WCP5634

[1] [p. 74]

TO PROF. MENDOLA

Parkstone, Dorset.

July 8, 1897.

My dear Mendola,—...

I am now reading a wonderfully interesting book — O. Fisher's "Physics of the Earth's Crust." It is really a grand book, and , though full of unintelligible mathematics, is so clearly explained and so full of good reasoning on all the aspects of this most difficult question that it is a pleasure to read it. It was especially a pleasure to me because I had just been writing an article on the Permanence of the Oceanic Basins, at the request of the Editor of Natural Science, who told me I was not orthodox on the point. But I find that Fisher supports the same view with very great force, and it strikes me that if weight of argument and number of capable supporters create orthodoxy in science, it is the other side who are not orthodox. I have some fresh arguments, and I was delighted to be able to quote Fisher. It seems almost demonstrated now that Sir W. Thomson was wrong, and that the earth has a molten interior and a very thin crust, and in no other way can the phenomena of geology be explained....—

Yours very truly,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.