324 LIFE AT DOWN. JETAT. 33-45. [1847 



presentation copy of the sixth edition of the * Vestiges.' Some- 

 how I now feel perfectly convinced he is the author. He is 

 in France, and has written to me thence. 



C. Darwin to J. D. Hooker. 



Down [1847 ?] 



... I am delighted to hear that Brongniart thought 

 Sigillaria aquatic, and that Binney considers coal a sort of 

 submarine peat. I would bet 5 to i that in twenty years this 

 will be generally admitted ; * and I do not care for whatever 

 the botanical difficulties or impossibilities may be. If I could 

 but persuade myself that Sigillaria and Co. had a good range 

 of depth, /. e., could live from 5 to 100 fathoms under water, 

 all difficulties of nearly all kinds would be removed (for the 

 simple fact of muddy ordinary shallow sea implies proximity 

 of land). [N.B. I am chuckling to think how you are 

 sneering all this time.] It is not much of a difficulty, there not 

 being shells with the coal, considering how unfavourable deep 

 mud is for most Mollusca, and that shells would probably 

 decay from the humic acid, as seems to take place in peat 

 and in the black moulds (as Lyell tells me) of the Mississippi. 

 So coal question settled Q. E. D. Sneer away ! 



Many thanks for your welcome note from Cambridge, and 

 I am glad you like my alma mater, which I despise heartily 

 as a place of education, but love from many most pleasant 

 recollections. . . . 



Thanks for your offer of the * Phytologist ; ' I shall be 

 very much obliged for it, for I do not suppose I should be 

 able to borrow it from any other quarter. I will not be set 

 up too much by your praise, but I do not believe I ever lost 

 a book or forgot to return it during a long lapse of time. 

 Your ' Webb ' is well wrapped up, and with your name in 

 large letters outside. 



My new microscope is come home (a " splendid play- 



* An unfulfilled prophecy. 



