To Andrew Crombie Ramsay 9 April [1853]
Down Farnborough Kent
Ap. 9th.
Dear Ramsay
I feel so much interest on the subject of foliation & cleavage, & I was so much interested & pleased at your few remarks on the Duke of Argyle’s paper,1 that you must let me send you a few lines. As I was compelled to leave, I do not know whether you read your own paper;2 but before you do so or publish, will you oblige me by running your eye again (if ever read) over my remarks p. 162–168 in my Geological volume on S. America & especially p. 167, in which I say that as in some case the foliation supervenes on cleavage “so, perhaps, in some instances, the foliation of a rock may have been determined by the original planes of deposition or of oblique current laminæ”. It now seems you have found such instances:3 indeed I once saw one but so wretched & doubtful an example that I did not think it worth notice.
Please observe that I have shown some (probably not enough) caution in other places in speaking of foliation (as not resulting from the planes of deposition) as confined to the cases of the large areas examined by me. That foliation can supervene without preexisting cleavage or stratification, I must still think (p. 167 of my volume) from the “grain” of some certainly plutonic rocks, which are passing into gneiss.— I remember being on the point of coming to your conclusion as far as I heard it, (always perhaps giving too much importance to cleavage over stratification), when I thought of the facts of the “grain” &c in plutonic rocks.
I have fought so many battles vivâ voce, with Sir C. Lyell,4 that I have my pluck up on the subject, so do read over the above passages in my volume, & forgive me for troubling you.
Very sincerely your’s | Charles Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Campbell, George Douglas. 1853. On the granitic district of Inverary, Argyllshire. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London 9: 360–6.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Ramsay, Andrew Crombie. 1853. On the physical structure and succession of some of the lower Palæozoic rocks of North Wales and part of Shropshire. With notes on the fossils, by J. W. Salter. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London 9: 161–79.
Summary
Discusses geological foliation and cleavage. Urges ACR to read CD’s remarks on subject in his South America before ACR publishes his paper ["On the lower Palaeozoic rocks", Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 9 (1853): 161–79].
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-1512
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Andrew Crombie Ramsay
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.106)
- Physical description
- ALS 5pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 1512,” accessed on 29 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-1512.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 5