Trin: Coll: Dub: | 31 Oct. 1857.
My dear Sir,
I have just received and read with great pleasure your paper on the Structure and Motion of Glaciers.1 We had an interesting discussion at the Dublin Meeting of the Br. Ass.2 on Joints and Cleavage, in which I was left nearly alone in my support of the Mechanical Theory of Cleavage.3 As I am, however, very obstinate by nature, I refused to be convinced by the vague allusions of my opponents to Polar Forces4 &c.; and after the Meeting availed myself of some weeks residence in Dunmore E. Co Waterford,5 to investigate the structure of the Joints and Cleavage of the old Red Conglomerate6 in that locality—I have obtained several hundred accurate measurements, & I think I have discovered the law of the structure of the whole district.
I can reduce it to known mechanical principles, and feel satisfied that my idea as to the true nature of Slaty Cleavage is correct.
I believe that no English Geologist has any idea of the facilities for observation of such structure afforded by our Coast Sections in the South of Ireland, and that this country offers the key for the solution of many problems in Physical Geology.
I hope to send you for presentation to the Royal Society the detailed results of my summer’s work before Christmas next—and think that you will agree with me that mechanical forces only can have produced the effects observable in the Old Red Conglomerate—I purposely chose this kind of rock as one in which the usual excuses of ignorance, such as Polar Force &c. —are of no avail.
I also think, that I can easily explain all the facts in Prof. Phillips7 Report,8 which at first sight, appeared at variance with the Mechanical Theory.
I hope to visit London in January next and to have an opportunity of talking with you on this subject.
I am, | Yours sincerely | Saml. Haughton
RI MS JT/1/TYP/2/485
LT Typescript Only
your paper on the Structure and Motion of Glaciers: J. Tyndall and T. H. Huxley, ‘On the Structure and Motion of Glaciers’, Phil. Trans., 147 (1857), pp. 327–46.
Dublin Meeting of the Br. Ass: the twenty-seventh meeting of the BAAS, held in Dublin in August and September 1857. The report of Haughton’s paper is: S. Haughton, ‘On a Model illustrative of Slaty Cleavage’, in Report of the Twenty-Seventh Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science; held at Dublin in August and September 1857 (London: John Murray, 1858), p. 69.
Mechanical Theory of Cleavage: see letter 1295, n. 3.
vague allusions of my opponents to Polar Forces: the dispute over cleavage in slate was between those who argued for a crystalline model (polar forces) versus those who put forth a mechanical model (pressure). See letter 1295, n. 3.
Dunmore E. Co Waterford: Dunmore East, a tourist village in Co Waterford on Ireland’s southeastern coast.
the old Red Conglomerate: Haughton would soon publish on this, as communicated to the RS by Tyndall. See S. Haughton, ‘On the Physical Structure of the Old Red Sandstone of the County of Waterford, Considered with Relation to Cleavage, Joint Surfaces, and Faults’, Phil. Trans., 148 (January 1858), pp. 333–48; and letters 1481 and 1484.
Prof. Phillips: John Phillips (1800–74), English geologist who was the first to develop a global geologic time scale, and he coined the word Mesozoic. In 1857, Phillips gave at the RI ‘Ten Lectures on Leading Questions in Geology’.
Report: J. Phillips, ‘Report on cleavage and foliation in rocks, and on the theoretical explanations of these phænomena.— Pt I’, Brit. Assoc. Rep. 1856, pp. 369–96.
Please cite as “Tyndall1449,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on