From Daniel Mackintosh 14 October 1879
Whitford Road, | Tranmere, | Birkenhead,
14th Oct. 1879.
Dear Sir,—
I can scarcely find words to express the extent to which I have been gratified by the opinion you have formed of my labours.1 It is to you that I owe the circumstance of my having made a special subject of boulders. As early as 1843 I lectured in different English towns on your discoveries in the southern part of S. America, illustrating the subject by modelling a heap of sand, with salt to represent ice.2 I believe Sir James Hall briefly suggested floating ice as a means of transporting stones, but you were the first to discover and explain the precise mode in which the process of transportation, from its commencement to its termination, was effected.3 My recent paper in the Quarterly Journ. Geol. Soc. was partly the outcome of a small pecuniary grant from the Government Committee of the Royal Society, which I spent in railway expenses. The Committee will be able to see most of the results in the paper (a part has not yet been published) but I cannot help wishing that you would allow me to let the secretaries know the opinion you have expressed of my labours when I next communicate with them.4 Should you have no objections to this you need not take the trouble to write again.
With many thanks, | I am, Dear Sir, | Your faithful Servant, | D. Mackintosh. | Lecturer on Physical Geography, Liverpool College.
P.S. I was very much interested by your statement about the Ashley Heath boulder. I fancy it must have gone from some of the mountains surrounding Ennerdale, Cumberland.5
Footnotes
Bibliography
Hall, James. 1812. On the revolutions of the earth’s surface. [Read 16 March and 8 June 1812.] Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 7 (1812–15): 139–211.
Mackintosh, Daniel. 1879. Results of a systematic survey, in 1878, of the directions and limits of dispersion, mode of occurrence, and relation to drift-deposits of the erratic blocks or boulders of the West of England and east of Wales, including a revision of many years’ previous observations. [Read 26 March 1879.] Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London 35: 425–55.
Mackintosh, Daniel. 1880. On the correlation of the drift-deposits of the north-west of England with those of the midland and eastern counties. [Read 7 January 1880.] Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London 36: 178–88.
Mills, William. 1983. Darwin and the iceberg theory. Notes and Records of the Royal Society 38: 109–27.
Summary
DM is highly gratified by CD’s opinion of his labours on boulders [see 12252]. He owes his start on this subject to CD. Since 1843 he has supported CD’s views on transportation of boulders by ice.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-12257
- From
- Daniel Mackintosh
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Tranmere
- Source of text
- DAR 171: 8
- Physical description
- ALS 2pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 12257,” accessed on 1 September 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-12257.xml