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."