Darwin, C. R. to Lyell, Charles
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The flint tools found at Bedford.
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Further discussion of Jamieson's theory of the formation of the roads of Glen Roy by a glacial lake. Comments on formation of Glen Spean terraces. Mentions glaciers in North Wales.
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Agreement with John Murray to publish [Orchids].
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Transcription
Down. | Bromley. | Kent. S.E.
Oct 1
My dear Lyell
Thank you for the most interesting correspondence. What a
wonderful case that of Bedford. I thought the problem sufficiently perplexing before,
but now it beats anything I ever heard of. Far from being able to give any hypothesis
for any part, I cannot get the facts into my mind.— What a capital observer
& reasoner M
What a wonderful case the Bedford case.— Does not the N. American view of warmer or more equable period after great Glacial period become much more probable in Europe?—
But I am very poorly today & very stupid & hate everybody & everything. One lives only to make blunders.— I am going to write a little Book for Murray on orchids & today I hate them worse than everything so farewell & in a sweet frame of mind, I am | Ever yours | C. Darwin
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- f1 3272.f1
Letter from Charles Lyell, 30 September 1861, and, presumably, some correspondence from Thomas Francis Jamieson (see n. 2, below). - +
- f2 3272.f2
Jamieson and Lyell had been corresponding about the glacial phenomena of Scotland, with Lyell forwarding Jamieson's letters on to CD. A major point of the correspondence was Jamieson's argument that the so-called parallel roads of Glen Roy had been formed by glacial lakes rather than by arms of the sea, as CD supposed. See letters to Charles Lyell, [15 September 1861] and 22 September [1861], letter from Charles Lyell, 30 September [1861], and Correspondence vol. 9, Appendix IX. - +
- f3 3272.f3
`Observations on the parallel roads of Glen Roy, and of other parts of Lochaber in Scotland, with an attempt to prove that they are of marine origin' Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, pt 1 (1839): 39--81; Collected papers 1: 89--137. See also Rudwick 1974. - +
- f4 3272.f4
See letter from Charles Lyell, 30 September [1861] and n. 1. - +
- f5 3272.f5
See letter from Charles Lyell, 30 September [1861]. CD believed that the erratic boulders near the summit of Moel Tryfan in North Wales had been transported on floating ice at a time when Moel Tryfan was submerged (see Collected papers 1: 167--9). In his letter to Lyell of 27 September 1861, Jamieson pointed out that CD's explanation of the physical features of Caernarvonshire was inconsistent with his explanation of the formation of the parallel roads of Glen Roy (see Correspondence vol. 9, Appendix IX). For Jamieson's views on the sequence of glaciation, marine submergence, and re-elevation of land in Scotland, see Jamieson 1860a and 1862. - +
- f6 3272.f6
See letter from Charles Lyell, 30 September 1861 and n. 6. - +
- f7 3272.f7
James Dwight Dana had proposed a second, post-glacial warm period in North America on the basis of certain fossil remains uncovered in post-Pliocene deposits. Assuming a migration of northern plant species both before and after the worldwide cold period, Asa Gray had adopted this view to help account for the general similarity of European and American floras (A. Gray 1859). For the discussion of this point in CD's correspondence, see Correspondence vol. 7, letters to J. D. Hooker, 11 May [1859], and to Asa Gray, 11 November [1859] and 24 December [1859]. - +
- f8 3272.f8
John Murray published Orchids in May 1862.