To Daniel Mackintosh 13 November 1880
Down. | Beckenham Kent. &c.
Nov. 13. 1880.
Dear Sir.
Your discovery is a very interesting one & I congratulate you on it.1 I failed to find Shells on Moel Tryfan, but was interested by finding (Philosoph Mag. 3rd. Series— Vol XXI p. 184) shattered rocks & far distant rounded boulders, which I attributed to the violent impact of icebergs or coast-ice—2 I can offer no opinion on whether the more recent changes of level in England were or were not accompanied by earthquakes.— It does not seem to me a correct expression (which you use probably from haste in in your note) to speak of elevations or depressions as caused by earthquakes;— I suppose that everyone admits that an earthquake is merely the vibration from the fractured crust when it yields to an upward or downward force— I must confess that of late years I have often begun to suspect (Especially when I think of the step-like plains of Patagonia, the heights of which were measured by me). that many of the changes of level in the land are due to changes of level in the sea.3 I suppose that there can be no doubt that when there was much ice piled up in the Arctic Regions the sea would be attracted to them, and the land on the temperate regions would thus appear to have risen There would also be some lowering of the sea by evaporation and the fixing of the water as ice near the Pole—
I shall read your paper with much interest when published | & remain | Dear Sir. | Yours faithfully. | Ch. 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.]
Mackintosh, Daniel. 1881. On the precise mode of accumulation and derivation of the Moel-Tryfan shelly deposits; on the discovery of similar high-level deposits along the eastern slopes of the Welsh mountains; and on the existence of drift-zones, showing probable variations in the rate of submergence. [Read 27 April 1881.] Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London 37: 351–69.
Summary
Comments on DM’s ["The Moel-Tryfan shelly deposits", Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 37 (1881): 351–69].
Comments on cause of earthquakes.
Believes formation of ice lowered level of sea.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-12812
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Daniel Mackintosh
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- DAR 146: 334
- Physical description
- C 2pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 12812,” accessed on 19 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-12812.xml