really cannot entertain a doubt that E. de B. is grossly wrong, and that
you are right in your view; but without most distinct evidence I will
never admit that a dike joins on rectangularly to a stream of lava. Your
argument about the perpendicularity of the dike strikes me as good.

The map of Etna, which I have been just looking at, looks like a sudden
falling in, does it not? I am not much surprised at the linear vent
in Santorin (this linear tendency ought to be difficult to a
circular-crater-of-elevation-believer), I think Abich (486/2.
"Geologische Beobachtungen uber die vulkanischen Erscheinungen und
Bildungen in Unter- und Mittel-Italien." Braunschweig, 1841.) describes
having seen the same actual thing forming within the crater of Vesuvius.
In such cases what outline do you give to the upper surface of the lava
in the dike connecting them? Surely it would be very irregular and would
send up irregular cones or columns as in my above splendid drawing.

At the Royal on Friday, after more doubt and misgiving than I almost
ever felt, I voted to recommend Forbes for Royal Medal, and that view
was carried, Sedgwick taking the lead.

I am glad to hear that all your party are pretty well. I know from
experience what you must have gone through. From old age with suffering
death must be to all a happy release. (486/3. This seems to refer to
the death of Sir Charles Lyell's father, which occurred on November 8th,
1849.)

I saw Dan Sharpe the other day, and he told me he had been working at
the mica schist (i.e. not gneiss) in Scotland, and that he was quite
convinced my view was right. You are wrong and a heretic on this point,
I know well.

LETTER 487. TO C.H.L. WOODD. Down, March 4th [1850].

(487/1. The paper was sent in MS., and seems not to have been published.
Mr. Woodd was connected by marriage with Mr. Darwin's cousin, the late
Rev. W. Darwin Fox. It was perhaps in consequence of this that Mr.
Darwin proposed Mr. Woodd for the Geological Society.)

I have read over your paper with attention; but first let me thank you
for your very kind expressions towards myself. I really feel hardly
competent to discuss the questions raised by your paper; I feel the
want of mathematical mechanics. All such problems strike me as awfully
complicated; we do not even know what effect great pressure has on
retarding liquefaction by heat, nor, I apprehend, on expansion. The
chief objection which strikes me is a doubt whether