168 DOWN. [ch. viii. 



being always much the same, some days better and some 

 worse. I believe I have not had one whole day, or rather 

 night, without my stomach having been greatly disordered, 

 during the last three years, and most days great prostration 

 of strength : thank you for your kindness ; many of my 

 friends, I believe, think me a hypochondriac." 



During the whole of the period now under consideration, 

 he was in constant correspondence with Sir Joseph Hooker. 

 The following characteristic letter on Sigillaria (a gigantic 

 fossil plant found in the Coal Measures) was afterwards 

 characterised by himself as not being " reasoning, or even 

 speculation, but simply as mental rioting." 



[Down, 1847 ?] 

 "... I am delighted to hear that Brongniart thought 

 Sigillaria aquatic, and that Binny considers coal a sort of 

 submarine peat. I would bet 5 to 1 that in twenty years 

 this will be generally admitted ; * and I do not care for 

 whatever the botanical difficulties or impossibilities may be. 

 If I could but persuade myself that Sigillaria and Co. had a 

 good range of depth, i.e. could live from 5 to 10 fathoms 

 under water, all difficulties of nearly all kinds would be re- 

 moved (for the simple fact of muddy ordinary shallow sea 

 implies proximity of land). [N\B. I am chuckling to 

 think how you are sneering all this time.] It is not much 

 of a difficulty, there not being shells with the coal, con- 

 sidering how unfavourable deep mud is for most Mollusca, 

 and that shells would probably decay from the humic acid, 

 as seems to take place in peat and in the Mack moulds (as 

 Lyell tells me) of the Mississippi. So coal question settled 

 Q. E. D. Sneer away ! " 



The two following extracts give the continuation and 

 conclusion of the coal battle. 



" By the way, as submarine coal made you so wrath, I 

 thought I would experimentise on Falconer and Bunbury f 

 together, and it made [them] even more savage ; ' such in- 

 fernal nonsense ought to be thrashed out of me.' Bunbury 

 was more polite and contemptuous. So I now know how to 

 stir up and show off any Botanist. I wonder whether Zo- 

 ologists and Geologists have got their tender points ; I wish 

 I could find out." 



" I cannot resist thanking you for your most kind note. 



* An unfulfilled prophecy. 



t The late Sir C. Bunbury, well known as a palceobotanist. 



