1856 CRITIQUE OF LYELL 239 



extended his observations into Switzerland, and had 

 studied the drifts of the Oberland. There was only 

 one man in Britain who had this range of personal 

 experience, and that was A. C. Ramsay. Lyell had 

 no difficulty in at once recognising the writer. At a 

 party at Dr. Fitton's on the 2nd April Ramsay met 

 Lady Lyell. ' She told me/ he says, ' that to-day Sir 

 Charles had received a review of his Elements which 

 bore internal evidence of its authorship, and which, he 

 said, was the best thing that had been done, being the 

 only good review that had ever appeared of any of 

 his works since Poulett Scrope wrote one. ' x So pleased 

 was Lyell that a few days afterwards he sent the 

 subjoined letter : 



53 HARLEY STREET, LONDON, 

 6th April 1856. 



MY DEAR RAMSAY I have had time since I saw you to read 

 over more carefully your article in the New Phil., which gives me 

 much pleasure, independently of what is said of my book, for it is 

 no small satisfaction to find a younger man of wide experience, and 

 one who has explored different regions, arriving at similar con- 

 clusions on many theoretical points still controverted here, and more 

 so on the continent. 



The opinion at p. 313, that neither the Silurian nor Cambrian 

 rocks show traces of a beginning, is one of those useful confessions 

 of faith ; also, that the greater the age of a formation, the less 

 chance is there of its deltas being preserved, p. 314 ; also that the 

 present margins of old formations are the result of denudation, ibid., 

 etc. ; but, above all, p. 306, Titanic agency, etc. 



I agree with Dr. Hooker that this article in its style is extremely 

 good, apart from scientific depth. He says it is so thoroughly 

 English. But for that matter I always maintain that your first paper 

 on Arran left nothing to be desired. 



The small number of the fresh-water formations prior to the 

 Tertiary cannot be too much insisted upon, and you have brought 

 it out well. The ' Letten-kohle ' of the Trias near Stuttgart is a 

 near approach to an estuarine deposit, to say no more ; and it is 



1 Alluding to the article written by G. P. Scrope which appeared in the 

 Quarterly Review for April 1835. 



