Robinson to Rogers (Permanent Under-Secretary)
Cambridge
18 Oct 1870
Dear Sir
The Packet of papers you kindly forwarded on the
12th
Inst—including Blue Book on
British Columbia,
Mr
Begbie's answers to my questions, & various photographs, & your
letter—I have duly received, & now thank you for forwarding them.
Will you have the goodness to present my hearty thanks to the
Earl of Granville or the
Earl of Kimberley, or to both, for
sending out my inquiries & communicating the answers thereto.
Mr Begbie's elaborate & highly prized letter leaves the
wonderful terraces it refers to, unexplained. I should like
therefore to insert the information it contains in the Athenaeum
or some similar periodical for the purpose of stimulating
further investigation. If however
Mr Begbie gives no authority
for publishing his name, I presume it will be my duty to abstain
from giving any clue to it. With that limitation, I wish to
publish my letter & [his?]
reply to it,
saying that for the latter I am indebted to the courtesy of the Colonial Office.
It may be right to add that I am not going to sell this
information, but to give it to the public as freely as it has
been given to me.
To this I presume there will be no objection.
In the next communication to
Mr Justice Begbie may I ask that
my great gratitude be expressed for the very great pains he has
taken to explain the intensely interesting phenomena around him.
Minutes by CO staff
Mr Herbert
Mr Robinson, to whom we sent
Chief Justice Begbie's interesting
report on the
British Columbia Drift Terraces, wishes to publish
it without
Mr Begbie's name, in the Athenaeum, or some similar
paper. We have already sent the report, without any reservation
to the Geographical Society. It is simply a question of
personal feeling, but if I were
Mr Begbie, I should like to be
consulted before the
publication of the report, either by
Mr Robinson, or the Society.
Reply that
Lord Kimberley cannot undertake to say how far such a
mode of publishing his comm
n
would be satisfactory to
C. Justice Begbie, who was not led to
understand that his paper would be made public in any shape.
It has also been communicated to the Geographical Society, and
Ld K is disposed to think that
Mr Begbie would prefer that his
remarks should be introduced to public notice through the medium
of the Society's proceedings, if at all. And send copy to
Govr.
I agree.
Other documents included in the file
Herbert to
Robinson,
27 October 1870, suggesting that
Begbie
would probably prefer "that his remarks should be introduced to
public notice through the medium of the [Geographical] Society's
proceedings, if at all."