Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Littell's Living Age, Vol. 38: April 8, 1882
The germ of his theory was already in his mind before he started on his southern tour. He writes to his Sister from Naples before his visit to Sicily: My wish was to find this peninsula get younger and younger as I travelled towards the active volcanoes, and it has hitherto been all that I could desire, and I have little fear of bringing a great part of Trinacria into our own times, as it were, in regard to origin. His wish was amply fulfilled; and, before returning to England, he could boast of having got full proof that half Sicily was formed since the Mediterranean was in habited by present species of testacea, and that the island of Ischia and the Monte Mario near Rome were of equally recent date mere things of yesterday in the eyes of the geologist! Very astound ing were these results in the eyes of the Italian geologists, who belonged alto gether to the old school. One of them, to whom Lyell communicated some of his facts before recrossing the Alps, was fain to admit I begin to think the day may come when the retiring of the ocean will be doubted and disputed by many. At the present day we believe there are many young geologists who have forgot ten that such a theory was ever enter tained.
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