Ɛpsilon

To Charles Lyell   23 September 1874

Down, | Beckenham, Kent.

Sep 23 1874

My dear Lyell

I suppose that you have returned or will soon return to London; & I hope re-invigorated by your outing.1 In your last letter you spoke of Mr Judd’s paper on the volcanoes of the Hebrides. I have just finished it, & to ease my mind, must express my extreme admiration.2

It is years since I have read a purely geological paper which has interested me so greatly. I was all the more interested, as in the Cordillera I often speculated on the sources of the deluges of sub-marine porphyritic lavas of which they are built, & as I have stated, I saw to a certain extent the causes of the obliteration of the points of eruption.3 I was also not a little pleased to see my volcanic book quoted, for I thought it was completely dead & forgotten.4 What fine work Mr Judd will assuredly do! I have just begun Mr Jamieson’s paper, which seems to me very interesting & I shd think true.5

Now I have eased my mind & so farewell—with both ED’s6 & C.D’s very kind remembrances to Miss Lyell.7 | yours affectionately | Charles Darwin

Mr Mallet will not like to hear of palæozoic true sub-aerial explosive volcanos.—8

LS(A)

1
Lyell had been travelling in Scotland (letter from Charles Lyell, 1 September 1874).
2
Lyell had mentioned John Wesley Judd’s paper on volcanoes in the Hebrides (Judd 1874) in his letter of 1 September 1874.
3
CD had reported that it was difficult to trace the origin of porphyritic lava in the Cordillera mountains, because the original points of eruption tended to become the points of injection (see South America, pp. 232–3). Judd described numerous porphyritic structures in the Hebrides mountains (Judd 1874, pp. 261, 269, 278–81).
4
CD’s Volcanic islands was referred to in Judd 1874, p. 257.
5
CD refers to ‘On the last stage of the glacial period in north Britain’ (Jamieson 1874). CD had corresponded with Thomas Francis Jamieson about glaciation in Scotland (see Correspondence vols. 9, 10, 11, and 14).
8
In a general discussion of the causes of volcanic energy, Robert Mallet had argued that volcanoes were unlikely to have existed much before the start of the Tertiary era, and that most igneous action had been subterranean (Mallet 1872, p. 171). In contrast, Judd had described the remains of Palaeozoic volcanoes in the Scottish Highlands (Judd 1874, p. 276).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

4.1 Mr … volcanos.—] in CD’s hand

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-9654,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-9654