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Eastwhyne, nr. Dunkheld - would like to see WW's correspondent's letter on the phenomena of moving mud at Malta. JDF has been reading the work of Collin, a French engineer: 'He has given geometrical sections of sliding banks of railway cuttings and the like, which have given way under quasi-hydrostatic pressure, which have the most perfect analogy with glacier-forms, and the mere inspection of which suffice to show that I had rightly seized at first the remarkable peculiarity of viscous motion which, so far as I know had not before been mentioned, namely, the upward thrust of the particles producing the swollen surface'. JDF gives a diagram of their paths. Due to the importance of viscous motion to engineers, JDF has undertaken to produce plastic models - 'making quantitative measures of the movements, lateral as well as forward, of certain points on the surface'. Louis Agassiz has published a large book 'with a beautiful map of his glacier'. On the whole JDF believes most people will find the text dry reading. Agassiz confirms in every particular, down to the minutest detail, JDF's theory without acknowledging him: 'I am persuaded that no impartial person can regard it otherwise than as setting the seal to the adoption of my theory'.

Edinburgh - JDF encloses the ninth letter he has written on glaciers [not present]: it 'contains conclusive evidence in favour of the facts and results maintained by me deduced from the observations of Agassiz's [Louis Agassiz] friends'. WW will shortly be receiving an article by him intended partly as a reply to William Hopkins, and secondly to state his reluctance engaging in 'an endless and unconvincing controversy'. JDF will act upon anything WW says: 'even should it be your decided opinion that I ought not to take any notice of Mr Hopkins'.

Edinburgh - JDF is 'surprised with your astronomers [James Challis] speculations about the comet'. JDF is convinced it is a comet - especially since so many astronomers independently around Europe saw it more-or-less in the same orbit: 'But it is like Challis's old crotchet on the undulatory theory'. JDF is going to write up his European travels [Travels through the Alps of Savoy and other parts of the Pennine Chain with Observations on the Phenomena of Glaciers, 1843]. Adam Sedgwick expressed himself favourably to JDF regarding the glacier priority dispute between JDF and Louis Agassiz [see JDF to WW, 23 May 1842]. JDF thinks Hopkins [William Hopkins] comments may be interesting, but no more than the idea 'that the heat of the earth keeps the ice constantly detached from the sides and bottom except at the surface in winter'. All this will not move glaciers: 'it is essentially plastic and semi fluid, and this semifluidity is I am persuaded the main and almost the sole cause of its motion as I shall attempt to demonstrate in my book'.

Chamouni - George Airy has probably told WW of 'the fate of the Eclipse [from Turin] which for me at least was as nearly a failure as the circumstances admitted'. JDF has tried to put an end to his controversy with Louis Agassiz [see JDF to WW, 23 May 1842], however, Agassiz 'replied very coldly declining to see me'. JDF has been well received by Studer [Bern. Studer], Charpentier [Jean de Charpentier] and his other Geneva friends, and his controversy with Agassiz has 'in general here as well as in Paris ...been correctly enough interpreted'. He has been able to 'establish many things about the movement of glaciers which so far as I know have never been solved directly': It is a physico-mechanical question: Does a glacier move uniformly at all its points of its length and breadth? Does it move at all seasons? From the measurements he has already made, JDF thinks that the glaciers movement probably depends on the temperature: 'Nevertheless the variation of day and night scarcely modifies the glaciers march. Whilst, hitherto, the proof of glacier motion has been watching the progress of a block of stone from year to year by some rough measurement from a fixed point, I have constructed a glacier dial on the face of a Rock, on which it not only apparently 'moved from day to day' - but on which I can trace its march from hour to hour!'. A glacier moves slower the nearer it is to its origin as opposed to its extremity, and fastest at the centre of its breadth: 'contrary to the opinion hitherto universally entertained that the edges move fastest'. The circumstances of the movement of a glacier (in all its points) can be determined in a few days at a particular season. He has made a number of observations of the veined structure of ice glaciers: no one had 'imagined that structure existed generally, until my paper was published'.

