To G. H. Darwin 2 May [1876]1
6. Q. Anne St
May 2d
My dear George
I am very glad indeed that you have come to such a point in your work, as to get a little rest to your mind.— I do not think any geologist wd. be shocked at your assumption of 1 foot of elevation per century, or at your table land, as I believe the plateau of Mexico is 10,000 & a large area of Thibet fully that much.—2 I do not know whether it wd. make calculations easier, but seeing how commonly deep sea comes close up to the higher sides of continents, you might make your elevated area abruptly separated from your depressed area.— You are aware that, as Lyell has shown, the world can be divided so that almost all the land lies in one hemisphere & all the water in the other.3 I suppose the mean height of all the land might be assumed to be 1000 ft & the depth of all the ocean at 2000 fathoms. & it wd not be difficult to estimate the difference in specific gravity of rock & water. What a curious problem (but I suppose very difficult) it wd be to ascertain what the effect wd. be of reversing the present positions of land & water.
I think that as in your Cousin paper,4 it will be of considerable importance to geologists &c & to know that the gradual elevation cannot cause any great change of climate
Ever your affect | C. Darwin
It will be very interesting to know what Adams thinks of your method.5
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Lyell, Charles. 1872. Principles of geology or the modern changes of the earth and its inhabitants considered as illustrative of geology. 11th edition. 2 vols. London: John Murray.
Summary
Comments on the reaction of geologists to GHD’s work on elevation of continents.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-10493
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- George Howard Darwin
- Sent from
- London, Queen Anne St, 6
- Source of text
- DAR 210.1: 53
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 10493,” accessed on 26 September 2022, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-10493.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 24