From Robert Chambers to William Kemp   2 March 1848

Dear Sir,

I am favoured with yours of the 29th, and again render best thanks. If you can ere long do anything for me in the way of ascertaining the Deuchar heights, it will be a great addition to all former obligations. I am, however, more immediate1y solicitous to come to a positive certainty about two or three of the levels in your table. My pertinacity on these points springs, believe me, entirely from the faith I have in the general conformity of all true beach-lines correctly measured. It would of course be bad service to yourself, me, or the object we have in view, were you to go one foot beyond what your notes allow. There is nothing, however, to forbid a second measuring in order to make quite sure of results being correct. For this reason—notwithstanding all the trouble you have already had—I would ask you to repeat the measurement of the lines set down in the table at 831, 870-4, and 1174. You say as to the first, “I rather think this line ought to be stated as 8 or 9 feet lower.” Now, when we consider that there is a terrace in Lothian at 822, it becomes very desireable to settle this point by actual re-measurement. Respecting 1174, again, you say “this level is too high for the Innerleithen hills by some feet.” Here the same remark applies. The force of the whole matter lies here, that the establishment of parallels for the Glenroy terraces on Tweedside and in one or two other districts is the point on which the theory must stand, if it is to stand at all. I therefore put it to you to undertake with your son’s aid a measurement of these terraces as soon as weather and leisure permit.

I think I shall now be able to give a very faithful sketch of the Eildon terraces.

Very sincerely yours, | R. Chambers.

P.S. You can be at no loss for a basis in the Hawick Railway. To the plan measurements, add 8′6″, and you have height above the sea at about the level I have usually adopted.