Perhaps it may be added that when this letter was written its author was thirty-four. His marriage took place some eighteen months later, after an engagement which had lasted more than six months. He was destined to experience nearly forty years of happy married life, to see his children grow up, to welcome the advent of his grandchildren--either it was not fate who did the whispering, or she displayed a more than feminine contrariness. Other letters during the autumn months give merely notes on the progress of the book, which was unexpectedly delayed, and information as to his prospective plans for the winter in Edinburgh. One to Dr Grossart, dated from Jedburgh on 22nd November, may be quoted as summing up what is said in various other letters which have been preserved:-- With this I send you a short lucubration of mine on the Island of Lewis, the chief point in which is the proof given that the Outer Hebrides were overflowed by land ice from the mainland! I am happy to say that I am nearly out of the hands of the printer. My book has swelled out beyond what I intended, making close on 600 pages. The illustrations, which have kept back the printing, are now finished, and I expect to have a bound copy in my hands in ten days or so. It won’t be published, however, much before Xmas, as we have made arrangements with an American firm to publish it at the same time in Yankee land. This is a great stroke of good luck, as it will lessen the cost of production and make the book payable. Some of the maps I believe you will find very interesting. In fact, I have so written the book that whether geologists accept all my general conclusions or not, they will at least know a good deal that they did not know before, after they have perused it.... I am booked for a series of lectures this winter at the Museum of Science and Art, my subject being the Carboniferous Epoch. I am going to treat it in a pictorial way, trying to reproduce for them the kind of scenery and climate then enjoyed in Britain. I have also a lot more literary work in hand--_A Manual on Coal-Mining_--in which I do the geology and an engineering celebrity does the practical part. This and other matters keep my hands full. Nevertheless I have still an occasional dig at my German Songs. (Strange mixture! you will say. But then man is a queer mixture altogether.) Some time or other the Songs will see the light--but as I look on that matter as pleasure, and the scientific work as business, the Songs must stand aside till their betters are served. Write and give me your news. You see, like an old bachelor I have nothing to write about but myself. So you must under the circumstances excuse the egotism.