300 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY REORGANISED CHAP, ix 



If so, so much the worse for Age, for he has got hold 

 of a bad lot. 



Like the men of the '45, I have been ' out ' since 

 the 2 Qth June, all but a fortnight, which I spent in 

 Anglesey; and also, like the same men of '45, I have 

 had a controversy with the king, not King Cole, but 

 King Roderick of Siluria. . . . Some people wonder 

 why I did not reply to Sir R.'s last in the Geol. 

 Magazine about denudation and lakes, but I think it 

 is better not to ' condescend upon ' it, as we Scotch 

 lawyers say. But why should he be always troubling 

 our Israel ? Is he afeard that we are becoming re- 

 bellious satraps ? 



I did not go to Norwich [British Association 

 Meeting]. I stayed away a-purpose to keep out of 

 any excitement. Last year did me no good, and 

 giving evidence at the end of June for four days 

 before the Coal Commission for four hours and a half 

 per day, together with an immediate march and long 

 hours in the country during the hottest weather, have 

 not improved me. So I stayed away from Norwich. 



D writes me that the advanced scientific thinkers 



did themselves and science no good at Norwich. How, 

 I have not heard ; but I can well believe it of some 

 of our friends. . . . 



I know the Strahleck, having been over it, and 

 very steep it is on the descent from the Col down to 

 the surface of the glacier on the Grindelwald side. 

 But it is very different in different years. Hinchliff 

 slid down on the snow from top to bottom. I think it 

 took us an hour to go down on the rocks. . . . 



We have done a deal of work hereaway, and are 

 fast moving up northwards in a broad line, in the hope 

 of forming a union with the Northumberland and 



