about this beautiful country, and read all kinds of miscellaneous
literature.

I have asked my friend Mr. Mott to send you the last of his remarkable
papers--on Haeckel. But the part I hope you will read with as much
interest as I have done is that on the deposits of Carbon, and the part
it has played and must be playing in geological changes. He seems to
have got the idea from some German book, but it seems to me very
important, and I wonder it never occurred to Sir Charges Lyell. If the
calculations as to the quantity of undecomposed carbon deposited are
anything approaching to correctness, the results must be important.

Hoping you are in pretty good health, believe me yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

_Rose Hill, Dorking. July 23, 1877._

My dear Darwin,--Many thanks for your admirable volume on "The Forms of
Flowers." It would be impertinence of me to say anything in praise of
it, except that I have read the chapters on "Illegitimate Offspring of
Heterostyled Plants" and on "Cleistogamic Flowers" with great interest.

I am almost afraid to tell you that in going over the subject of the
Colours of Animals, etc., for a small volume of essays, etc., I am
preparing, I have come to conclusions directly opposed to _voluntary
sexual selection_, and believe that I can explain (in a general way)
_all_ the phenomena of sexual ornaments and colours by laws of
development aided by simple Natural Selection.

I hope you admire as I do Mr. Belt's remarkable series of papers in
support of his terrific "oceanic glacier river-damming" hypothesis. In
awful grandeur it beats everything "glacial" yet out, and it certainly
explains a wonderful lot of hard facts. The last one, on the "Glacial
Period in the Southern Hemisphere," in the _Quarterly Journal of
Science_, is particularly fine, and I see he has just read a paper at
the Geological Society. It seems to me supported by quite as much
evidence as Ramsay's "Lakes"; but Ramsay, I understand, will have none
of it--as yet.--Believe me yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

_Down, Beckenham, Kent. August 31, 1877._

My dear Wallace,--I am very much obliged to you for sending your
article, which is very interesting and appears to me as clearly written
as it can be. You will not be surprised that I differ altogether from
you about sexual colours. That the tail of the peacock and