WCP6595

[1]

Parkstone, Dorset.

Feb^r. 1st. 1896

My dear Clement Reid

I wrote you a week or two back about carbonic-acid gas in glacier water. If you have not got the information do not trouble more about it, as it is of very little importance & I find, now I am writing my article, that I shall perhaps not want to refer to it.

I now have another thing to bother you about. A lady friend of ours has a son about 18 years old who is educating for a geologist. He is clever, & has [2] been some time at S. Kensington, but with 5 hours a day laboratory ^{& lecture} work [;] his health has broken down & he is ordered by the doctors to do no more such work for a year. What I want to know is, whether it is possible, & under what conditions, for him to be with any one of the Ordnance Surveyors ^{in the field} for a year or two. I do not know whether this is permissible; if it is he would be greatly pleased as he is very fond of geology. [3] Is there any way of entering the Survey to learn the practical field work, or are there any hard-working amateur geologists who would have him with a moderate fee ? I promised his mother, who is a very old friend of ours, to make enquiries; and as you have been so long on the Survey you can no doubt enlighten me. They are staying at Bournemouth now, & if you can give me the information [4] at once it will be a satisfaction to them.

With best wishes | Believe me | Yours very truly | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]