The Geological Bearings of Recent Deep-Sea Explorations

Abstract

YOUR report of the Proceedings of the Geological Section of the British Association (No. 51, p. 503) makes Sir Roderick Murchison say that “he hoped Mr. Jeffreys did not share the opinion of his colleague Dr. Carpenter, that their discoveries tended to upset modern geology.” I have the authority of Sir Roderick to state, that he did not accuse me of any such absurdity; and that I should find what he did say on that occasion, in dissent from some of the views put forth by Prof. Wyvilie Thomson and myself, fully expressed in his introductory address, of which he has given me a copy. As, however, he there attributes to a passage in a lecture which I delivered eighteen months since at the Royal Institution, a sense which I never meant it to convey, I shall be obliged by your allowing me to give a precise explanation of my meaning.