178 THE LIFE OF JAMES D. FORBES. [CHAP. 



' You liave read of course the Sequel to the Vestiges. . . . 

 The author of the Vestiges, who is generally believed to 

 be a denizen of modern Athens, has shown himself a very 

 apt scholar, and has improved his knowledge and his 

 arguments so much since his first edition that his de- 

 formities no longer appear so disgusting. It was well that 

 he began to write in the fulness of his ignorance and 

 presumption, for had he begun now he would have been 

 more dangerous. 



* You will see from my tenth letter on Glaciers that 

 Agassiz has found his way into my mortar-tub at last. . . . 



' I have lately written a paper on the Geology of the 

 Cuchullin Hills in Skye, in which I think I have nil but 

 demonstrated the existence of ancient glaciers there,having 

 been myself convinced most entirely against my will.' 



To EODERICK MURCHISON, ESQ. 



* EDINBURGH, February 3rd, 184G. 



'. . . I have the pleasure of sending, on the other 

 side, an official acknowledgment of the honour you 

 have done us in sending your very splendid work to the 

 Koyal Society. What I have read of it pleases me very 

 much, but at the same time satisfies me that my first 

 impression was correct as such first impressions usually 

 are that I have not the extensive and at the same time 

 minute acquaintance with this part of systematic geology 

 which could alone entitle me to undertake so honourable 

 a duty as reviewing it. I regret it very much, because 

 I am much gratified and flattered by your thinking of 

 me; but I have never practised the ungentle craft of 

 reviewing upon the strength of amateur snatches of 

 knowledge, and I am very sure that others will be found 

 most willing and far better entitled to render you this 

 friendly office. Why should not Sedgewick or Dr. Fitton, 

 who used to write so well in the Edinburgh ? ' 



To E. BATTEN, ESQ. 



'EDINBURGH, April 5lh, 1846. 



*. . . Your most comfortable letter from the Athe- 

 naeum aroused all my bachelor sympathies, and abstract- 



