Has been learning to use a clinometer.
Has investigated passage and fares for Canaries trip.
Rereading Humboldt.
Asks JSH to thank Jenyns for present of Diptera.
Showing 1–20 of 47 items
Has been learning to use a clinometer.
Has investigated passage and fares for Canaries trip.
Rereading Humboldt.
Asks JSH to thank Jenyns for present of Diptera.
Feels he should decline Beagle voyage offer because of his father’s objections, which he lists. Would otherwise have taken all risks.
[Geological] trip with Adam Sedgwick a success.
Grieved at Marmaduke Ramsay’s death.
Has just arrived in Cambridge; his father has changed his mind. Asks to see JSH.
Has met FitzRoy, who has now offered him the post of naturalist on board the Beagle. Other details about the voyage arrangements – mess, CD’s status, route, books.
All is settled – nothing can now alter CD’s determination. Details of plan and arrangements. Beaufort believes CD’s collections should be presented to some public body. CD thinks a large central collection best for natural history. Is busy getting advice and information from Yarrell and Capt. P. P. King for the voyage.
Plans to come to Cambridge to discuss Beagle voyage. Only difficulty is disposal of his collections. South Sea Islands now more probable.
Has collected [Phalli] in Shropshire and compared them with Barmouth species. Is convinced they are different.
Asks JSH for introductions to R. T. Lowe and Andrew Smith.
Has been given another week’s respite by FitzRoy.
Asks JSH to take charge of his consignments of specimens from the voyage.
Hopes to be able to help Cambridge Philosophical Society with his collections, but thinks most will have to go to British Museum.
Describes Beagle quarters, the surgeon [Robert McCormick, M.D.], and officers.
Asks JSH’s advice on studying mathematics.
Sailing date fixed for end of month. Beagle is beautiful. Details of instructions and route. Hopes voyage will not exceed four years. Quarters very confined. Considers Jenyns did wisely in not coming. If CD were longer out of college and some years older he never could have endured it.
Confusion on board the Beagle at definite prospect of sailing. Gives directions for sending mail to Montevideo.
His first letter to JSH since December. Recounts his seasickness, geologising and marine collecting at St Jago [Santiago, Cape Verde Is.]; his first tropical forest. Collecting small insects from the tropics. His Welsh trip with Sedgwick has been extremely valuable.
Specimens being sent off. Describes his collection of rocks, plants, and insects. Some particularly interesting specimens.
A French collector [Alcide d’Orbigny] has been at the Rio Negro and will probably have "taken the cream". CD’s luck with fossil bones, among them a large extinct armadillo-like animal. Describes some birds, toads, Crustacea, and other marine specimens. Nearly all plants flowering at Bahia Blanca were collected. Is sending two large casks of fossil bones by packet.
Description of the months at Tierra del Fuego. His first sight of the primitive Fuegians. Geological and zoological observations and specimens.
The Falklands: geological and zoological observations.
Convinced the [Megatherium] sent to Royal College of Physicians [by Woodbine Parish] belongs to same formation as bones he sent home.
Fears JSH will think his collections scanty. Makes it a constant rule to prefer obscure and diminutive tribes of animals.
Now has a servant whom he has taught to skin birds, etc.
Lists four barrels of specimens he is sending.
Gives future route. He looks forward to the western coast of South America.
Informs JSH that a Spanish friend has offered him a cargo of bones. If they arrive, he has arranged with Edward Lumb to forward them to JSH. [Forwarded to JSH with 244.]
Is sending a cargo of specimens – birds’ skins, small quadrupeds, and fossil bones.
Describes his overland trip from Rio Negro to Buenos Aires and his expedition to Santa Fé.
Asks for mineralogical works to help him with the volcanic rocks of the west coast.
On fossils ([Megatherium], etc.), plants, shells sent and new ones found; geological observations. Asks for help in understanding cleavage and planes of deposition.
A new species of ostrich. Cites differences in size, colour, nidification, and geographical distribution.
CD is excited by JSH’s high opinion of his collections.
Discusses his notes and some new discoveries. Summary of events since leaving Falklands.
Geology of Patagonia.
Corallines at Tierra del Fuego convince him of artificiality of arrangement of their families by Lamarck and Cuvier.
Geological expedition in Andes, ending with serious illness. Specimens being sent.