To T. M. Reade 9 December 1880
[6 Queen Anne Street,] London
Dec. 9th 1880
My dear Sir
I am sorry to say that I do not return home till middle of next week, & as I order no pamphlets to be forwarded to me by post, I cannot return the Geolog. Mag. until my return home.—1 Nor could my servants pick it out of the multitude which come by the Post. As I remarked in a letter to a friend, with whom I was discussing Wallace’s last book, the subject to which you refer seems to me a most perplexing one.2 The fact which I pointed out many years ago that all Oceanic islds are volcanic (except St. Paul’s, & now this is viewed by some as the nucleus of an ancient volcano) seems to me a strong argument that no continent ever occupied the great oceans.— Then there comes the statement from the Challenger that all sediment is deposited within 1 or 200 miles from the shores; though I shd. have thought this rather doubtful with respect to great rivers like the Amazons.—3
The Chalk formerly seemed to me best case of an Ocean having extended where a continent now stands, but it seems that some good judges deny that the chalk is an oceanic deposit.4 On the whole I lean to the side that continents have since Cambrian times occupied, approximately, their present positions.5 But as I have said the question seems a difficult one, & the more it is discussed the better.
Believe me | My dear Sir | Yours faithfully | Ch. Darwin
P.S. I have been compelled to write this note in haste—
Footnotes
Bibliography
‘Beagle’ diary: Charles Darwin’s Beagle diary. Edited by Richard Darwin Keynes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1988.
Murray, John. 1876. Preliminary report on specimens of the sea-bottoms obtained in the soundings, dredgings, and trawlings of H.M.S. ‘Challenger’, in the years 1873–75, between England and Valparaiso. [Read 16 March 1876.] Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 24 (1875–6): 471–532.
Origin 6th ed.: The origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. 6th edition, with additions and corrections. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1872.
Volcanic islands: Geological observations on the volcanic islands, visited during the voyage of HMS Beagle, together with some brief notices on the geology of Australia and the Cape of Good Hope. Being the second part of the geology of the voyage of the Beagle, under the command of Capt. FitzRoy RN, during the years 1832 to 1836. By Charles Darwin. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1844.
Wallace, Alfred Russel. 1880a. Island life: or, the phenomena and causes of insular faunas and floras, including a revision and attempted solution of the problem of geological climates. London: Macmillan.
Summary
Comments on TMR’s "Oceanic islands" [Geol. Mag. 8 (1881): 75–7]. Fact that oceanic islands are all volcanic argues for view that no continent ever occupied the oceans. Chalk seemed best evidence of ocean having existed where continent now stands. CD leans to view that continents have occupied present positions since Cambrian.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-12901
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Thomas Mellard Reade
- Sent from
- London
- Source of text
- University of Liverpool Library (TMR1.D.7.7)
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 12901,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-12901.xml