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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.
Has previously quoted details concerning the regrowth of her amputated extra digit in Variation [2: 14–15]. The case has since been disputed, so CD, who is revising his work, asks for some fuller details.
Thanks AD for her account [of the regrowth of her sister’s amputated supernumerary finger]. Is much perplexed what to conclude. Feels he should either retract his account [in Variation, 1st ed., 2: 14–15] or substantiate it by judgment of a physiologist like James Paget. Asks for tracings of her sister’s hand. [See Variation, 2d ed., 1: 459].
CD sends his thanks for her intercession with her sister [Alice Chambers]. The extract from her father’s [Robert Chambers] diary will be sufficient.
He forwards the requested autograph.
The question is whether additional digits possess power of regrowth beyond the ordinary. James Paget has convinced CD that they do not. CD must alter what he has published. [See Variation, 2d. ed., 2: 459.]
Robert Chambers, AD’s father, spoke of CD’s book [Descent?] during his last hours of life.
CD’s respect for Chambers, to whose scientific work he had not done justice.