In the next year (1859) Lyell also travelled, though the journeys were not so lengthy as their two predecessors. Still, in the spring he visited both Holland and Le Puy in Auvergne, and in the earlier part of the autumn attended the meeting of the British Association at Aberdeen, under the presidency of Prince Albert. A strong body of geologists were present, and Lyell was for the fourth time in the chair of the Geological Section, the Prince coming to hear his address. Among the old friends whom he met was one who would have been a suitable husband for the famous Countess of Desmond, for Lyell writes of him to Mrs. Horner, his wife's mother, "Dr. F. at ninety-four looks well enough, but having eaten turtle-soup, and melon too close to the rind, and other imprudences, is not quite well to-day!" _O dura Doctorum ilia!_ The meeting ended, Lyell with some geological friends went off to Elgin to examine the sandstone quarried at Cutties Hillock, near that town. The rock closely resembles the ordinary Old Red Sandstone; it seemed at first sight to form a continuous mass, yet in one place it contained a fossil fish belonging to that period, and in another the remains of a reptile (_Telerpeton_). After some days of careful study, the Rev. W. S. Symonds, who was one of the party, came to the conclusion (which has been fully ratified by later investigations) that the deposits were of different ages; the one with the fish being truly "Old Red," the other, with the reptile, "New Red." The chief cause of the puzzle is that the sand which has been derived from the older rock has gone to form the newer one, and that the usual indications of a discontinuity are practically absent. It affords a valuable caution, for it shows that Nature sometimes does set traps, which might well catch even the most wary geologist. In the same autumn Lyell read Darwin's great work on "The Origin of Species," by which his scientific position was finally determined, for his letters show that, if any objection to the leading principles in his friend's views had still lingered in his mind, they were overcome by the perusal of this masterly specimen "of close reasoning and long sustained argument." FOOTNOTES: [116] In reference to an essay written by him on the connection between the fauna and flora of the British Isles and geological changes. ("Memoirs of the Geological Survey," i. p. 336.) [117] Life, Letters, and Journals, vol ii. p. 110. [118] He died November 8th, 1849. [119] He had the advantage of the company of Mr. C. Hartung, who was an excellent naturalist and well acquainted with the island. [120] "Elements of Geology" (sixth edition), pp. 621-635. [121] "On the Geology of Some Parts of Madeira" (Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc., x. p. 325).