Text Online
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
William Kemp
Date:
9 Oct [1843]
Source of text:
Cambridge University Library (MS Add. 10252/16b and 10252/17)
Summary:
WK’s paper has reached him safely.
Contributor:
Ruth Cramond
The William Kemp Collection
Epsilon’s William Kemp Collection comprises 80 letters (1840-1861) from the scientific and Scottish Borders community to William Kemp (1788-1864). Kemp was an engineer and businessman, manager of the Galashiels Gas Company, and a prominent local geologist. The collection includes a series of letters from Charles Darwin and Robert Chambers.
The letters were collated and bound into a single volume, and taken to Australia by John Kemp, a water engineer and son of William Kemp, when immigrating on SS Great Britain to Victoria in 1868. A full transcription of the collection was drafted in the 1980s in Australia by Ruth Cramond, a family connection. The collection was donated to Cambridge University Library in 2018 and has now been fully conserved and digitised.
Transcriptions, edited to Darwin Correspondence Project principles and practices, and images of the correspondence between Kemp and Darwin, together with a more detailed biography of William Kemp are available from the Darwin Correspondence Project website.
Images of all letters in the collection, including images of the original bound volume, are available from the Cambridge University Digital Library website.
WK’s paper has reached him safely.
J. S. Henslow expresses his doubts about WK’s seeds.
J. S. Henslow’s and C. C. Babington’s opinions on WK’s seeds.
TW saw many curious formations between Carnwath and Currie and wondered whether they were glacier morains.
CD has been reflecting on John Lindley’s and C. C. Babington’s comments.
CD is pleased with how good a case WK’s facts have made.
Robert Brown has cast much doubt on the integrity of the seed-planting experiment.
Has sent WK’s paper to the Annals and Magazine of Natural History (Kemp 1844).
Longing for a letter from WK. Describes various excurions through Fife.
Responds to WK’s article ‘The latest Geological changes in the south of Scotland’ (Kemp 1843).
Describes the fire at the gas works in Cupar.
Has been on visit with Hugh Miller to Dura Den.
Has got in a controversy about tar burning with a man from Musselburgh.
Regrets the delay in sending copies of his paper.
Asks for some statistics about gas production.
Mr Matheson will set out for London on 8 July [presumably 1844]. It would give the writer much pleasure to see Mr M and the addressee [presumably William Kemp].
Hopes WK will come soon to Fife.
Sends a proof. [Presumably Observations on the latest geological changes in the south of Scotland by William Kemp, Galashiels, 1844.]
Intends to visit the following week and requests WK’s company rambling across the Meigle Pots.
Thanks for the publication, which he has read with pleasure and profit.
Asks for assistance investigating raised beaches on the river Tweed around Galashiels.