My dear Sir

Allow me to thank you sincerely for your kind and prompt reply to my begging letter, and for the highly favourable opinion you are good enough to express.¹

Possibly I may not go on with my candidature in the event of the South Kensington authorities offering me the vacant post of Director of the Geological Survey in Scotland. But as I do not know what their intentions are, and as several candidates are already working for the Chair, my friends urged me at once to go in for the latter, in case I should be passed over in the matter of the Directorship. Either post is a desirable object of ambition to a Scotchman, and if I have any preference for the Directorship, it is simply because the work is what I have been used to for 20 years, and because in that post I should be better able to carry on those investigations in which I chiefly delight.²

Again thanking you most cordially for your kindness | I am with highest regards | Yours very faithfully | James Geikie