Chapter 140

When I wrote to you I had not read Ramsay. (504/1. "On the Erosion of Valleys and Lakes: a Reply to Sir Roderick Murchison's Anniversary Address to the Geographical Society." "Phil. Mag." Volume XXVIII., page 293, 1864) How capitally it is written! It seems that there is nothing for style like a man's dander being put up. I think I agree largely with you about denudation--but the rocky-lake-basin theory is the part which interests me at present. It seems impossible to know how much to attribute to ice, running water, and sea. I did not suppose that Ramsay would deny that mountains had been thrown up irregularly, and that the depressions would become valleys. The grandest valleys I ever saw were at Tahiti, and here I do not believe ice has done anything; anyhow there were no erratics. I said in my S. American Geology (504/2. "Finally, the conclusion at which I have arrived with respect to the relative powers of rain, and sea-water on the land is, that the latter is by far the most efficient agent, and that its chief tendency is to widen the valleys, whilst torrents and rivers tend to deepen them and to remove the wreck of the sea's destroying action" ("Geol. Observations," pages 66, 67).) that rivers deepen and the sea widens valleys, and I am inclined largely to stick to this, adding ice to water. I am sorry to hear that Tyndall has grown dogmatic. H. Wedgwood was saying the other day that T.'s writings and speaking gave him the idea of intense conceit. I hope it is not so, for he is a grand man of science.

...I have had a prospectus and letter from Andrew Murray (504/3. See