. . .A letter from you was to me one of the greatest of pleasures, and with great delight (though, I fear, imperfectly) I have executed the commission you gave me. It should have been done much sooner had not the storms been so bad in the sea near this that, until three days ago, I was not able to procure a living sea-urchin from which to make the drawings required. . .You have made all the geologists glacier-mad here, and they are turning Great Britain into an ice-house. Some amusing and very absurd attempts at opposition to your views have been made by one or two pseudo-geologists; among others, poor--, who has read a paper at the Royal Society here, maintaining that all the appearances you refer to glaciers were caused by blocks of ice which floated this way in the Deluge! and that the fossils of the pleistocene strata were mollusks, etc., which, climbing upon the ice-blocks, were carried to warmer seas against their will!! To my mind, one of the best proofs of the truth of your views lies in the decidedly arctic character of the pleistocene fauna, which must be referred to the glacier time, and by such reference is easily understood. I mean during the summer to collect data on that point, in order to present a mass of geological proofs of your theory. Dr. Traill tells me you are proposing to visit England again during the coming summer. If you do, I hope we shall meet, when I shall have many things to show you, which time did not permit when you were here. I look anxiously for the forth-coming number of your history of the Echinodermata. . . FROM SIR RODERICK MURCHISON. June 13, 1842. . . .Your letters have given me great pleasure: first, in assuring me that your zeal in ichthyology is undiminished, and that you are about to give such striking proofs of it to the British Association; and next that you still pursue with enthusiasm your admirable researches upon the glaciers. I should be charmed to put myself under your guidance for a walk on the glaciers of the Aar, but I hardly dare promise it yet. . .Even were I to make every haste, I doubt if it be possible to reach your Swiss meeting in time. It is just possible that I may find you in your glacial cantonment after your return, but even this will depend upon circumstances over which I have no control. I send this letter to you by my friend, Admiral Sir Charles Malcolm, who passes through Neuchatel on his way to Geneva. Accompanying it is a copy of my last discourse, which I request you to accept and to read all parts of it. You will see that I have grappled honestly and according to my own faith with your ice, but have never lost sight of your great merit. My concluding paragraph will convince you and all your friends that if I am wrong it is not from any preconceived notions, but only because I judge from what you will call incomplete evidence. Your "Venez voir!" still sounds in my ears. . .