Your last letter will be of great use to me. I had cited the case of beetles recovering from immersion of hours in alcohol from my own experience, but am glad it strikes you in the same light. McAndrew told me last night that the littoral shells of the Azores being European, or rather African, is in favour of a former continental extension, but I suspect that the floating of seaweed containing their eggs may dispense with the hypothesis of the submersion of 1,200 miles of land once intervening. I want naturalists carefully to examine floating seaweed and pumice met with at sea. Tell your correspondents to look out. There should be a [pg 025] microscopic examination of both these means of transport.—Believe me ever truly yours,
CHA. LYELL.
SIR C. LYELL TO A.R. WALLACE
73 Harley Street. July 3, 1867.
My dear Mr. Wallace,—I was very glad, though I take in the Westminster Review, to have a duplicate of your most entertaining and instructive essay on Mimicry of Colours, etc., which I have been reading with great delight, and I may say that both copies are in full use here. I think it is admirably written and most persuasive.—Believe me ever most truly yours,
CHA. LYELL.
TO HERBERT SPENCER
Hurstpierpoint, Sussex. October 26, 1867.