WCP2798

Letter (WCP2798.2688)

[1]

Chapel Allerton

Leeds

8. 2. 00

My dear Sir,

I am sorry that I neglected to answer your enquiry1 about the writing on the back of your photos. of the Barmouth grooves. I do not recognise it but have a suspicion that they are the work of some Birmingham man. By the way the grooves are those shown in my photo.

The water emerged directly from base of the ice-lobe of the Gormer glacier so far as I could [2] judge, & without any interval or air-space. My photograph was taken well towards the close of a hot day when he river Visp had risen probably two feet above its early morning level. The deep shadows & the turmoil of the water made accurate observation very difficult.

The perched Silurian boulder has probably travelled not more than a mile but it is a significant fact that many of the blocks occur at an altitude at least [3] 50 feet (by measurement) above the highest portion of the outcrop of the parent-rock.

An analogous fact is recorded by Mr. Lamplugh2 regarding great masses of Specton Clay (Neocomian) which are embedded in the Boulder-clay of the cliffs at Flamborough Head. The highest outcrop of the parent rock is at but little above sea-level at Specton yet and very considerably below the transported masses and at Flamborough.

I have not yet received the promised photograph of a terminal [4] moraine. Professor Watts3 has written to say there is more in the possession of the Geological Photographs Committee.

I have written to Prof. G. A. J. Cole4 of Dublin & to Prof. Lebour5 of Newcastle to see if either can put me in communication with a photographer possessing a print of a good terminal moraine. I know that there are exquisite examples in the Cheriots.

The prints bearing Mr Bingley's6 name are from his own negatives.

I enclose herewith two negatives from which good blocks [5] 5/ could be obtained.

The glass one I have had taken according to promise. It well portrays a very characteristic boulder of Rhomb-porphyry found embedded in boulder-clay at an altitude of 810 ft. above sea level on West Rigg near Stanghow (on the northern face of the Cleveland Hills) The rock is perfectly unmistakable by reasons of the great rhomb- [6] shaped sections of felspar which it displays. It covers an area of some thousands of square miles around the head of Christiania Fjord.

The flexible negative is one of the great gorges either the Aarschlucht or the Gorge du Triente — if the former as I suspect you will, I daresay, be able to recognise it.

Yours faithfully | Percy F. Kendall7 [signature]

A. R. Wallace Esq.

The letter has not been found.
Lamplugh, George William (1859-1926). Eminent British geologist and geographer.
Watts, William Whitehead (1860-1947). British geologist. Served as secretary (1898-1909) and as President (1910-1912) of the Geological Society.
Cole, Grenville Arthur James (1859-1924). British geologist. Professor of Geology and Mineralogy in the Royal College of Science for Ireland.
Lebour, George Alexander Louis (1847-1918). British geologist. Lecturer in geological surveying (1876-1879). Professor of geology until 1918.
Bingley, Godfrey (1842-1927). British photographer, engineer and iron founder. Served on the Council of the Photographic Convention (1899). Elected to and became life member of the Yorkshire Geological Society.
Kendall, Percy Fry (1856-1936). Well known for his early work on the glacial lakes and gorges of the North York Moors, and The Geology of Yorkshire. Professor of Geology at the University of Leeds from 1906 to 1922.

Please cite as “WCP2798,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP2798