Showing 374 results

Monday 10 April 1933

Note

'Charles to keep'

Dear Charles
In his last letter Hugh asked me to get him a copy of 'The Sunday Companion' of the 16th April 1932, as it had a picture of the Grand-father and his family at dinner. After a great deal of trouble I have managed to get a copy from the Editor of 'The Sunday Companion' as a favour on my telling them that it was a picture of the Grand-father. This picture has been shown to all here, also to Frank, Ernest etc. 'The Sunday Companion' publishers do not keep old copies for long, and the one wanted for the 16th April 1932 is a long way back for them. The picture is beautifully drawn and arranged showing very careful details. The words of description are splendid and very well deserved as the Grandfather's and Uncle Frank's good works have lasted so long. I am sending you the original picture, a typed sheet of the article, and three rough pencil tracings. Later on when you have done with it I would like to have the original picture back to send it to Hugh, as it was Hugh that found out about this. There is lovely sun here [?] and I are getting on well with the new foundations of the greenhouse and hope to make a lot of progress at it during the Easter holidays. I have been trying to help with typing some of his letters. I hope you are all keeping fairly well and taking care of yourselves.
Yours ever
C.W.Gordon

Holly Lodge
East Molesy
Surrey

Wednesday 12th April 1933

Dear Charles

It was very good and thoughtful of you to have returned the original of the Grandfather's picture and two of the tracings everso many thanks I am going to keep one of the tracings for myself and send the other and the original picture on to Hugh by tomorrow's South African Mail. He will be very glad to get it. They were very busy in the Editor's office of the 'Sunday Companion' when I called, and I did not get an opportunity of asking where the original picture is and whom it belongs to, but if I hear anything more of interest about it I will be sure to let you know.

I have been watering the plants in the garden every evening and some of them have been shooting up fine, we mowed the lawn for the first time on last Saturday and there was quite a large amount of fresh green grass. Judging from the fine show of white blossom it should be a good apple & plum year. A fresh supply of cement and sand arrived here from the builders this morning, ready for [?] & me during Easter time.
I hope you all have a good Easter
All good wishes
C.W.Gordon

My dear Sir

I have received and I need not say with much thankfulness your Lecture on the Potato Disaster and its Remedies which you had the great kindness to direct to me. The malady is so dreadful and the manner in which you have treated it, is so admirable that I am at a loss to tell you with how much interest I have read it and how greatly I feel myself indebted to you on the occasion. Here in Norfolk, I am much happy to say, the disaster does not appear to be by any means so prevalent or destructive as in most other places. Different people give me very different statements; but on the whole I quite infer that not a fourth part of the crop is destroyed. Lord Gosford too writes me work from Armagh that, tho in the varying reports brought him, he can [?] to no certain result he has reason to hope the evil has been greatly exaggerated by report; and so will send [?] from the [opposite?] County of Cork, that even if it amounts to a third, which he doubts, there is still no ground for doom inasmuch as they always exported that proportion of their produce to England. You give me great comfort by the assurance that the disease, is not new but frequent in Canada, on which point I will write to Lord Gosford and try to learn somewhat from [?] [?] whom I expect here tomorrow, and it is needless to add that, if I have anything likely to interest you, I will not fail to communicate it. But your lecture is so charming and full of interest from beginning to end, that if I want to allow myself to set about praising you here, thanking you there, and in another place begging for information or expressing a doubt I feel I shd never have done. One only point I therefore will mention, if I do it in [?] quality of another of the Lichenographic Brittanica and consequently jealous for the honour of the Lichens that, if my memory serves and Sir John Franklin did not live entirely without food, but found considerable support from the Umbilicaria that he gathered from the rocks. You will excuse my taking this opportunity of congratulating you, as I do still more heartily the country upon your appointment to the Dean of Westminster. This will bring you and me within 5 hours of each other and I trust I shall often have the pleasure of meeting you, and occasionally of receiving you and Mrs Buckland at this house. In the midst of the present distress Yarmouth has been surprisingly favoured. Our merchants have just concluded the most prosperous fishing known in the memory of man. They tell me too that herrings are [?] good, to which verdict I shall be glad if you can [?] in that hope. I took the liberty of [?] a small cask of them to you yesterday. Sir Joseph Banks sent to tell me he got none equally good as those I sent him, to find you repeat the same will be a great pleasure to my dear Sir
Ever most truly with the greatest
esteemed regards
[?] Turner

Inked Note
Grandfather's Epitaph
by Dr. Whately
Arch of Dublin

Harold Bompas Esqre
121 Westbourne Terrace
W.2

EPITAPH
on Dr. Buckland

Mourn Ammonites mourn, o'er his funeral urn
Whose neck ye will grace no more
Gneiss, Granite and Slate, he settled your date
And this ye must now deplore

Weep caverns weep with infiltering drip
Your recesses he'll cease to explore;
For Mineral veins and Organic remains
No stratum again will he bore

His wit shone like Chrystal, his knowledge profound
From Gravel to Granite descended,
No Trap could deceive him, no Slip could confound
or Specimen true or pretended

He know the Birth-Rock of each pebble so round
and how far its Tour had extended

His Eloquence flowed like the Deluge retiring
Which Mastodon carcases floated
To a subject obscure he gave charms so inspiring
Young and old on Geology doated
He stood forth like an Outlier his hearers admiring
With pencil each anecdote noted

Where shall we our great Professor inter
That in peace may rest his Bones
If we hew him a rocky Sepulchre
He'll rise and break the Stones
And examine each Stratum that lies around
For he's quite in his Element underground

If with Mattock and Spade his body we lay
in the common Alluvial soil
He'll start up and snatch those Tools away
Of his own geological Toil
In a Stratum so young the Professor distains
That imbedded should be his Organic Remains

Then exposed to the drip of some [case?] hardening Spring
His Carcase let Stalactite cover
and to Oxford the petrified Sage we will bring
When he is incrusted all over

There mid Mammoths and Crocodiles high on a Shelf
Let him stand as a Monument raised to Himself

(on Dr. Buckland LLD
reader in Geology Oxford)