To A. C. Ramsay 7 April [1848]
Down Farnborough Kent
April 7th
Dear Ramsay
Would you be so kind as to inform me, as you will probably know, or perhaps would be so good as to look at the Ordnance Maps, what is the height of Moel Tryfan in Carenarvonshire situated in a line nearly between Snowdon & Caernarvon.1 This hill has been repeatedly mentioned, since Mr Trimmers important discovery2 & no two authors give the same height: in my notice on this hill, I give a very much less height than others & I cannot for the life of me remember on what authority, though I know I took some pains to ascertain.3 I shd be very much obliged for an answer pretty soon, if you can so far oblige me.
Yours sincerely | C. Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
‘Ancient glaciers of Caernarvonshire’: Notes on the effects produced by the ancient glaciers of Caernarvonshire, and on the boulders transported by floating ice. By Charles Darwin. Philosophical Magazine 3d ser. 21 (1842): 180–8. [Shorter publications, pp. 140–7.]
Collected papers: The collected papers of Charles Darwin. Edited by Paul H. Barrett. 2 vols. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. 1977.
Murchison, Roderick Impey. 1839. The Silurian system, founded on geological researches in the counties of Salop, Hereford, Radnor, Montgomery, Caermarthen, Brecon, Pembroke, Monmouth, Gloucester, Worcester, and Stafford; with descriptions of the coal-fields and overlying formations. 2 pts. London. [Vols. 4,7]
Trimmer, Joshua. 1831. On the diluvial deposits of Caernarvonshire, between the Snowdon chain of hills and the Menai strait, and on the discovery of marine shells in diluvial sand and gravel on the summit of Moel Tryfane, near Caernarvon, 1000 ft above the level of the sea. [Read 8 June 1831.] Proceedings of the Geological Society of London 1 (1826–33): 331–2. [Vols. 4,9,11]
Summary
Asks ACR to establish height of Moel Tryfan in Caernarvonshire; "in my notice on this hill [""Ancient glaciers of Caernarvonshire"" (1842), Collected papers 1: 163–71] I give a very much less height than others". [See also another mention of the elevation of Moel Tryfan in "On the transportal of erratic boulders" (1848), Collected papers 1: 218–27.]
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-1168
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Andrew Crombie Ramsay
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine Archives
- Physical description
- ALS 2pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 1168,” accessed on 26 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-1168.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 4