1838,] GEOLOGY. 267 



the possibility of a doubt has never crossed my mind for many 

 a day. This may be very unphilosophical, but my geological 

 salvation is staked on it. After having just come back from 

 Glen Roy, and found how difficulties smooth away under 

 your principles, it makes me quite indignant that you should 

 talk of hoping. With respect to the question, how far my coral 

 theory bears on De Beaumont's theory, I think it would be 

 prudent to quote me with great caution until my whole ac- 

 count is published, and then you (and others) can judge how 

 far there is foundation for such generalisation. Mind, I do not 

 doubt its truth ; but the extension of any view over such large 

 spaces, from comparatively few facts, must be received with 

 much caution. I do not myself the least doubt that within 

 the recent (or as you, much to my annoyment, would call 

 it, " New Pliocene ") period, tortuous bands not all the 

 bands parallel to each other have been elevated and cor- 

 responding ones subsided, though within the same period 

 some parts probably remained for a time stationary, or even 

 subsided. I do not believe a more utterly false view could 

 have been invented than great straight lines being suddenly 

 thrown up. 



When my book on Volcanoes and Coral Reefs will be 

 published I hardly know ; I fear it will be at least four or 

 five months ; though, mind, the greater part is written. I 

 find so much time is lost in correcting details and ascertain- 

 ing their accuracy. The Government Zoological work is a 

 millstone round my neck, and the Glen Roy paper has lost 

 me six weeks. I will not, however, say lost ; for, supposing 

 I can prove to others' satisfaction what I have convinced 

 myself is the case, the inference I think you will allow to be 

 important. I cannot doubt that the molten matter beneath 

 the earth's crust possesses a high degree of fluidity, almost 

 like the sea beneath the block ice. By the way, I hope you 

 will give me some Swedish case to quote, of shells being pre- 

 served on the surface, but not in contemporaneous beds of 

 gravel. . . . 



Remember what I have often heard you say : the country 



