XXIV] SIR CHARLES LYELL 429 



This passage shows, I think, that he was somewhat 

 staggered by my arguments, but could not take so great a 

 step without further consideration and examination of the 

 evidence. I feel sure, therefore, that if he had had before 

 him the numerous facts since made known, of erratic blocks 

 carried by the ice to heights far above their place of origin 

 in North America, and even in our own islands, as described 

 at p. 75 and p. 90 of my " Studies " (vol. i.), with evidence of 

 such action now occurring in Greenland (p. 91), of the Moel 

 Try fan beds having been forced up by the glacier that filled 

 the Irish sea, he would have seen, I feel sure, that his 

 objections were all answered by actual phenomena, and that 

 the gradual erosion of Lago Maggiore was far within the 

 powers of such enormous accumulations of ice as must have 

 existed over its site. 



The following letter I quote entire, because it calls atten- 

 tion to a very original but much neglected book which, 

 though probably not wholly sound in its theoretical basis, 

 contains suggestions which may help towards the solution of 

 a still unsolved problem : — 



" May 3, 1871. 



''Dear Sir Charles, 



" I have just been reading a book which has struck 

 me amazingly, but which has been somewhat pooh-pooh'd by 

 the critics, and which therefore you may not have thought 

 worth looking at. It is W. Mattieu Williams' * Fuel of the 

 Sun.' Whether the theory is true or false, the book is the 

 work of a man of original genius. Its originality is so 

 startling that I have found it to require reading twice to take 

 it in thoroughly ; and it is so different from all modern 

 theories of the sun that I can quite see why such a work by 

 an outsider should not have received due attention. If 

 sound, it completely solves the problem of the perpetuity of 

 the sun's heat, and gives geologists and Darwinians any 

 amount of time they require. It seems to be reasonable, it 

 is beautifully worked out, it is quite intelligible, and till 



