Kew
3 Dec 1854
My dear Airy,
Just before I left home on Monday I was reading & cogitating over a printed paper on the Deluge which has somehow (but I forget how) found its way to Hitcham. It is signed with the first Capital in the Alphabet &, from internal evidence I have ventured to supposed [sic] it is from the Capital of Astronomy. I can only say that if so, (or if not so) it seeming to me to satisfy the conditions required by those (among whom I am one) who believe the Noachian Deluge to have been a very local & transient affair. There are one or two queries I should like to put to the author of that paper, if you happen to know him, & when I get home tomorrow I will look at it again, & recall what they are, better than I can recollect them at the moment.
I had the great pleasure of meeting two of Mrs Airy's sisters at Liverpool - indeed of sharing a somewhat perilous adventure with one of them of which she (Mrs A.) has no doubt been informed. I trust she got safely back to Liverpool under the escort to which I confided her, though it was to a gentleman I had never seen before! Kind regards to Mrs Airy &
believe me
Very sincerely yrs
J. S. Henslow
Please cite as “HENSLOW-1166,” in Ɛpsilon: The Correspondence of John Stevens Henslow accessed on