Sir,
The undersigned begs for the honour of being allowed to submit to your judgment two small books of his, in which he has developped and supported by facts a new theory on the great changes of the earth’s surface.1
This theory, the author hopes, will attract your kind attention so much the more, as it does entirely away with one objection made to your incomparable ‘Mutation of Species’, viz. the interruptions and want of continuance observable in the fossil remains of anti-diluvian organic life.2 According to this new theory stoppages of many thousands of years must necessarily have occurred in the animal and vegetable life of the same localities, must be observable in the sudden transitions of petrefacts and so lead to the opinion, as if new creations had taken place; whereas an uninterrupted line of development must exist, and will be seen as soon as we are able to follow up the alternation of strata of both the hemispheres of the earth.
Hoping you will in due time take a little notice of these two books and have the kindness to communicate to the author your opinion about them, he signs as | Your | most ob. serv. | Dr. Schmick, | Professor in the Realschule.3
Cologne
Nov. 12th 1870.
(Trutzenberg 68)
Please cite as “DCP-LETT-7368,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on