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The Charles Darwin Collection
The Darwin Correspondence Project is publishing letters written by and to the naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882). Complete transcripts of letters are being made available through the Project’s website (www.darwinproject.ac.uk) after publication in the ongoing print edition of The Correspondence of Charles Darwin (Cambridge University Press 1985–). Metadata and summaries of all known letters (c. 15,000) appear in Ɛpsilon, and the full texts of available letters can also be searched, with links to the full texts.
News of family and friends.
Word that William Clift thinks CD’s latest fossils are of much value.
Became ill two weeks before on his return from Santiago after an interesting trip and some geology – though snow kept him out of the Andes. FitzRoy has had to sell the schooner; he was discouraged by the Admiralty, and the expense was too much for him to bear personally.
Has sent all of CD’s directions to William Clift.
Erasmus has been very ill, but is now quite safe and well again. Caroline and Susan are with him.
They have heard FitzRoy is promoted and the Beagle is coming home.
Definite plans now to leave Valparaiso 1 June and to arrive in Sydney in January; then Cape of Good Hope and home in September 1836.
Describes Concepción after earthquake.
Will cross the Cordilleras. Hopes snow will hold off.
Urges him to return home. News of family and friends; the Langtons will go to Rio in April and then winter in the West Indies. Henslow has a son.
Describes his trip from Coquimbo to Copiapò, where he rejoined the Beagle – a hard and wearisome journey, but geologically interesting.
FitzRoy piloted the [Blonde] to rescue crew of wrecked Challenger.
CD has received letters that were missing, and others; for ten months there will be none to or from him.
At sea 25 days from Galapagos to Tahiti, where they stayed ten days. It was delightful. Then three weeks to New Zealand, where they will be for ten days.
Convinced of high merit of missionaries.
Dislikes Augustus Earle’s book.
News of friends and family.
Keeling Islands, his first coral lagoons; he has been occupied with subject of coral formation for six months.
Very busy at sea rewriting old geological notes. Has difficulties with writing.
FitzRoy has proposed joint account of the journey, combining CD’s journal with his own.
Looks forward with anxiety to Henslow’s reaction to the geological notes.
In five days of geologising on St Helena, he found that the shells on high land had been mistakenly identified as seashells. They are land shells, but of species no longer living.
Can think of nothing but the return to England and his family.
CD has come home – little altered in looks and otherwise not a bit changed. He will go to London to be there when Beagle arrives, and he and Caroline will visit Maer soon.
Last four days have been spent calling on naturalists. Geologists have been kind, but zoologists seem to think a number of undescribed creatures a nuisance.
Will send his belongings to Cambridge, but eventually his quarters must be London.
FitzRoy is to be married.
His fossil bones are unpacked and some are great treasures. He has some geology to do: R. I. Murchison has lent him a map and asked him to look at a part of the country he has been describing.
Their only protection against having Harriet Martineau as sister-in-law is that she works Erasmus too hard.
Dinner at the Hensleigh Wedgwoods’. They have agreed to go over his journal. Henry Holland thinks it not worth publishing alone because it goes over FitzRoy’s ground.
His impressions of Harriet Martineau: "She is overwhelmed with her own projects, her own thoughts and own abilities."
Interested in Lyell’s address [Proc. Geol. Soc. Lond. 2 (1833–8): 479–523]. Asks what the points are on which CD and Lyell are fully agreed.
Inquires about the paper FitzRoy and CD wrote on missionaries ["Moral state of Tahiti" (1836), Collected papers 1: 19–38].
News of family.
Has just given a paper [on "Sand tubes"] at Cambridge Philosophical Society and exhibited some specimens. It went well, with Whewell and Sedgwick taking an active part.
Herschel thinks 6000–odd years since the creation not nearly long enough to explain the separations from a single stock.
Sends a number of questions (to put to his father), mainly concerned with transmission of diseases, between Europeans and natives, "people packed together", etc.
Is investigating how to get Government support [for Zoology].
His books grow in size. Hopes to bring out work on volcanic islands and coral formations in the autumn or winter. The Journal of researches will not be published until autumn [actually not until 1839]. Whewell and Lyell flatter him about it. Has given up all society.
Expresses her pleasure at CD’s engagement.
Describes his routine for a typical day – writing Coral reefs, studying German.
FitzRoy’s "Deluge Chapter" [Narrative 2, ch. 28] will amuse her.
His opinion of Carlyle’s Critical and miscellaneous essays [1839].