342 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS, 1886-1897 



tions in Mr. Turner's * Tour in Normandy ' were made and 

 subsequently etched. No doubt a copy of the ' Tour ' is 

 at Kinnordy. My father pencilled beautifully. I have 

 many of his sketches. 



On September 15 died his father-in-law, Mr. Symonds, 

 who had spent so much of his last years at The Camp. * He 

 is a great loss. Scientifically and intellectually he was the 

 life of a large surrounding.' 



To Asa Gray 



Nov. 15, 1887. 



Read Bonney's * article in ' Nature ' on Huxley and the 

 Duke of Argyll in reference to Darwin's and Murray's Coral 

 reef theories ; it is wonderfully good. The Duke's article 

 in the XIX Century (I think) was a very stupid one, — 

 but what struck me most was, the Duke's not seeing that 

 Darwin's theory was, whether right or wrong, a stroke of 

 genius, unaided by that knowledge we now possess of land, 

 sea, sea-bottom, chemistry and corals ; whereas Murray's is 

 a conclusion arrived at through the labour of a staff of most 

 eminent fellow workers on the Ocean, and a knowledge of 

 all the facts and data that they were collecting around him 

 during the Challenger Voyage. As you say, ' the greater 

 truth, the greater libel ' — so we may say of Darwin's theory, 

 * the greater error, the greater genius.' But I expect the 

 truth will lie between them, and that there will prove to be 

 two, perhaps more, ways of making Coral Islands. 



To T. H. Huxley 



March 4, 1888: 



I went to Cambridge to hear one of Strachey's Geography 

 Lectures ; the matter was excellent but very dry — as the 

 Frenchman said of English meat, which he bought from the 

 dog's-meat man. 



In February and March 1889 his portrait was painted by 

 Herkomer, Kitcat size, for the Linnean Society, and looked 

 ' a very old man indeed.' 



1 Canon Thomas George Bonney, D.Sc. (1833), alpinist and geologist, 

 Emeritus Professor of Geology at University College, London ; was President 

 of the Geological Society 1884-8; Vice-President of the Royal Society 1899; 

 President of the British Association, 1910-11. 



