WALLACE.
P.S.--When you have read the proof and done with it, may I beg you to
return it to me?--A.R.W.
* * * * *
_Down, Beckenham, Kent, S.E. January 26, [1870]._
My dear Wallace,--I have been very much struck by your whole article
(returned by this post), especially as to rate of denudation, for the
still glaciated surfaces have of late most perplexed me. Also
_especially_ on the lesser mutations of climate during the last 60,000
years; for I quite think with you no cause so powerful in inducing
specific changes, through the consequent migrations. Your argument would
be somewhat strengthened about organic changes having been formerly more
rapid, if Sir W. Thomson is correct that physical changes were formerly
more violent and abrupt.
The whole subject is so new and vast that I suppose you hardly expect
anyone to be at once convinced, but that he should keep your view before
his mind and let it ferment. This, I think, everyone will be forced to
do. I have not as yet been able to digest the fundamental notion of the
shortened age of the sun and earth.
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