Abstract
THE decade which closes this year will remain a memorable one in the annals of geology for the great names which appear in its obituary. Not a few of the early leaders, to whom it was possible to master fully every department of the infant science and to strike out into new untrodden paths in almost any direction, have lived on to witness the vast development of the studies which they did so much to foster. In this country we have lost only lately Murchison, Sedgwick, Lyell, Phillips, Scrope, whom we early learnt to reverence as demi-gods of the heroic age. And now to these names another falls to be added which, though not that of a Briton, has long been a household word among the geologists of this country. The veteran Ami Boué has just passed away. Ripe in years and universally honoured, he has remained perched on his beloved mountain slopes like a boulder stranded above the reach of the all-devouring sea. But the tide of mortality has at last swept him away, and has thus broken one of the most interesting ties that bound us to the early days of geology. Having for many years enjoyed the privilege of his friendship and having heard from his own lips many of the incidents of his life, I am able to give here a few personal reminiscences which may be of general interest at the present time, without at present attempting to offer any summary or review of the scientific work of his life. It is much to be desired that his own notices of his life should be published. His early wandering years were especially eventful, and their history is intimately bound up with that of the science which he cultivated with so much ardour.
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GEIKIE, A. Ami Boue . Nature 25, 109–111 (1881). https://doi.org/10.1038/025109a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/025109a0
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