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To William Crawford Williamson   31 January [1848]

Down Farnborough Kent

Jan 31st

My dear Sir

I am extremely much obliged to you for your kind present of your work,1 which I got two days ago from the Geolog. Society. I have read it half through, & have been greatly interested by it. It is a most curious & admirable subject, & one on which I am very glad to acquire some little information. You mention the frondescent incrustation at Ascension: do you care to have specimen for microscopical examination: I have described it in detail in my volume on Volcanic Islands.—2

Permit me to suggest to you a most careful examination of the beds, under-clay shale &c associated with the Coal.3 Geology presents scarcely any more perplexing & certainly no more interesting problem than the formation of the coal. It has occurred to me that careful microscopical examination might reveal infusoria, & show whether the intervening beds were deposited under the sea, or brackish, or freshwater:—this question settled, wd be a great point gained.4

Once more I thank you for your volume, to the finishing of which I look forward with pleasure.

Believe me | dear Sir | Yours very faithfully | C. Darwin

1
Williamson 1847. The paper had been read on 4 November 1845 but was subsequently considerably enlarged. The copy sent to CD was a separate advance printing, dated 1847 (Darwin Library–Down). The final version was published in the Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester, 2d ser. 8 (1848): 1–128.
2
Volcanic islands, pp. 50–4.
3
For Williamson’s earlier work on the origin of coal see Williamson 1842.
4
CD had earlier expressed the hope that Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg would examine coal for Infusoria (see letter to J. D. Hooker, [12 May 1847]).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.3 it.] above del ‘me.’
1.4 the] over ‘&’
2.3 the] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-1149,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-1149