To A. C. Ramsay [26 June 1859]1
Down Bromley Kent
Sunday Night
Dear Ramsay
I have just finished your little Book2 with great interest.
Your description of the Snowdonian Glaciers3 is most vivid & how it does make me long to wander once again over mountains, which I suppose I shall never be able to do.— But the object of my writing is to beg you to take the trouble to inform me on what authority you state that Drift lies on plains of Siberia & penetrates the valleys of the Altai.4 I had thought there were no erratic boulders in Siberia. Who describes the drift, & where? Will you kindly inform me as this point greatly interests me.—5
Your view of the Lakes in Wales from Glacial action is quite new to me.6
Dear Ramsay | Yours very sincerely | C. Darwin
I wish to Heaven you would sometime examine Glen Roy & settle origin of parallel Roads; I shd. die easier, if I knew what was the right view, whether I be quite wrong or right.—7 You have paid me a superb compliment about glacial action in N. Wales!8
I look back to that little tour with profound interest. I saw facing Capel Curig9 some fine cases of erratic boulders on ledges on side of mountain, which, I think, is more remarkable than even the perched boulders.
P.S. | Now that I am writing will you let me ask you one more question.
Is it certain that traces of organic remains have been found in the Longmynd Beds?10
And secondly is it (as I suppose) certain that these Beds are lower than Barrande’s primodial zone?11
I have heard the traces of remains in the Longmynd beds so doubted & disputed that I cannot remember what is the final conclusion.—
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.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Ramsay, Andrew Crombie. 1860. The old glaciers of Switzerland and North Wales. London. [Vols. 7,9]
Rudwick, Martin John Spencer. 1974. Darwin and Glen Roy: a ‘great failure’ in scientific method? Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 5 (1974–5): 97–185.
Secord, James Andrew. 1986. Controversy in Victorian geology: the Cambrian–Silurian dispute. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Summary
Has finished ACR’s article ["The old glaciers of Switzerland and N. Wales" in Peaks, passes, and glaciers, ed. J. Ball (1859)]. Asks the authority for glacial drifts in Siberia. Wishes ACR would examine the Glen Roy parallel roads and settle the problem.
Asks if it is certain that traces of organic remains have been found in Long Mynd beds.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-2842
- 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 6pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 2842,” accessed on 14 December 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-2842.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 7