188 GEOLOGY [Chap. IX 



Letter 523 will tell me he always knew that I was wrong, but now I 

 shall have rather ridiculously to say, "but I am all right 

 again." 



I have been a good deal interested in Miller, 1 but I find it 

 not quick reading, and Emma has hardly begun it yet. I 

 rather wish the scenic descriptions were shorter, and that 

 there was a little less geologic eloquence. 



Lyell's picture now hangs over my chimneypicce, and 

 uncommonly glad I am to have it, and thank you for it. 



Letter 524 To C. Lyell. 



Down, Sept. 6th [1861]. 



I think the enclosed is worth your reading. I am smashed 

 to atoms about Glen Roy. My paper was one long gigantic 

 blunder from beginning to end. 2 Eheu ! Eheu ! 



Letter 525 To C. Lyell. 



Down, Sept. 22nd [1S61]. 



I have read Mr. Jamieson's last letter, like the former 

 ones, with very great interest. 3 What a problem you have 

 in hand ! It beats manufacturing new species all to bits. 

 It would be a great personal consolation to me if Mr. J. can 

 admit the sloping Spean terrace to be marine, and would 

 remove one of my greatest difficulties — viz, the vast contrast 

 of Welsh and Lochaber valleys. But then, as far as I dare 

 trust my observations, the sloping terraces ran far up the 

 Roy valley, so as to reach not far below the lower shelf. If 

 the sloping fringes are marine and the shelves lacustrine, 

 all I can say is that nature has laid a shameful trap to catch 

 an unwary wretch. I suppose that I have underrated the 

 power of lakes in producing pebbles ; this, I think, ought to 

 be well looked to. I was much struck in Wales on carefully 



1 Hugh Miller's First Impressions of England and its People, London, 

 1847. 



2 See Life and Letters, I., pp. 68, 69, also pp. 290, 291. 



3 Mr. Jamieson visited Glen Roy in August 1861 and in July 1862. 

 His paper " On the Parallel Roads of Glen Roy, and their Place in the 

 History of the Glacial Period," was published in the Quarterly Journal 

 of the Geological Society in 1863, Vol. XIX., p. 235. His latest con- 

 tribution to this subject was published in the Quarterly Journal, 

 Vol. XLVIIL, p. 5, 1892. 



