My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

—LYELL AND DARWIN 223and allied questions, setting forth the reasons whyhe rejected ice action as having ground out the largerlakes, much as he states them in the fourth editionof "The Antiquity of Man." At page 361 he saysthat "the gravest objection to the hypothesis ofglacial erosion on a stupendous scale is afforded bythe entire absence of lakes of the first magnitudein several areas where they ought to exist, if theenormous glaciers which once occupied those spaceshad possessed the deep excavating power ascribedto them." He then goes on to adduce numerousplaces where he thinks there ought to have beenlakes on the glacier theory, which are the same ashe adduced in letters to myself, and which I answeredin each case, and sometimes at great length, bysimilar arguments to those I have adduced in vol. i.chap. V. of my "Studies, Scientific and Social." Ifany one who is interested in these questions, afterconsidering Sir Charles Lyell's difficulties and objectionsin his "Antiquity of Man," will read the abovechapter, giving special attention to the sectionsheaded The Conditions that favour the Production ofLakes by Ice-erosion, and the following section onObjections of Modern Writers considered, I think hewill, if he had paid any attention to the phenomenain glaciated regions, admit that I show the theoryof ice-erosion to be the only one that explains allthe facts.In a letter written on April 28, 1869, after referringto Darwin's regret at the concluding passages ofmy Quarterly Review article on "Man," which he"would have thought written by some one else," Iadd the following summary on my position, perhapsmore simply and forcibly stated than in any of mypublished works :