374 EVOLUTION [CHAP. V 



Letter 284 may rely on it that its merits would soon become known 

 locally and it would afterwards spread rapidly far and 

 wide. Mr. Caird gave me a striking instance of such a 

 case in Scotland. I return home to-morrow morning. 



I have the pleasure to enclose a cheque for ^"100. If 

 you receive a Government grant, I ought to be repaid. 



P.S. If I were in your place I would not expend any 

 labour or money in publishing what you have already 

 done, or in sending seeds or tubers to any one. I would 

 work quietly on till some sure results were obtained. And 

 these would be so valuable that your work in this case 

 would soon be known. I would also endeavour to pass 

 as severe a judgment as possible on the state of the tubers 

 and plants. 



Letter 285 To E. von Mojsisovics. 1 



Down, June ist, 1878. 



I have at last found time to read [the] first chapter of 

 your Dolomit Riffe? and have been exceedingly interested by 

 it. What a wonderful change in the future of geological 

 chronology you indicate, by assuming the descent-theory 

 to be established, and then taking the graduated changes of 

 the same group of organisms as the true standard ! I never 

 hoped to live to see such a step even proposed by any 

 one. 3 



Nevertheless, I saw dimly that each bed in a formation 

 could contain only the organisms proper to a certain depth, 

 and to other there existing conditions, and that all the 

 intermediate forms between one marine species and another 

 could rarely be preserved in the same place and bed. Oppel, 

 Neumayr, and yourself will confer a lasting and admirable 

 service on the noble science of Geology, if you can spread 

 your views so as to be generally known and accepted. 



With respect to the continental and oceanic periods 

 common to the whole northern hemisphere, to which you 

 refer, I have sometimes speculated that the present distribu- 

 tion of the land and sea over the world may have formerly 



1 Dr. E. von Mojsisovics, Vice-Director of the Imperial Geological 

 Institute, Vienna. 



2 Dolomitriffe Siidtirols und Venetiens. Wien, 1878. 



3 Published in Life and Letters, III., pp. 234, 235. 



