IGO 



July 20th, 1841. llelating to Rooke's Geology. 



February 14th, 1847. Wordsworth. — In the two last summers John Ruthven 

 told me. Before I ever saw your face (which was in the 

 summer of 1823), I had promised Mr. Wordsworth. He 

 asked me in 1822, (and again in June 1823). I said I have 

 yet to learn the geology of your country. Three letters 

 were published in Wordsworth's guide in 1842. 



February 17th, 1855. 



From Mr. Otley to Professor Sedgwick. 



January 19th to 23rd, 1854. 

 Rev. Sir,— 



On the completion of my eighty-eighth year I feel in somewhat better 

 health than I was last year at this time. I have out-lived nearly all my acquaint- 

 ances and correspondents ; but I am still able to write a letter, or to take a walk 

 to the water-side on a fine day : these have been rather scarce lately, but to-day 

 is better. Yours of May 12th led me to hope that I should see you at Keswick 

 in the course of summer. I was much pleased with the idea, but as summer 

 advanced, reason told me that I could hardly expect it. There is a paper in the 

 "Lonsdale Magazine," for October 1820, entitled " Remarks on the Succession of 

 Rocks in the District of the Lakes, by J. Otley. " On reading it now, I wondered 

 how I came, at that time, to know so much of the subject ; and was almost 

 ashamed that, with all my oj)portunities, in thirty-three years, I have learned so 

 little since. I read your three letters to Mr. Wordsworth with pleasure, agreeing 

 in all they contain, and proud of the way in which my name is introduced. Your 

 fourth letter I did not see, till it and the fifth came together in Mr. Hudson's 

 " Complete Guide." In the fourth I was struck with the word sheerhate, a term I 

 had not before observed in print, although I had frequently heard it in conversation 

 among the quarrymen. I should say, it has a cleavage diagonal or oblique to the 

 bed ; and from the little I know of the Horton flags, I should be iaclined to place 

 them in the same category. I have read such parts of your fourth and fifth letters 

 as relate to the district with which I am acquainted ; into Wales I cannot follow 

 you. While I feel flattered by the way in which you continue to place my three 

 divisions of rocks before the public, I cannot but feel sorry, that in your endeavour 

 to assimilate the rocks of the two countries, you should be led to remove the 

 boundary, I had thought fully estabUshed, between my second and third divisions ; 

 but not doubting your reasons sufl&cient to satisfy yourself in the conclusion you 

 have arrived at in p. 242, I can have nothing more to say. What I have had 

 printed cannot be altered ; there are copies of my Guide still on sale ; and I can 

 see no probability of another edition ever being called for. With regard to 



