James Geikie belongs to those who have influenced most my scientific evolution. His clear way of seeing things and his reasoning made a convincing impression on me, and though I never listened to one of his lectures, I felt always to be one of his students. He was my master. His _Great Ice Age_ showed me the ways to understand the glacial deposits of Central Europe: his _Prehistoric Europe_ arose my interest for prehistoric questions: his views on mountains, valleys and lakes gave me the base for my morphological work. He made me also acquainted with English and Scotch, with the life on the other side of the Channel, with English poetry, for he was a poet himself. And now he is dead, and he died in the year of the great war, which breaks the strongest links between our peoples. I am not superstitious and I do not lay stress on this coincidence of facts. I hope what I believe he would hope too, that the struggle of the nations will have one day its end, and that peace will come again which unites the different nations for great scientific works. But while the peoples are still fighting, I must express my heartiest sympathy to my old friend’s wife. Returning to the chronological order of events in Prof. Geikie’s last years, we find that the year 1910 was an unfortunate one, for he had a sharp attack of pneumonia in the spring. From this he made eventually a wonderful recovery, but the process was somewhat slow. Before his illness he had begun the book which was published in 1913 as _Mountains: their Origin, Growth, and Decay_, but his health, and the time it took to collect the beautiful illustrations, delayed its appearance. A letter from his brother, Sir Archibald, in September 1910 to Mrs Geikie speaks of his wonderful recovery, and goes on to say:--“I hope he won’t overtax his strength at College. With so splendid an installation for the Geological Department the temptation to do so must be great. I don’t know of any college or university that is better fitted out for geological teaching than Edinburgh now is.” In this year Prof. Geikie retired from the presidentship of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, and his retiral was the occasion of the presentation of his portrait, painted by Mr A. E. Walton, R.S.A., to the Society, a replica being at the same time given to Mrs Geikie. The ceremony of unveiling took place in the Society’s Rooms on 7th November 1911, when Prof. Geikie’s old friend and colleague, Dr John Horne, gave a short address on the scientific career of the original of the portrait.