Reactions to On the Origin of Species one hundred million years." Copies of the second edition were advertised as ready on 24 December, in advance of official publication on 7 January 1860. The "Saturday Review" of 24 December 1859 strongly criticised the methodology of Darwin's calculations. On 3 January 1860, Darwin wrote to Hooker about it: "Some of the remarks about the lapse of years are very good, & the Reviewer gives me some good & well deserved raps,—confound it I am sorry to confess the truth. But it does not at all concern main argument." A day later, he said to Lyell "You saw I suppose
Reactions to On the Origin of Species example and Ramsay's data in chapter 9 of "On the Origin of Species" to estimate that erosion of the Weald's layered dome of Lower Cretaceous rocks “must have required 306,662,400 years; or say three hundred million years“. The "necessary corrections" Darwin made to his drafts for the second edition of the "Origin" were based on comments from others, particularly Lyell, and added a caveat suggesting a faster rate of erosion of the Weald: "perhaps it would be safer to allow two or three inches per century, and this would reduce the number of years to one hundred and fifty or