"Some of the party said next day that Peel never gave an opinion for or against any point from extra-caution, but I really thought that he expressed himself as freely, even on subjects bordering on the political, as a well-bred man could do when talking to another with whose opinions he was unacquainted. He was very curious to know what Vernon Harcourt [the President for that year] had said on the connection of religion and science. I told him of it, and my own ideas, and in the middle of my strictures on the Dean of York's pamphlet[92] I exclaimed, 'By-the-bye, I have only just remembered that he is your brother-in-law.' He said, 'Yes, he is a clever man and a good writer, but if men will not read any one book written by scientific men on such a subject, they must take the consequences.' ... If I had not known Sir Robert's extensive acquirements, I should only have thought him an intelligent, well-informed country gentleman; not slow, but without any quickness, free from that kind of party feeling which prevents men from appreciating those who differ from them, taking pleasure in improvements, without enthusiasm, not capable of joining in a hearty laugh at a good joke, but cheerful, and not preventing Lord Northampton, Whewell, and others from making merry. He is without a tincture of science, and interested in it only so far as knowing its importance in the arts, and as a subject with which a large body of persons of talent are occupied."[93] The next year (1840) appears to have slipped away uneventfully, for only a single letter serves as a record for the twelvemonth, and that is but a short one addressed to Babbage asking him to look up one or two geological matters during a journey through Normandy to Paris. As it is dated from London on the 11th of August, this looks as if Lyell did not go during the summer farther than Scotland, where he presided over the Geological Section at the meeting of the British Association.[94] The earlier part of 1841 appears to have been equally uneventful; but the summer of that year saw the beginning of a long journey and the opening of a new geological horizon, for Mr. and Mrs. Lyell crossed the Atlantic on a visit to Canada and the United States. FOOTNOTES: [66] At King's College and at the Royal Institution. _See_ pp. 71, 72. [67] Life, Letters, and Journals, vol. i. p. 401. [68] Huxley, "Man's Place in Nature," p. 121. [69] Only the skull was found, and that imperfect; moreover, the missing part could not be discovered. The same is true of the other animal remains, so that they could hardly have been victims of the Deluge. [70] "Man's Place in Nature," p. 156. [71] _Turbo littoreus_, _Mytilus edulis_, _Cardium edule_. [72] The term, of course, is used here in the sense of either a slaty rock or a hard shale.