Holly House, Barking, E. May 14, 1871.
Dear Darwin,—Have you read that very remarkable book "The Fuel of the Sun"? If not, get it. It solves the great problem of the almost unlimited duration of the sun's heat in what appears to me a most satisfactory manner. I recommended it to Sir C. Lyell, and he tells me that Grove spoke very highly of it to him. It has been somewhat ignored by the critics because it is by a new man with a perfectly original hypothesis, founded on a vast accumulation of physical and chemical facts; but not being encumbered with any mathematical shibboleths, they have evidently been afraid that anything so intelligible could not be sound. The manner in which everything in physical astronomy is explained is almost as marvellous as the powers of Natural Selection in the same way, and naturally excites a suspicion that the respective authors are pushing their theories "a little too far."
If you read it, get Proctor's book on the Sun at the same time, and refer to his coloured plates of the protuberances, corona, etc., which marvellously correspond [pg 264]with what Matthieu Williams's theory requires. The author is a practical chemist engaged in iron manufacture, and it is from furnace chemistry that he has been led to the subject. I think it the most original, most thoughtful and most carefully-worked-out theory that has appeared for a long time, and it does not say much for the critics that, as far as I know, its great merits have not been properly recognised.
I have been so fully occupied with road-making, well-digging, garden- and house-planning, planting, etc., that I have given up all other work.
Do you not admire our friend Miss Buckley's admirable article in Macmillan? It seems to me the best and most original that has been written on your book.
Hoping you are well, and are not working too hard, I remain yours very faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
Down, Beckenham, Kent. July 9, 1871.