hing on the infinitely many passages and views which I
admired and which were new to me. My notes are badly expressed; but I
thought that you would excuse my taking any pains with my style. I wish
that my confounded handwriting was better.

I had a note the other day from Hooker, and I can see that he is _much_
pleased with the Dedication.

With all good wishes, believe me yours sincerely,

CH. DARWIN.

In two or three weeks you will receive a book from me; if you care to
know what it is about, read the paragraph in Introduction about new
terms and then the last chapter, and you will know whole contents of
book.

* * * * *

_Pen-y-bryn, St. Peter's Road, Croydon. November 8, 1880._

My dear Darwin,--Many thanks for your kind remarks and notes on my book.
Several of the latter will be of use to me if I have to prepare a second
edition, which I am not so sure of as you seem to be.

1. In your remark as to the doubtfulness of paucity of fossils being due
to coldness of water, I think you overlook that I am speaking _only_ of
waters in the latitude of the Alps, in Miocene and Eocene times, when
icebergs and glaciers temporarily descended into an otherwise warm sea;
my theory being that there was no glacial epoch at that time, but merely
a local and temporary descent of the snow-line and glaciers owing to
high excentricity and winter in _aphelion_.

2. I cannot see the difficulty about the cessation of the glacial
period. Between the Miocene and the Pleistocene periods geographical
changes occurred which rendered a true glacial period possible with
high excentricity. When the high excentricity passed away the glacial
epoch also passed away in the Temperate zone; but it persists in the
Arctic zone, where during the Miocene there were mild climates, and this
is due to the persistence of the changed geographical conditions. The
present Arctic climate is itself a comparatively new and abnormal state
of things due to geographical modification. As to "epoch" and "period,"
I use them as synonyms to avoid repeating the same word.

3. Rate of deposit and geological time: there no doubt I may have gone
to an extreme, but my "twenty-eight million years" may be anything under
100 millions, as I state. There is an enormous difference between _mean_
and _maximum_ denudation and deposition. In the case of the great faults
the upheaval along a given line would itself facilitate the denudation
(whet