From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
Date:
30 July 1837
Source of text:
The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell Collection Coll-203/A1/69: 140–2)
Summary:
Galapagos land birds and reptiles.
No two naturalists agree on any fundamental idea [of species]. "Everything is arbitrary."
Has been with Richard Owen going over the S. American fossils.
Has worked out the non-relation between animals’ bulk and luxuriance of vegetation.
The horse once common on the Pampas. The mystery of the extinction of these animals.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project