2l8 GEOLOGY [CHAP. IX 



Letter 553 To J. D. Hooker. 



[June 2nd, 1847.] 



I received your letter the other day, full of curious facts, 

 almost all new to me, on the coal-question. 1 I will bring 

 your note to Oxford, 2 and then we will talk it over. I feel 

 pretty sure that some of your purely geological difficulties 

 are easily solvable, and I can, I think, throw a very little 

 light on the shell difficulty. Pray put no stress in your 

 mind about the alternate, neatly divided, strata of sandstone 

 and shale, etc. I feel the same sort of interest in the coal 

 question as a man does watching two good players at play, 

 he knowing little or nothing of the game. I confess your 

 last letter (and this you will think very strange) has almost 

 raised Binney's notion (an old, growing hobby-horse of mine) 

 to the dignity of an hypothesis, 3 though very far yet below 

 the promotion of being properly called a theory. 



I will bring the remainder of my species-sketch to Oxford 

 to go over your remarks. I have lately been getting a good 

 many rich facts. 1 saw the poor old Dean of Manchester 4 

 on Friday, and he received me very kindly. He looked 

 dreadfully ill, and about an hour afterwards died ! I am 

 most sincerely sorry for it. 



Letter 554 To J. D. Hooker. 



[May 1 2th, 1847.] 



I cannot resist thanking you for your most kind note. 

 Pray do not think that I was annoyed by your letter. I 

 perceived that you had been thinking with animation, and 

 accordingly expressed yourself strongly, and so I understood 

 it. Forefend me from a man who weighs every expression 

 with Scotch prudence. I heartily wish you all success in 



1 Sir Joseph Hcoker deals with the formation of coal in his classical 

 paper " On the Vegetation of the Carboniferous Period, as compared with 

 that of the Present Day." Mem. Geol. Surv. Great Britain, Vol. II., 

 pt. ii., 1848. 



2 The British Association met at Oxford in 1847. 



3 Binney suggested that the Coal-plants grew in salt water. (See 

 Letters 102, 552.) Recent investigations have shown that several of the 

 plants of the Coal period possessed certain anatomical peculiarities, which 

 indicate xerophytic characteristics, and lend support to the view that 

 some at least of the plants grew in seashore swamps. 



4 Dean Herbert. 



