1848.] ROBERT CHAMBERS. ^31 



I commence the description of them with saying, that * per- 

 ceiving their importance, I examined them with scrupulous 

 care,' and expatiate at considerable length on them. I have 

 indirectly told him I do not think he has quite claims to 

 consider that he alone (which he pretty directly asserts) has 

 solved the problem of Glen Roy. With respect to the ter- 

 races at lower levels coincident in height all round Scotland 

 and England, I am inclined to believe he shows some little 

 probability of there being some leading ones coincident, but 

 much more exact evidence is required. Would you believe 

 it credible ? he advances as a probable solution to account , 

 for the rise of Great Britain that in some great ocean one- ,' 

 twentieth of the bottom of the whole aqueous surface of the 

 globe has sunk in (he does not say where he puts it) for a 

 thickness of half a mile, and this he has calculated would 

 make an apparent rise of 130 feet." 



C. Darwin to C. Lyell. ^ 



Down [June, 1848]. 



My dear Lyell, — Out of justice to Chambers I must 

 trouble you with one line to say, as far as I am personally 

 concerned in Glen Roy, he has made the amende honorable, 

 and pleads guilty through inadvertency of taking my two ^ 

 lines of arguments and facts without acknowledgment. He 

 concluded by saying he "came to the same point by an in- 

 dependent course of inquiry, which in a small degree excuses 

 this inadvertency." His letter altogether shov/s a very good 

 disposition, and says he is ''much gratified with the measwed 

 approbation which you bestow, &c." I am heartily glad I 

 was able to say in truth that I thought he had done good 

 service in calling more attention to the subject of the ter- 

 races. He protests it is unfair to call the sinking of the sea 

 his theory, for that he with care always speaks of mere change 

 of level, and this is quite true ; but the one section in which 

 he shows how he conceives the sea might sink is so aston-, 

 ishing, that I believe it will with others, as with me, more than\ 



