18461878] MISCELLANEOUS 229 



on Murchisou 1 were to me, and I think would be to many, Letter 562 

 particularly acceptable. Capital, that metaphor of the clock. 2 

 I shall next February be much interested by seeing your 

 hour-hand of the organic world going. 



Many thanks for your kindness in taking the trouble to 

 tell me of the anniversary dinner. What a compliment that 

 was which Lord Mahon paid me ! I never had so great a 

 one. He must be as charming a man as his wife is a woman, 

 though I was formerly blind to his merit. Bunsen's speech 

 must have been very interesting and very useful, if any 

 orthodox clergyman were present. Your metaphor of the 

 pebbles of pre-existing languages reminds me that I heard Sir 

 J. Herschel at the Cape say how he wished some one would 

 treat language as you had Geology, and study the existing 

 causes of change, and apply the deduction to old languages. 



We are all pretty flourishing here, though I have been 

 retrograding a little, and I think I stand excitement and 

 fatigue hardly better than in old days, and this keeps me 

 from coming to London. My cirripedial task is an eternal 

 one ; I make no perceptible progress. I am sure that they 

 belong to the hour-hand, and I groan under my task. 







C. Lyell to C. Darwin. Letter 563 



April 23rd, 1855. 



I have seen a good deal of French geologists and palaeonto- 

 logists lately, and there are many whom I should like to 

 put on the R.S. Foreign List, such as D'Archiac, Prevost, and 

 others. But the man who has made the greatest sacrifices 

 and produced the greatest results, who has, in fact, added a 

 new period to the calendar, is Barrande. 3 



1 In a paper "On the Geological Structure of the Alps, etc." (Quart. 

 Journ. Geol. Soc., Vol. V., p. 157, 1849) Murchison expressed his belief 

 that the apparent inversion of certain Tertiary strata along the flanks 

 of the Alps afforded " a clear demonstration of a sudden operation or 

 catastrophe." It is this view of paroxysmal energy that Lyell criticises 

 in the address. 



3 " In a word, the movement of the inorganic world is obvious and 

 palpable, and might be likened to the minute-hand of a clock, the progress 

 of which can be seen and heard, whereas the fluctuations of the living 

 creation are nearly invisible, and resemble the motion of the hour-hand 

 of a timepiece " (loc. tit., p. xlvi). 



3 See biographical note, Letter 40, Vol. I, 



