SIR

See also:

• ARCHIBALD, 5TH EARL OF DOUGLAS (c. 1391–1439)

ARCHIBALD

See also:

• GEIKIE
• GEIKIE, JAMES (1839- )
• SIR ARCHIBALD GEIKIE (1835- )

GEIKIE (1835- )  , Scottish geologist, was born at Edinburgh on the 28th of December 1835 . He was educated at the high school and university of Edinburgh, and in 1855 was appointed an assistant on the Geological Survey . Wielding the pen with no less facility than the 'hammer, .he inaugurated his long list of works with The Story of a Boulder; or, Gleanings from the Note-Book of a Geologist (1858) .. His ability at once attracted the notice of his chief, Sir Roderick Murchison, with whom he formed a lifelong friendship, and whose biographer he subsequently became . With Murchison some of his earliest work was done on the complicated regions of the Highland schists; and the small geological map of Scotland published in 1862, was their joint work: a larger map was issued by Geikie in 1892 . In 1863 he published an important essay " On the Phenomena of the Glacial Drift of Scotland," Trans . Geol . Soc . Glasgow, in which the effects of ice action in that country were for the first time clearly and connectedly delineated . In 1865 appeared Geikie's Scenery of Scotland (3rd edition, 1901), which was, he claimed, " the first attempt to elucidate in some detail the history of the topography of a country." In the same year he was elected F.R . S . At this time the Edinburgh school of geologists—prominent among them Sir Andrew Ramsay, with his Physical Geology and Geography of Great Britain—were maintaining the supreme importance of denudation in the configuration of land-surfaces, and particularly the erosion of valleys by the action of running water .

Geikie's book, based on extensive

personal knowledge of the country, was an able contribution to the doctrines of the Edinburgh school, of which he himself soon began to rank as one of the leaders . In 1867, when a separate branch of the Geological Survey was established for Scotland, he was appointed director . On the foundation of the Murchison professorship of geology and mineralogy at the university of Edinburgh in 1871, he became the first occupant of the chair . These two appointments he continued to hold till 1881, when he succeeded Sir Andrew Ramsay in the joint offices of director-general of the Geological Survey of the United Kingdom and director of the museum of practical geology, London, from which he retired in February 19o1 . A feature of his tenure of office was the impetus given to microscopic petrography, a branch of geology to which he had devoted special study, by a splendid collection of sections _ of British rocks . Later he wrote two important and interesting Survey Memoirs, The Geology of Central and Western Fife, and Kinross (1900), and The Geology of Eastern Fife (1902) . From the outset of his career, when he started to investigate the geology of Skye and other of the Western Isles, he took a keen interest in volcanic geology, and in 1871 he brought before the Geological Society of London an outline of the Tertiary volcanic history of Britain . Many difficult problems, however, remained to be solved . Here he was greatly aided by his extensive travels, not only throughout Europe, but in western America . While the canyons of the Colorado confirmed his long-standing views on erosion, the eruptive regions of Wyoming, Montana and Utah supplied him with valuable data in explanation of volcanic phenomena . The results of his further researches were given in an elaborate and charmingly written essay on " The History of Volcanic Action during the Tertiary Period in the British Isles," Trans . Roy, Soc .

Edin., (1888) . His mature views on volcanic geology were given to the

world in his presidential addresses to the Geological Society in 1891 and 1892. and afterwards embodied in his great work on The Ancient Volcanoes of Great Britain (1897) . Other results of his travels are collected in his Geological Sketches at Home and Abroad (1882) . His experience as a field geologist resulted in an admirable text-book, Outlines of Field Geology (5th edition, 'goo) . After editing and practically re-writing Jukes's Student's Manual: of Geology in 1872, he published in 1882.a Text-Book and in 1886 `a Class-Book of geology, which have taken rank as standard works of their kind . A fourth edition of his Text-Book, in two vols., was He was educated at the university of Upsala, where in 1803 he carried off the Swedish Academy's great prize for his Areminne Over Sten Shure den aldre . He graduated in 18o6, and in 18xo returned from a year's residence in England to become docent in his university . Soon afterwards he accepted a post in the public record office at Stockholm, where, with some friends, he founded the " Gothic Society," to whose organ Iduna he contributed a number of prose essays and the songs Manhem, Vikingen, Den siste kampen, Den siste skalden, Odalbonden, Kolargossen, which he set to music . About the same time he issued a volume of hymns, of which several are inserted in the Swedish Psalter . Geijer's lyric muse was soon after silenced by his call to be assistant to Erik Michael Fant, professor of history at Upsala, whom he succeeded in 1817 . In 1824 he was elected a member of the Swedish Academy . A single volume of a great projected. work, Svea Rikes Hafdcr, itself a masterly critical examination of the sources of Sweden's legendary history, appeared in 1825 .

