This message from across the sea may serve to suggest how much gain came from those years which sometimes seemed to be spent largely in a weary round of drudgery. It is not only in his books that the dead man still speaks to the world. That, in fair weather and in foul, in the prime of manhood and when age was creeping on, Prof. Geikie led successive bands of often raw youths and maidens over those hill-sides, has helped to give them an interest which Nature alone could not give, a charm which untrodden ways can never attain. On those grassy slopes an old man saw visions and young men dreamed dreams, and the dreams and the visions have become a part of our island heritage. In the spring of 1914 Prof. and Mrs Geikie went to stay at Appin. A friend of the family, a keen entomologist, was to have been of the party, but was at the last unable to come. From Appin Prof. Geikie sent her a series of verses to console her for the disappointment, which was not, he says, really a disappointment, for a heavy storm had destroyed all insect life in her customary collecting-grounds. A few of the lines may be quoted:-- O come nae mair to Appin, lass! Here things are at an unco’ pass! A tempest rages o’er the land, Uprootin’ trees on every hand; Cauld rains and sleet in torrents fa’-- The hills are hidden, ane and a’; Naething but waves and clouds we find, Naething we hear but screechin’ wind. Ahint the dykes, wi’ heads downcast, The kye seek shelter frae the blast; Distracted wi’ the wintry weather The sheep are huddled a’ thagether: The birds, puir things, are blawn awa’-- Even the sea-mew and the craw. You needna come to Appin noo The wiley beetle to pursue: Clockers and bugs o’ every kind Are bashed and batter’d by the wind, And kill’d are a’ the chrysalises-- Dear to the heart o’ learned Misses. To Appin also the family returned in summer, after Prof. Geikie’s retirement from the Chair at Edinburgh, and it was there that they got the news of the outbreak of war. Prof. Geikie gave his last lecture at Edinburgh on 19th June, and his successor, a former student of his own, Prof. Jehu of St Andrews, was appointed shortly afterwards.