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LIII. Mr. Bakewbh. in Reply to Mr. Frere; and on sofjie 

 peculiar Properties of Light. 



To Mr. rilloch. 



^iR, — ii. Correspondent in your last Magazine, who signs 

 himself J. H. Frere, has been pleased to insinuate that the 

 sketch representing the arrangement of the strata from the Ger- 

 tnan ocean to the Irish channel, given in the preceding number, 

 was taken from a section he had previously made and sent copies 

 of to the Rev. W. Turner and Wr. Wynch", of Newcastle, and to 

 Mr. Greenough, in London. I trust I shall be allowed sufficient 

 space to repel the accusation, though it is with regret that I oc- 

 cupy a part of your pages with subjects of a personal nature. — 

 Until I saw the letter of Mr. Frere's, I had never before heard 

 cither of that gentleman or his section; but I immediately wrote 

 to Mr. Turner for an explanation, who informs me that some 

 months after I returned from Newcastle, Mr. Frere did send a 

 section there; but I can confidently appeal to Mr. Turner, Mr. 

 Wynch, or any person in that place, that I never received from 

 them the sliglitest notice of its existence. I can make the like 

 appeal to Mr. Greenough ; and as I have not been at the rooms 

 of the Geological Society for more than two years, I have never 

 seen it there, nor have I heard of it from any of the members ; 

 (it may be observed that the Society has not thought proper 

 to give it a place in their recently published volume of Trans-- 

 actions;) nor can Mr. Frere name any other person who has 

 either directly or indirectly acquainted me with his section, 

 I believe Mr. Faiey and many other gentlemen interested in such 

 subjects were equally ignorant of Mr." Frere's section. The sketch 

 sent you was laid down on Gary's large Map of England, which 

 your engraver reduced. I did iiot attempt more than a general 

 resemblance of the surface outline. In one now engraving for 

 the second edition of my Introduction to Geology, I have en- 

 <leavoured to preserve the contour of the principal mountains. 

 What coincidence either of these may have with Mr. Frere's 

 section, I am to this hour unacquainted with ; but if two de- 

 lineations of the same object laid down on the same ground-plan, 

 and where the characters are so strongly marked, have not a near 

 resemblance, one or both must be manifestly erroneous. The 

 part between Cross Fell and Burtreeford Dyke was drawn from 

 Mr. Forster's description : all the other parts were the result of 

 my own observations and inquiries. In my Introduction to 

 Geolog)' in 1813, I described several sections across England, 

 and in my Lectures at the Russell Institution in February 1812, 

 I exhibited a section of the rock formations between Hull and 



Liverpool. 



