[846 i MlSCl l.l. A N I.OUS 225 



To ( '. Lyell. Letter 559 



Down, July 3rd [184 



I don't know when I have read a book ' so interesting ; some 

 of your stories are very rich. You ought to be made Minister 

 of Public Education — not but what I should think even 

 that beneath the author of the old Principles. Your book 

 must, I should think, do a great deal of good and set people 

 thinking. I quite agree with the Athena um - that you have 

 shown how a man of science can bring his powers of 

 observation to social subjects. You have made 1 1. Wedgwood, 

 heart and soul, an American ; he wishes the States would 

 annex us, and was all day marvelling how anyone who could 

 pay his 1 e money was so foolish as to remain here-. 



To C. Lyell. Letter 560 



I (own, [Dec., 1S49]. 



In this letter Darwin criticises Dana's statements in his volume on 

 Geology, forming Vol. X. of the Wilkes Exploring Expedition, 1849. 



. . . Dana is dreadfully hypothetical in main- parts, and 

 often as " d — d cocked sure " as Macaulay. 1 Ie writes however 

 so lucidly that he is very persuasive. I am more struck with 

 his remarks on denudation than you seem to be. I came to 

 exactly the same conclusion in Tahiti, that the wonderful 

 \ alleys there (on the opposite extreme of the scale of wonder 



Botany Bunbury published numerous contributions on pakvobotanical 

 subjects, a science with which his name will always be associated as one 

 of those who materially assisted in raising the study of Fossil 1 'hints to 

 a higher scientific level. His papers on fossil plants wore published in the 

 Journal of the Geological Society between 1846 and 1861, and shortly 

 before his death a collection of botanical observations made in South 

 Africa and South America was issued in book form in a volume entitled 

 Botanical Fragments (London, 1883). Bunbury was elected into the 

 Royal Society in 1851, and from 1847 to 1853 he acted a< Foreign 

 Secretary to the Geological Society. Life, Letters, and Journals of 

 Sir Charles J. F. Bunbury, Bart., edited by his wife Frames Joanna 

 Bunbury, and privately printed, v l ndated.) 



1 A Second Visit to (he United States of North America. 2 vols., 

 London, 1849. 



s " Sir Charles Lyell, besides the feelings of a gentleman, seems to 

 carry with him the best habits of scientific observation into other sti 

 than those of clay, into other ' formations ' than those of rock or river- 

 margin." The Athenaum, June 23rd, 1849, P- 640. 



VOL. II. 15 



