On his return, so far as can be inferred from the few letters which have been published, Lyell continued to work at geology, and at Christmas, 1821, was seeking in vain for freshwater fossils in the neighbourhood of Bartley. In the spring of 1822 he investigated the Sussex coast from Hastings to Dungeness, and studied the effects of the sea at Winchelsea and Rye. In the early summer of 1823 he visited the Isle of Wight, and in a letter to Dr. Mantell suggested that the "blue marl"[9] in Compton Chine is identical with that at Folkestone, and compared the underlying strata with those in Sussex, clearing up some confusions, into which earlier observers had fallen, about the Wealden and Lower Greensand. He was now evidently beginning to get a firm grip on the subject--a thing far from easy in days when so little had been ascertained--and this year he read his first papers to the Geological Society--one, in January, written in conjunction with Dr. Mantell, "On the Limestone and Clay of the Ironsand in Sussex"; the other in June, "On the Sections presented by Some Forfarshire Rivers." Also, on February 7th, he was elected one of the secretaries of that Society, an office which he retained till 1826. This is a pretty clear proof that he had begun to make his mark among geologists, and was well esteemed by the leaders of the science. No sooner had he returned from the Isle of Wight than he started for Paris, going direct from London to Calais, in the _Earl of Liverpool_ steam packet, "in 11 hours! 120 miles! engines 80 horse-power for 240 tons." In the last letter written to his father before quitting England he refers to our neighbours across the Channel in the following terms: "My opinion of the French people is that they are much too corrupt for a free government and much too enlightened for a despotic one." That was written full seventy years ago; perhaps even now, were he alive, he would not be disposed to withdraw the words.