157 



I hear that the large admission of the Knights of the Hammer is due to the 

 fact that there were Doctors they wished to keep out. 



Ever sincerely yours, 



R. I. MURCHISON. 



The same year that saw Harkness's election to the Fellowship of 

 the Royal Society saw also the publication of at least six more 

 contributions of his to the literature of Geology, each one containing 

 the results of his own original research ; results that were generally 

 recognized as distinct additions to the stock of real knowledge. 

 Most of these relate to Geology outside the part of England we are 

 here more immediately concerned with ; but the facts and opinions 

 they contain have, nevertheless, important bearings upon our local 

 geology, and, as such will be more fully referred to in their proper 

 place. But Harkness was just then turning his attention in real 

 earnest to the solution of some of the most difficult problems that 

 man ever attempted to work out in the geology of the Lake District 

 proper. Otley, Sedgwick, and others had already grappled with 

 them, and had succeeded, after many traverses across what were 

 then the most-inaccessible parts of the Lake District, in arriving at 

 something like a general idea of the structure of the whole. But 

 Otley had just died, and Sedgwick himself was growing too old to 

 be able to carry on much further the work he had himself already 

 done so much to advance. There was still a very great deal to 

 be done, many more facts had to be collected and carefully com- 

 pared by the light of all the knowledge that had been rendered 

 available by the labours of others, before the geology of that part 

 of Cumberland and Westmorland could be reduced to anything 

 like systematic order. The work was of the most arduous nature- 

 involving the making of a long series of observations over ground 

 mSst difficult to traverse. Fossils are rare ; sometimes not to be 

 found even after days of diligent search ; the straligraphical relations 

 of the rocks are obscured by cleavage, by metamorphism, or by an 

 endless series of dislocations. Thousands of feet of climbing had 

 to be done, hammer and note book in hand, with perhaps day 

 after day very little return for the exertion expended, before it was 

 possible to advance the work much beyond the stage attained by 



