XXXVI WORK IN THE UPPER HOUSE 181 



Fortunatus ego, cui in vestigiis ejus spatiari con- 

 ceditur ! This may appear fanciful ; but it is a reality 

 of growing value to me, and it accounts for the personal 

 gratitude which I have felt to certain people, — Jebb, 

 Leslie Stephen, and one or two others, and now in most 

 marked degree to you, — who have judged him as he 

 merits, and whose judgment is of the requisite worth. 



As for depreciation — of which, in the face of his 

 enormous popularity there is little to complain — I 

 always feel it as a singular tribute to him. Other 

 great writers of the past are invariably judged by what 

 men think their best works, and the rest is forgotten. 

 He is still so intensely alive that people quarrel with 

 him for anything they dislike in his books as if it were 

 written yesterday. But it is a poor way of showing 

 my gratitude to write you so long a letter. — Yours 

 sincerely, G. O. Trevelyan. 



In his diary of April 18, Lord Avebury writes : 

 " I am experimenting with a machine for com- 

 pressing layers of sand, baize, etc., in two direc- 

 tions, to imitate mountain-building. H. Darwin 

 made me the machine. It seems to work well." 



A tolerably full description of the experiments 

 may be found in the Quarterly Journal of the 

 Geological Society for August 1903, vol. lix., 

 under the heading of " An Experiment in 

 Mountain-building." The working of the 

 machine may be understood in a general way 

 from the following account of it which he gave 

 to the Geological Society. But the original 

 paper in the Society's journal is illustrated by 

 photographs from plaster of Paris casts, which 

 greatly help to a readier understanding of the 

 phenomena. 



