After obtaining his degree Hutton returned to London. But come mid 1750, he went back to Edinburgh and resumed chemical experiments with his close friend, James Davie. Hutton developed an interest in meteorology and geology. In a letter he wrote in 1753 he said that he had “become very fond of studying the surface of the earth, and was looking with anxious curiosity into every pit or ditch or bed of river the fell his way”

His theoretical ideas began to come together in 1760. Come 1764 James had an opportunity to go on a geological tour of the north of Scotland with George Maxwell-Clerk, ancestor of the famous James Clerk Maxwell.