luchon to Mrs Geikie in regard to it he says:--