Michael Foster and Thomas Henry Huxley, Correspondence, Letters 201 through 233, 1865–1895

Abstract

My dear Foster I have suggested an alteration in one paragraph of your draft – I have no doubt as to the value of the scientific results of the borings if they are carried to the bottom – but it is quite another question whether the R.S. would be justified in warranting the expenditure incurred. I should like to see the Zagazig boring carried to the bottom or at any rate until Miocene fossils are brought up by the borer – the results of this boring should then be carefully discussed and the ways & means of getting another made elsewhere considered – If we leave off before we touch Miocene bottom at Zagazig we shall have spent a good deal of money without getting any definite result. However it is something to know that there is no bottom at 66 feet. 1 I expect that fellow Figari Bey 2 drew a good deal on his imagination. I return all the papers herewith. The smashing of the G. O. M. appears to be pretty complete 3 – though he has unfortunately enough left to give him the means of playing an ugly game of obstruction in the next Parliament. You have rather taken the shine out of my exultation at Lubbock's majority 4 – though I confess I was disheartened to see so many educated men going in for the disruption policy. If it were not for Randolph I should turn Tory – but that fellow will someday oust Salisbury as Dizzy ousted old Derby – and sell his party to Parnell or anybody else who makes a good bid. We are flourishing on the whole. Sulphide of wife joins with me in love Ever yours T. H. H. 1 Stokes reports in his presidential address to the Royal Society in November 1886 that the committee had decided to extend the initial boring at Zagazig in the Nile delta and that money had been given from the Government Grant to supplement the funds from the Royal Society; see previous letter. 'Anniversary meeting', Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, 1886, 41: 378. 2 Figari Bey, an Italian geologist in the service of the Egyptian Government, had published the results of a series of borings in different parts of the Nile delta. 3 Gladstone lost the general election of July 1886. 4 John Lubbock was the liberal unionist parliamentary candidate for …