Ɛpsilon

To Charles Lyell   20 March [1869]1

Down. | Bromley. | Kent. S.E.

March 20th

My dear Lyell

I am obliged to you for sending me Wallace’s letter, which I have been glad to read.— I did not pretend to form any opinion on Moseley’s or Croll’s papers; but the latter seemed to me very ingenious.2 As Mosely has studied mechanics all his life, I cannot suppose that he has overlooked the considerations specified by Wallace. I shd. have though that the close, fine & parallel veins in the ice of glacier, along the planes of movement, & the regular & gentle curve, which a straight row of sticks soon & invariably assumes, were opposed to the belief that a glacier descended by a succession of abrupt-fractures first at one point & then at another. But as I have said the subject is quite beyond me.—

What a capital book Wallace has published; his discussions on Geograph. Distrib. are inimitably good— I have not yet finished the book.3 I shd. think it wd have a great success.— I am working very hard at many subjects.—

Ever yours | Most truly | Ch. Darwin

1
The year is established by the reference to the recent publication of Wallace 1869a (see n. 3, below).
2
Alfred Russel Wallace’s letter has not been found. CD had first mentioned Henry Moseley’s paper on glacial motion (Moseley 1869a) in a letter to James Croll of 31 January [1869]. Croll sent CD a pre-publication copy of his article on the subject (Croll 1870; see letter from James Croll, 15 February 1869 and n. 3).
3
CD refers to Wallace 1869a (see letter to A. R. Wallace, 5 March [1869] and n. 2).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.7 assumes,] altered from ‘assume, was’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-6672,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-6672