He became a fellow of the Geological Society of London in 1831. In 1835 he made a geological tour of the Levant with Hugh Edwin Strickland, continuing on his own through Armenia and across Asia Minor. This journey was described in Researches in Asia Minor, Pontus, and Armenia (1842). Hamilton was the first known person to have successfully climbed Mount Erciyes.
He made excursions in France and Belgium and wrote on the rocks and minerals of Tuscany, the agate quarries of Oberstein, and on the geology of the Mayence basin and the Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel) district.[8]
Personal life
On 26 April 1832, Hamilton married Martin Trotter, a daughter of John Trotter. Before her death in March 1833, they had a son:[4]
Robert William Hamilton (1833–1883), who married Charlotte Maria Palmer, a daughter of Lt.-Col. George Palmer.[4]
^"Death of Distinguished Fifeshire Veteran". Dundee Courier. 7 October 1890. p. 3.
^London Lady's Newspaper & Pictorial Times, 16 June 1860
^ abcdefghG.E. Cokayne; with Vicary Gibbs, H.A. Doubleday, Geoffrey H. White, Duncan Warrand and Lord Howard de Walden, editors, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, new ed., 13 volumes in 14 (1910-1959; reprint in 6 volumes, Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, 2000), volume II, page 95.
^ abPeter W. Hammond, editor, The Complete Peerage or a History of the House of Lords and All its Members From the Earliest Times, Volume XIV: Addenda & Corrigenda (Stroud, Gloucestershire, U.K.: Sutton Publishing, 1998), page 82