Peach & Horne

. . . He tried camp life on wild Ben More,
But the skies shed tears in a solid steady pour.
So he curled up on the floor, and gave a solemn snore,
Till seventeen o’clock in the morning.

The two friends – known to their colleagues as Castor and Pollux, the heavenly twins - worked well together. Horne’s logical mind and writing skills, neatly complementing Peach’s intuitive thought, but his scatter-brained disinterest in putting pen to paper. Their monumental 680 page Memoir published in 1907 was written largely by Horne, but is recognised as one of the finest ever produced, while their Geological map has never been bettered. Their companion volume for southern Scotland was every bit as good.

Both were members of the Inverness Field Club, and John Horne was President for the Club’s Jubilee Year in 1900. Horne went on to become Scottish Director of the Geological Survey from 1901 to 1911, while Peach retired in 1905. In 1930 a cairn was erected outside the Inchnadamph Hotel, on the shore of Loch Assynt, celebrating Peach and Horne’s ‘foremost part in unravelling the geological structure of the North West Highlands’.

The story of Peach and Horne has an important reminder for us today. As in the case of Charles Lapworth and Sir Roderick Murchison, the so called amateur can be right and the professional can be wrong. The study of anything depends on the quality of the study, the observation and the recording, not on the status and reputation of the observer.