WCP2760

Letter (WCP2760.2650)

[1]1

30 Pulteney St[reet]

Bath

Feb[ruary] 11. 1897

My dear Doctor Wallace

I was extremely glad to recognize your handwriting this morning but am sorry to have been subject to annoyance[?] through the incivility of Lord Eldon’s2[?] Gamekeeper and who rules[?] the estate like a despot. It is sad to think that those who profess power do not exercise it or as[?] to distribute the greatest happiness. There is no use in writing to Lord Eldon[?] I shall shortly be in London when I will bring the subject before him [.] He is a hard[?] letter man & will no doubt do as you wish — Mr [2] Barker3 is the one of all others whose chief delight seems to be to encircle his [1 word illeg.] which are many & great[.] Stand[?] off. I repeat one [1 word illeg.] often now. In fact I am become so infirm I am unable to get about as of old. However I shall endeavour to look you up this summer after a months [1 word illeg.] in this most depressing place.

Erica ciliaris4 seems to be disporting itself far & wide. Its first jump as far as we know was to the Piddle Valley at Sanford [sic]5. The [2 words illeg.] it further[?] north[?] & now you have found it [3]6 at Poole.7 I had a splendid geological time of it last Winter & Spring at Amelie les Bains [sic]8 the Eastern extremity of the Pyrenees where the Tech [1 word illeg.] into the Mediterranean near the Spanish & French frontier. The most remarkable feature is the grandest expression of granitic gneiss9 &[?] Cambrian10 Silurian11 & other paleozoic12 rocks along the valley of the Tech13 surmounted by a [2 words illeg.] which at one time was filled with glaciers whose remains flank the precipitous sides of the valley which [1 word illeg.] on the alluvial plain through a splendid series of Pliocene14 rocks and [1 word illeg.] There [4] within a distance of 10 miles there is a grand study of the oldest & the newest of the geological series.

Please give my kind regards to Mrs Wallace15

& Believe me | Yours very truly | J. C. Mansel-Pleydell [signature]16

1
The page is numbered 24 in pencil in the top RH corner.
2
Possibly John Scott, 3rd Earl of Eldon (1845-1926).
3
Not identified.
4
A species of heather, known in the British Isles as Dorset heath.
5
The River Piddle flows into Poole Harbour. Holton and Sandford Heaths is one of a collection of sites which together comprise the Dorset heathlands. The Dorset heaths complex is one of the major lowland heathland areas in Britain and is of international importance for its plant and animal communities.
6
The page is numbered 25 in pencil in the top RH corner.
7
Coastal town and seaport in the county of Dorset, on the south coast of England.
8
Amélie-les-Bains-Palalda is a commune in the Eastern Pyrénées in southern France, situated in the Tech valley.
9
A rock with a banded or foliated structure, typically coarse-grained and consisting mainly of feldspar, quartz, and mica. It is formed by high-grade regional metamorphic processes from a pre-existing formation that was in this case originally igneous (granite).
10
The first geologic time period of the Paleozoic Era, 540 to 490 million years ago.
11
The third geologic period of the Paleozoic Era that extends from the end of the Ordovician Period, at 443.8 million years ago, to the beginning of the Devonian Period, 419.2 million years ago.
12
Geologic era subdivided into six geologic periods (from oldest to youngest): the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, and Permian. It lasted from about 541 to 252 million years ago.
13
A river in southern France, very close to the French-Spanish border. It runs through a valley in the Eastern Pyrénées.
14
Geologic epoch that extends from 5.33 million to 2.58 million years ago.
15
Wallace, Annie (née Mitten) (1846-1914) Wife of ARW.
16
Mansel-Pleydell, John Clavell (formerly Mansel) (1817-1902). Dorset antiquary, known for contributions to geology, botany and ornithology. (Wikip).

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP2760.2650)]

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

Revision history

Transcribed by O'Dell, Sandra [2018-08-15]

Please cite as “WCP2760,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 28 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP2760