the right ones. I enclose a list with
those which are certainly not worth translating marked with a red line;
but whether those which are not thus marked with a red line are worth
translation you will have to decide. I think much more highly of my
book on "Volcanic Islands" since Mr. Judd, by far the best judge on the
subject in England, has, as I hear, learnt much from it.

I think the short paper on the "formation of mould" is worth
translating, though, if I have time and strength, I hope to write
another and longer paper on the subject.

I can assure you that the idea of any one translating my books better
than you never even momentarily crossed my mind. I am glad that you can
give a fairly good account of your health, or at least that it is not
worse.

LETTER 497. TO T. MELLARD READE. London, December 9th, 1880.

I am sorry to say that I do not return home till the middle of next
week, and as I order no pamphlets to be forwarded to me by post, I
cannot return the "Geolog. Mag." until my return home, nor could my
servants pick it out of the multitude which come by the post. (497/1.
Article on "Oceanic Islands," by T. Mellard Reade, "Geol. Mag." Volume
VIII., page 75, 1881.)

As I remarked in a letter to a friend, with whom I was discussing
Wallace's last book (497/2. Wallace's "Island Life," 1880.), the subject
to which you refer seems to me a most perplexing one. The fact which
I pointed out many years ago, that all oceanic islands are volcanic
(except St. Paul's, and now this is viewed by some as the nucleus of an
ancient volcano), seems to me a strong argument that no continent ever
occupied the great oceans. (497/3. "During my investigations on coral
reefs I had occasion to consult the works of many voyagers, and I
was invariably struck with the fact that, with rare exceptions, the
innumerable islands scattered through the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic
Oceans were composed either of volcanic or of modern coral rocks"
("Geological Observations on Volcanic Islands, etc." Edition II., 1876,
page 140).) Then there comes the statement from the "Challenger" that
all sediment is deposited within one or two hundred miles from the
shores, though I should have thought this rather doubtful with respect
to great rivers like the Amazons.

The chalk formerly seemed to me the best case of an ocean having
extended where a continent now stands; but it seems that some good
judges deny that the chalk is an oceanic deposit