Ɛpsilon

From J. H. Schmick   3 May 1872

Cologne, | Trutzenberg 68.

Mai 3d 1872.

Most honoured Sir,

About eighteen months since I had the honour to send you two essays of mine, in which my new theory on “A secular transposition of oceans” was developed, and established by facts of geology, geography and natural history.1 I then also told you of a book of mine to be published as soon as possible, in which particularly facts of geology and geognosy were to be adduced as so many evidences of the truth of my theory, and in which I intended to explain the breaks or intermittence of the series of petrifactions. You had the kindness to acknowledge the receipt of the two essays, to encourage me in the pursuit of researches and to style as greatly meritorious for science a result as promised in my letter to you. That result is now obtained, as far as I can see, and I have the pleasure of forwarding to you, together with this note, the book, in which I think to have succeeded in establishing my theory as an “eternal law of nature”.2

I wish you would not shun the trouble to read the work and to mediate, if possible, its more general notoriety among English geologists, to whose enquiries we are indebted for so numerous important facts concerning the formation of the earth’s crust.

I remain with the most distinguished consideration | Yours | ob. serv. | Dr. H. Schmick.

1
See Correspondence vol. 18, letter from J. H. Schmick, 12 November 1870. Schmick refers to his Die Umsetzungen der Meere und die Eiszeiten der Halbkugeln der Erde, ihre Ursachen und Perioden (The transpositions of the seas and the ice ages of the hemispheres of the earth, their causes and periods; Schmick 1869) and his Thatsachen und Beobachtungen zur weiteren Begründung seiner neuen theorie einer Umsetzung der Meere durch die Sonnenanziehung und eines gleichzeitigen Wechsels der Eiszeiten auf beiden Halbkugeln der Erde (Facts and observations to further justify his new theory of a transposition of the seas through the attraction of the sun and a simultaneous alternation of ice ages in both hemispheres of the earth; Schmick 1871): there are annotated copies of both books in the Darwin Pamphlet Collection–CUL.
2
CD’s letter to Schmick has not been found. Schmick refers to his Die neue Theorie periodischer säkulärer Schwankungen des Seespiegels und gleichzeitiger Verschiebungen der Wärmezonen auf Nord- und Südhalbkugel der Erde (The new theory of periodic secular changes in sea level and simultaneous shifts in the warm zones of the north and south hemispheres of the earth; Schmick 1872). No copy has been found in the Darwin Archive–CUL.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-8309,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-8309