From Andrew Crombie Ramsay 17 February 1862
Jermyn St
17 Feby 1862
My dear Sir
I have a paper coming on at the Geol: Soc: on Wednesday the 26th. which I will tell you the subject of, as it will interest you, though I do not expect you will be able to attend.1 I am going to prove (I believe) that all the lake basins of the Alps have been scooped out by glacier ice. After two re-examinations of the country, with Lyell I have come to the conclusion that the old glaciers did extend as far as the Jura on the North, & quite into the Plains of Lombardy & Piedmont on the South.2 The vast moraines of Ivrea &c completely prove the latter.
Further both in America & Europe the number of lakes (true rock basins) increase in number just in proportion as the country has been glaciated, & therefore I apply my theory to glaciated regions in the widest sense, showing, I conceive, that nothing but a solid such as ice could scoope out deep true rock-basins.
Of course I also allow special areas of subsidence, but these are not what I deal with. North of the St Lawrence you would require them every few miles & of all sizes from a few yards in diameter, which is I think impossible.
Ever truly | Andw C Ramsay
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Summary
In his paper for Geological Society ["Glacial origin of certain lakes", Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 18 (1862): 185–204] he will prove that all the lake-basins of the Alps were scooped out by glaciers.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-3450
- From
- Andrew Crombie Ramsay
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- London, Jermyn St
- Source of text
- DAR 176: 8
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 3450,” accessed on 26 September 2022, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-3450.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 10