seems to me interesting,
but with nothing new. I think he must be rather conceited, with his "If
Dr. Hooker had known this and that, he would have said so and so." It
seems to me absurd in Dawson assuming that North America was under sea
during the whole Glacial period. Certainly Greenland is a most curious
and difficult problem. But as for the Leguminosae, the case, my dear
fellow, is as plain as a pike-staff, as the seeds are so very quickly
killed by the sea-water. Seriously, it would be a curious experiment to
try vitality in salt water of the plants which ought to be in Greenland.
I forget, however, that it would be impossible, I suppose, to get hardly
any except the Caltha, and if ever I stumble on that plant in seed I
will try it.

I wish to Heaven some one would examine the rocks near sea-level at the
south point of Greenland, and see if they are well scored; that would
tell something. But then subsidence might have brought down higher
rocks to present sea-level. I am much more willing to admit your
Norwego-Greenland connecting land than most other cases, from the nature
of the rocks in Spitzbergen and Bear Island. You have broached and
thrown a lot of light on a splendid problem, which some day will be
solved. It rejoices me to think that, when a boy, I was shown an erratic
boulder in Shrewsbury, and was told by a clever old gentleman that till
the world's end no one would ever guess how it came there.

It makes me laugh to think of Dr. Dawson's indignation at your sentence
about "obliquity of vision." (358/1. See Letter 144.) By Jove, he will
try and pitch into you some day. Good night for the present.

To return for a moment to the Glacial period. You might have asked
Dawson whether ibex, marmot, etc., etc., were carried from mountain to
mountain in Europe on floating ice; and whether musk ox got to England
on icebergs? Yet England has subsided, if we trust to the good evidence
of shells alone, more during Glacial period than America is known to
have done.

For Heaven's sake instil a word of caution into Tyndall's ears. I saw
an extract that valleys of Switzerland were wholly due to glaciers. He
cannot have reflected on valleys in tropical countries. The grandest
valleys I ever saw were in Tahiti. Again, if I understand, he supposes
that glaciers wear down whole mountain ranges; thus lower their height,
decrease the temperature, and decrease the glaciers themselves. Does
he suppose the whole of Scotland t