Ɛpsilon

WCP2209

Letter (WCP2209.2099)

[1]

Harlton,

Cambridge

5 May 1894

Dear Dr Wallace

I am pleased to find that we are in accord respecting Lapworth’s1 views which I have seen glorified (I think) by the name of "The New Geology".

I have written the enclosed in response to your challenge. I shall be very glad if you will take the trouble to consider it.

Have you a copy of my paper at Cambridge of 30th May 1892.?2 The first three pages are wrong, because I took a wrong numerical value out of Thomson & Tait.3 But the latter part is important as referred to in what I now send.

[2] Jukes-Browne4 who on the whole accepts my views does not agree to chap XXV of my book5 & thinks it a pity I published it. I do not agree with him.

Pray make the experiment with the tea and egg. Water does not answer so well. I suppose the tannin is required to reduce the egg to the proper consistency.

You will see that I have kept a copy of the MS.

I have got your Island life6 out of the Library. I see a note from a letter of mine in Nature7 which I utterly had forgotten all about.

I am pleased that the Geological survey of India give their unqualified approval to my theory of mountains as applied to the Himalayas & call my book a "great work". They have [3] just sent me their 2nd Edn of the "Geology of India".8

I once accidentally made an interesting experiment. I wanted a block of lead for a stand. So I took a flower pot and blocked the bottom of it with a piece of wood which I turned out of a damp log with least cracks in it. The hot lead evolved steam from the wood through a crack in it & violent ebullition of the lead went on for a short time. [A diagram of the pot with "lead" and "block of wood" labelled is shown here].

The wavelets of lead solidified as they were driven away from the upward current and formed wide rings when all at once the ebullition ceased and a comparatively smooth area was formed in the middle. It put me in mind of the mare’s as I believe they are called in the [illeg.] [A diagram of concentric rings without labels is shown here].

Believe me | sincerely yours | Osmond Fisher9 [signature]

1
Lapworth, Charles (1878-1951). British socialist activist, journalist and film promoter. Editor of The Daily Herald (1912-1913).
2
Fisher, O. 1892. On the hypothesis of a liquid condition of the earth’s interior considered in connexion with Professor Darwin’s theory of the genesis of the Moon Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, vol. VII pp. 335-347.
3
Thomson, W. & Tait, P. G. 1867. Treatise on Natural Philosophy. Oxford University Press.
4
Jukes-Browne, Alfred John (1851-1914). British invertebrate palaeontologist and stratigrapher.
5
Fisher, O. 1881. The Physics of the Earth’s Crust. London: Macmillan & Co.
6
Wallace, A. R. 1880 Island Life: Or, The Phenomena and Causes of Insular Faunas and Floras, Including a Revision and Attempted Solution of the Problem of Geological Climates. London: Macmillan & Co.
7
Fisher, O. 1873. Elevation of Mountains and Volcanic Theories. Nature, vol. 9, p. 61.
8
Oldham, R. D. 1893. A Manual of the Geology of India. 2nd Edition. Calcutta, Geological Survey of India.
9
Fisher, Osmond (1817-1914). British geologist and geophysicist.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP2209.2099)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcribed by O'Dell, Sandra [2015-05-21] Transcription checked by Benny, Ruth [2015-05-21] Transcription checked by Sherwood, Danni [2020-08-10] Transcription checked by Chua, Christine [2026-04-18]

Please cite as “WCP2209,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP2209