1838.] GEOLOGY. 267 



X\it possibility of a doubt has never crossed my mind for many 

 a day. This may be very unphilosophical, but my geological 

 salvation is staked on it. After having just come back from/ 

 Glen Roy, and found how difficulties smooth away under ' 

 your principles, it makes me quite indignant that you should 

 talk of hoping. With respect to the question, how far my coral 

 theory bears on De Beaumont's theory, I think it would bei 

 prudent to quote me with great caution until my whole ac- 

 count is published, and then you (and others) can judge how 

 far there is foundation for such generalisation. Mind, I do not 

 doubt its truth ; but the extension of any view over such large 

 spaces, from comparatively few facts, must be received with 

 much caution. I do not myself the least doubt that within 

 the recent (or as you, much to my annoyment, would call 

 it, " New Pliocene ") period, tortuous bands — not all the 

 bands parallel to each other — have been elevated and cor- 

 responding ones subsided, though within the same period 

 some parts probably remained for a time stationary, or even 

 subsided. I do not believe a more utterly false view could ; 

 have been invented than great straight lines being suddenly 

 thrown up. 



When my book on Volcanoes and Coral Reefs will be 

 published I hardly know ; I fear it will be at least four or 

 five months ; though, mind, the greater part is written. I 

 find so much time is lost in correcting details and ascertain- 

 ing their accuracy. The Government Zoological work is a 

 millstone round my neck, and the Glen Roy paper has lost 

 me six weeks. I will not, however, say lost ; for, supposing 

 I can prove to others' satisfaction what I have convinced 

 myself is the case, the inference I think you will allow to be 

 important. I cannot doubt that the molten matter beneath 

 the earth's crust possesses a high degree of fluidity, almost 

 like the sea beneath the block ice. By the way, I hope you 

 will give me some Swedish case to quote, of shells being pre- 

 served on the surface, but not in contemporaneous beds of 

 gravel. . . . 



Remember what I have often heard you say : the country 