Geijer's researches in its preparation had severely strained his

health, and he went the same year on a tour through Denmark and part of Germany, his impressions from which are recorded in his Minnen . In 1832-1836 he published three volumes of his Svenska folkets historia (Eng. trans. by J . H . Turner, 1845), a clear view of the political and social development of Sweden down to 1654 . The acute critical insight, just thought, and finished historical art of these incomplete works of Geijer entitle him to the first place among Swedish historians . His chief other historical and political writings are his Teckning af Sveriges hillstdnd 1718—1772 (Stockholm, 1838), and Feodalism och republikanism, ett bidrag till Samhallsf orfaltningens historia (1844), which led to a controversy with the historian Anders Fryxell regarding the part played in history by the Swedish aristocracy . Geijer also edited, with the aid of J . H . Schroder, a continuation of Fant's Scriptores rerum svecicarum medii aevi (1818-1828), and, by himself, Thomas Thorild's.Samlade skrifter 0819-1825), and Konung Gustaf III.'s efterlemnade Popper (4 vols., 1843-1846) . Geijer's academic lectures, of which the last three, published in 1845 under the title Om var Lids inre samhdllsforMllanden, i synnerhet med afseende pd Faderneslandet, involved him in another controversy with Fryxell, but exercised a great influence over his students, who especially testified to their attachment after the failure of a prosecution against him for heresy . A number of his extempore lectures, recovered from notes, were published in 1856 . He also wrote a life of Charles XIV .

(Stockholm, 1844) . Failing health forced Geijer to resign his chair in 1846, after which he removed to Stockholm for the purpose of completing his Svenska folkets historia, and died there on the 23rd of

April 1847 . His Samlade skrifter (13 vols., 1849-1855; new ed., 1873-1877) include a large number of philosophical and political essays contributed to reviews, particularly to Litteraturbladet (1838-1839), a periodical edited by. himself, which attracted great attention in its day by its pronounced liberal views on public questions, a striking contrast to those he had defended in 1828-183o, when, as again in 1840—1841, he represented Upsala University in the Swedish diet . His poems were collected and published as Skaldestycken (Upsala, 1835 and 1878) . Geijer's style is strong and manly . His genius bursts out in sudden flashes that light up the dark corners of history . A few strokes, and a personality stands before us instinct with life . His language is at once the scholar's and the poet's; with his profoundest thought there beats in unison the warmest, the noblest, the most patriotic heart . Geijer came to the writing of history fresh from researches in the whole field of Scandinavian antiquity, researches whose first-fruits are garnered in numerous articles in Iduna, and his masterly treatise Om den gamla nordiskg folkvisan, prefixed to the collection of Svenska folkvisor which he . edited with A . A . Afzelius (3 vols.,1814-1816) . The development of freedom is the idea that' gives' unity to all his historical writings .

For Geijer's

biography, see his own Minnen (1834), which contains copious extracts from his letters and diaries; B . E . Malmstrom, Minnestal ofver E . G . Geijer, addressed to the Upsala students (June 6, 1848), and printed among his Tal och esthetiska afhandlingar (1868), 'and Grunddragen af Svenska vitterhetens hafder (1866-1868); issued in 1903 . His writings are marked in a high degree by charm of style and power of vivid description . His literary ability has given him peculiar qualifications as a writer of scientific biography, and the Memoir of Edward Forbes (with G . Wilson), and those of his old chiefs, SirR.I . Murchison (2 VOlS., 1875) and Sir Andrew Crombie Ramsay (1895), are models of what such works should be . His Founders of Geology consists of the inaugural course of Lectures (founded by Mrs G . H . Williams) at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, delivered in 1897 .

In 1897 he issued an admirable Geological Map of England and

Wales, with Descriptive Notes . In 1898 he delivered the Romanes Lectures, and his address was published under the title of Types of Scenery and their Influence on Literature . The study of geography owes its improved position in Great Britain largely to his efforts . Among his works on this subject is The Teaching of Geography (1887) . His Scottish Reminiscences (1904) and Landscape in History and other Essays (1905) are charmingly written and full of instruction . He was foreign secretary of the Royal Society from ago to 1894, joint secretary from 1903 to 1908, president in 1909, president of the Geological Society in 1891 and 1892, and president of the British Association, 1892 . He received the honour of knighthood in 1891 .