16rt 



P.S. — I am also rejoiced that you are bringing out a grand British equivalent 

 of the Rotheliegende of my Permian. You are my best supporter. I am to 

 preside over the geologists at Manchester, and should be proud to have your 

 communication there, though I hope you will not personally abandon good 

 field work in fine weather. 



Why do you talk to me of Nicol and his map ? Why, he never heard of 

 the Scarabein till I took him there. I have dwelt upon it in various memoirs, 

 and united them in my map of the Highlands ; classing them, however, with 

 the Upper Gneiss. 



Near the end of each letter is a comment upon some work that 

 Harkness was doing in another direction. The full importance of 

 the remarks referred to will be noticed further on. 



On his return from these expeditions Harkness was not long in 

 putting his impressions on paper ; not that they were likely to fade 

 soon from his memory, but because he had, or seems to me to 

 have had, an unaccountable habit of recording his observations 

 only in the form they are now accessible to us. His note books 

 do, it is true, contain a few highly-condensed and pithy remarks, 

 and they contain also the sketches, and other data absolutely 

 necessary for the object he had in view; but beyond that they 

 present us with little else than a scanty series of memoranda : for 

 the rest he seems ever to have trusted to his unquestionably very 

 powerful memory. 



Amongst the further correspondence relating to this part of his 

 work, placed at my disposal by Mrs. Pearson, the following 

 additional letter from Sir Charles Lyell may be cited : — 



53 Harley Street, i6th October, 1861. 



I have read your letter on the Old Red of Perthshire with much interest, 

 and have only put it and the section aside for the present because I have to 

 supply the printer with M.S. on the Tertiary Strata, but shall return to the 

 Cephalaspis and Pteraspis beds as soon as I can. You will, I hope, be giving 

 us a paper soon on the subject. 



I got Professor Heer two days ago to go over all your specimens, and was 

 afraid when I saw the quantity of things I had to do, that he would not be 

 able to do justice to them. But he looked at each, and said no one could 

 pronounce on them generically or specifically, but that they were Conifers — the 

 wood and leaves, and in one case at least remains of a cone of some genus of 

 Coniferae. This, he says, tells nothing geologically. It seems, however, to 



