Notwithstanding this somewhat gloomy retrospect, there were still a few able men in Scotland, who continued to hold aloft the torch of geological progress. The illustrious Principal Forbes himself was widely known to the geological world for his researches on the glaciers of the Alps and of Norway, and on Earth-temperature. As one saw him in the street or in the class-room, he looked singularly fragile, and it was not easy to realise how such a seemingly frail body could have undergone the physical exertion required for his notable Alpine ascents. His tall spare figure might be seen striding from the University to the rooms of the Royal Society, of which for many years he was the active Secretary. His clear brown eyes wore a wistful expression, and his pale face and sunken cheeks showed how his well-chiselled features had been preyed on by serious illness. Round his long neck he always wore one of the large neckcloths then in vogue, and above this, when out of doors, he carried a thick muffler, from under which, as one passed him, one might hear now and then the cough that told of the malady from which he was suffering. In his own house, especially when showing some of the beautifully artistic water-colour drawings which he had made in the course of his wanderings, the thin, white, almost transparent, hands told the same tale of suffering. And yet, in spite of all these visible signs of increasing bodily feebleness, his mind remained to the last clear and bright, his memory, even for minute details, perfect, his interest in men and things, more particularly in scientific progress, as keen as ever, and his kindly helpfulness to those whom he could assist as prompt and effective as of old. He was one of the most beautiful and interesting personalities whom I have ever known. [Sidenote: SCOTTISH GEOLOGISTS] Two of the ablest resident Scottish geologists were editors of leading Edinburgh newspapers--Charles Maclaren and Hugh Miller--and to both of them science was the recreation of such leisure hours as they could snatch from literary labour and political controversy. Maclaren was the founder, and for a quarter of a century, editor of the _Scotsman_, from which, as far back as 1845, he had retired to spend his later years in a delightful retreat on the southern outskirts of Edinburgh. His editorial task had been relieved by many a pleasant geological excursion among the rocks around that city, and he had worked out the volcanic history of the district with a minuteness, accuracy, and breadth of view which no one had attempted before him. After passing the results of his researches through the columns of his newspaper, he collected them into a small volume entitled _Geology of Fife and the Lothians_, which, though little known to the general reader, has long ago taken its place among the classics of Scottish geology.