To G. G. Stokes 28 April 1878
Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.
April 28th 1878
Sir
I cannot venture to express any decided opinion whether Prof. Haughton’s paper is worth publishing in the Proceedings.1 It is desirable that geologists, who are now freely speculating about the displacement of the Poles, should see that if this be granted the presence of tropical & sub-tropical remains in the Arctic regions is not thus easily explained; & in so far Prof. Haughtons paper might be advantageously published. On the other hand the estimation of geological time is to the best of my judgment extremely wild: it is assumed that we have discovered the oldest sedimentary beds containing fossils: no allowance is made for great breaks in the series, as between the Cretaceous & Tertiary formations: towards the close of the paper it apparently is assumed that sediment is deposited over the bed of the whole Ocean; & various other objections could be raised. The conclusion which follows from his estimate, namely that a greater interval of time separates us from the miocene epoch than that between the commencement of the Secondary period & the miocene, seems almost monstrous, & is strongly opposed by other evidence.—2
I cannot but doubt whether this part of the paper is worth printing; though as a general rule it seems to me desirable that the views of an author who has studied any subject should be judged by the general public
Sir | Your obedient servt | Ch. Darwin
To the Sec. | R. Society
P.S. | On still further reflexion, so many objections & difficulties arise, which if they could be answered, anyhow are not noticed in the paper, that I am inclined to advise that the paper shd not be published in its present form. The subject seems to require much fuller elaboration.—
C.D.
Footnotes
Bibliography
Burchfield, Joe D. 1990. Lord Kelvin and the age of the earth. With a new afterword. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Summary
Gives a referee’s report on Samuel Haughton’s paper ["Notes on physical geology, no. IV", read 4 Apr 1878; published as "Physical geology", Nature 18 (1878): 266–8]. Believes his estimate of geological time is extremely wild. The conclusion that the interval of time separating the Miocene from the present is greater than that between the commencement of the Secondary period and the Miocene "seems almost monstrous". Recommends the paper not be published in the Proceedings.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-11488
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- George Gabriel Stokes, 1st baronet
- Sent from
- Bassett Down letterhead
- Source of text
- The Royal Society (RR8:107)
- Physical description
- ALS 5pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 11488,” accessed on 1 September 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-11488.xml