To Charles Lyell [23 January 1847]1
[Down]
Saturday
My dear Lyell
Would you be so good, (if you know it) as to put Maclaren’s address on the enclosed letter & post it.2 It is chiefly to enquire in what paper he has described the Boulders on Arthur’s Seat.—3 Mr D. Milne in the last Edin. New Phil. Journal has a long paper on it; he says “some glacialists have ventured to explain the transportation of boulders, even in the situation of those now referred to, by imagining that they were transported on ice-flows”4 &c He treats this view & the scratching of rocks by icebergs as almost absurd; he makes some most foolish remarks, & he has finally stirred me up so, that (without you wd. answer him) I think I will send a paper in opposition to the same Journal.—5 I can thus introduce some old remarks of mine & some new & will insist on your capital observation in N. America.—6 It is a bore to stop one’s work,7 but he has made me quite wrath.—
I have been delighted by finding in the New. Eding. a short letter from Studer to Forbes,8 saying that he has proved the layers in gneiss have nothing to do with stratification in the Alps.— I think this one of the newest things in my Book—but Studer does not guess that this foliation of the gneiss, mica-slate &c, is only much developed cleavage.9 Would you tell Mr. Horner of this; for he asked me what I thought new in my volume with respect to his Address shd he chance to introduce this subject.10 & I pointed out this subject & here are my conclusions, to a certain extent, arrived at quite independently.
You cannot think how much I enjoyed your visit here;11 I don’t believe you could have lost much time, so I heartily hope we shall see you here early next summer
With kindest remembrances to Mrs Lyell. Ever Yours | C. Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Collected papers: The collected papers of Charles Darwin. Edited by Paul H. Barrett. 2 vols. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. 1977.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Horner, Leonard. 1847. Anniversary address of the president. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London 3: xxii-xc.
Maclaren, Charles. 1839. A sketch of the geology of Fife and the Lothians, including detailed descriptions of Arthur’s Seat and Pentland Hills. Edinburgh and London: Adam and Charles Black.
South America: Geological observations on South America. Being the third part of the geology of the voyage of the Beagle, under the command of Capt. FitzRoy RN, during the years 1832 to 1836. By Charles Darwin. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1846.
Summary
Asks CL to address a letter to Charles Maclaren.
Discusses recent publication by David Milne on erratic boulders [Edinburgh New Philos. J. 42 (1847): 154–172].
Views of Bernhard Studer on foliation of gneiss in the Alps. Asks CL to tell Leonard Horner of Studer’s views.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-1051
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.65)
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp & C
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 1051,” accessed on 16 August 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-1051.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 4