From William Oliver to William Kemp   1 Nov 1844

Dear Sir

I am glad to see you have come out in an independent form. I have read your little work with both pleasure and profit. Your theory of terraces is very plausible and ingenious and I am sorry I have not had an opportunity of walking over your favourite ground with you when engaged in investigating them; from not having any proper levelling instrument I have never been able to determine the respective levels of what I conjectured were terraces or ancient beaches. That there have been both glacier action and the action of floating icebergs I think can scarcely be denied by any one who will take the trouble of investigating the phenomena presented by the surface of the country, at least these are phenomena which can not be accounted for by any other known hypothesis and which can be very satisfactorily solved by this.

I daresay I need scarcely advert to a circumstance of which you must already be very well aware namely that no man ever did yet come forward with even the most pure and disinterested wish to serve his fellow men who were not found fault with by those he wished to serve; but he who swerves from doing what he thinks right merely because he is afraid of being found fault with by the unthinking and malevolent might with as much propriety be afraid to pass a flock of geese in case they should hiss at him.— I had rather be a Quixote than a Sancho Panza.—

I trust you have been in the enjoyment of good health since I last saw you and many thanks for the pleasure and instruction your work has afforded me I remain | Dear Sir | very truly yours | W^m Oliver

P.S. Have you seen “Nicol’s Geology of Scotland”? W.0.

^To. M^r Kemp | Galashiels