Ramsay's theory in his "Memoir of Sir Andrew Crombie Ramsay," page 361,
London, 1895.)

LETTER 516. TO D. MACKINTOSH. Down, February 28th, 1882.

I have read professor Geikie's essay, and it certainly appears to
me that he underrated the importance of floating ice. (516/1. "The
Intercrossing of Erratics in Glacial Deposits," by James Geikie,
"Scottish Naturalist," 1881.) Memory extending back for half a century
is worth a little, but I can remember nothing in Shropshire like till
or ground moraine, yet I can distinctly remember the appearance of many
sand and gravel beds--in some of which I found marine shells. I think it
would be well worth your while to insist (but perhaps you have done so)
on the absence of till, if absent in the Western Counties, where you
find many erratic boulders.

I was pleased to read the last sentence in Geikie's essay about the
value of your work. (516/2. The concluding paragraph reads as follows:
"I cannot conclude this paper without expressing my admiration for the
long-continued and successful labours of the well-known geologist whose
views I have been controverting. Although I entered my protest against
his iceberg hypothesis, and have freely criticised his theoretical
opinions, I most willingly admit that the results of his unwearied
devotion to the study of those interesting phenomena with which he is
so familiar have laid all his fellow-workers under a debt of gratitude."
Mr. Darwin used to speak with admiration of Mackintosh's work, carried
on as it was under considerable difficulties.)

With respect to the main purport of your note, I hardly know what to
say. Though no evidence worth anything has as yet, in my opinion, been
advanced in favour of a living being, being developed from inorganic
matter, yet I cannot avoid believing the possibility of this will be
proved some day in accordance with the law of continuity. I remember the
time, above fifty years ago, when it was said that no substance found
in a living plant or animal could be produced without the aid of vital
forces. As far as external form is concerned, Eozoon shows how difficult
it is to distinguish between organised and inorganised bodies. If it is
ever found that life can originate on this world, the vital phenomena
will come under some general law of nature. Whether the existence of a
conscious God can be proved from the existence of the so-called laws
of nature (i.e., fixed sequence of events) is a perplexing s