Trin: Coll: - JDF has received the enclosed [no longer attached] from Mr Robertson of Elgin, a friend of Louis Agassiz: 'I had never asked for an expression of his opinion' [a dispute between JDF and Agassiz, over who discovered the veined structure of a glacier and the idea that its centre moves faster than its sides]. He hopes WW will put JDF's case to the Trevelyans who spent a lot of time with Agassiz last year.

Edinburgh - JDF thanks WW for the Smith's [Prize] Paper. He gives his comments regarding the 'offensive' article in the Edinburgh Review on WW's philosophy ['the Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Founded upon their History', 2 vols., 1840]: 'I apprehend the Editor or Publisher must for the character of the work put a stop to such articles in future - and I have heard that he is quite aware that they will not be tolerated any more'. JDF is particularly annoyed since he had committed an article to the journal before it appeared: 'which I wish had not been sullied by such a piece of spite and injustice'. JDF's review would have appeared in the Quarterly Review had not Louis Agassiz already offered an article: 'I have hopes that my article will make a good impression, will correct many erroneous views prevalent on the glacier theory, and will direct the progress of Discovery, which is what a really good Review ought to do instead of being made the vehicle of self adulation and vituperation of others'. Further to his application to government [see JDF to WW, 21 Dec. 1841]: 'Lord Aberdeen and Sir George Clerk both expressed themselves in a very favourable, and the latter even in a sanguine, manner; Sir G. C. brought it before Sir R. Peel who does not seem to have discouraged the application'. JDF received a stunning reference from John Herschel, and two others from George Airy and Francis Baily. WW will be consulted at a later date. JDF is reducing observations made in the Alps with Herschel's actinometer.

Grimsel Hospice - JDF congratulates WW on his imminent marriage [to Cordelia Marshall]. JDF spent a fortnight in the 'wilds of Dauphine' before coming across the Alps to Grimsel Hospice, where he had arranged to meet Agassiz [Louis Agassiz]: 'Our position gave every facility for the study of the mechanism of a glacier'. The area is one of the best for illustrating Agassiz's views: 'the Polished and striated surfaces of this valley seem completely to baffle the ordinary means of explanation - The action of water it is absurd to talk of - The moraines are more difficult'. JDF gives a description of their elementary and cold sleeping conditions. Their position gives them access to the whole of the glacier (20 or 25 miles long): However, JDF doubts 'whether much has been done (or will be) for the glacier theory itself'. He has met many Swiss and other visitors and was particularly impressed by 'Studer of Berne [Bern. Studer] who seems to be much less known as a geologist in England than he deserves'. JDF thinks Beaumont [Jean Baptiste Elie de Beaumont] and the French geologists 'are very desirous to keep his [Studer] labours out of sight'.

Edinburgh - JDF thanks WW for all his support on the Council of the Royal Society, especially since it 'placed you in the always disagreeable position of being in a minority' [WW's attempts to obtain for JDF recognition of his scientific labours. See JDF to WW, 16 July 1859]. With regard to his dispute with Louis Agassiz - 'that would have been easily disposed of': LA's experiments 'were instigated in consequence of a suggestion made by me during our joint residence on the glacier in 1841, when I not only counseled him to make these observations but instructed him how to do so'. JDF thanks WW for writing to Sir George Lewis in support of his application to become the Principal of the United Colleges of St. Andrews [see JDF to WW, 29 October 1859].

Edinburgh - JDF has not passed an autumn without illness since 1851, and gives WW a long description of how his good health has been achieved. The sudden death of Edward Forbes 'has produced a profound sensation'. Only a few days ago JDF had attended one of his lectures. JDF would have put aside his dispute with Louis Agassiz, and should have been glad to see him if he could be persuaded to come over: 'but unfavourable reports of his views of geology connected with scripture, the unity of the human races etc are here in circulation, of the truth of which I know nothing'. Clerk Maxwell is currently with JDF - he is much improved by his stay at Cambridge, and 'spoke to me in a very manly way about his disappointment of a fellowship'. Maxwell has made some 'ingenious experiments and deductions about combinations of colours..and also about Daltonians or Idiopts'. How does WW feel about the government drawing away Stokes and Willis to become lecturers in London 'to (at best) a very limited class of students, thus peculiarly favoured'. JDF is sorry to hear of the 'serious difference' between Challis and Adams.