156 GEOLOGY [Chap. IX 



Letter 504 he is not fit for the subject, as he gives me no idea what his 

 book will be, excepting that the printed paper shows that all 

 animals and all plants of all groups are to be treated of! Do 

 you know anything of his knowledge ? 



In about a fortnight I shall have finished, except con- 

 cluding chapter, my book on Variation under Domestication ; x 

 but then I have got to go over the whole again, and this will 

 take me very many months. I am able to work about two 

 hours daily. 



Letter 505 To J. D. Hooker. 



Down [July, 1865]. 



I was glad to read your article on Glaciers, etc., in York- 

 shire. You seem to have been struck with what most deeply 

 impressed me at Glen Roy (wrong as I was on the whole 

 subject) — viz. the marvellous manner in which every detail 

 of surface of land had been preserved for an enormous period. 

 This makes me a little sceptical whether Ramsay, Jukes, etc., 

 are not a little overdoing sub-aerial denudation. 



In the same Reader 2 there was a striking article on 

 English and Foreign Men of Science, 3 and I think unjust 

 to England except in pure Physiology ; in biology Owen and 

 R. Brown ought to save us, and in Geology we are most rich. 



It is curious how we are reading the same books. We 

 intend to read Lecky and certainly to re-read Buckle — which 

 latter I admired greatly before. I am heartily glad you like 

 Lubbock's book so much. It made me grieve his taking to 

 politics, and though I grieve that he has lost his election, yet 

 I suppose, now that he is once bitten, he will never give up 



1 Published in 1868. 



2 Sir J. D. Hooker wrote to Darwin, July 13th, 1865, from High Force 

 Inn, Middleton, Teesdale : " I am studying the moraines all day long 

 with as much enthusiasm as I am capable of after lying in bed till nine, 

 eating heavy breakfasts, and looking forward to dinner as the summuni 

 bonum of existence." The result of his work, under the title "Moraines 

 of the Tees Valley," appeared in the Reader (July 15th, 1865, p. 71), 

 of which Huxley was one of the managers or committee-men, and 

 Norman Lockyer was scientific editor {Life and Letters of T. H. Huxley, 

 I., p. 211). Hooker describes the moraines and other evidence of glacial 

 action in the upper part of the Tees valley, and speaks of the effect of 

 glaciers in determining the present physical features of the country. 



3 "British and Foreign Science," The Reader, loc. at., p. 61. The 

 writer of the article asserts the inferiority of English scientific workers. 



