Text Online
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
William Kemp
Date:
7 Apr [1843]
Source of text:
Cambridge University Library (MS Add. 10252/14)
Summary:
CD will sent seeds to specialists for identification.
Contributor:
Ruth Cramond
Showing 1–15 of 15 items
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.
CD will sent seeds to specialists for identification.
Has not yet heard from R. Brown, but John Lindley thinks species will probably turn out to be common ones.
Thanks for the account and drawings of the plants.
Longing for a letter from WK. Describes various excurions through Fife.
Seeds sent by Kemp have germinated and been identified by Lindley as Rumex acetosella and an Atriplex which has been sent on to J. S. Henslow.
Requests WK to send samples of rock commonly found around Cupar to enable TW the more easily to identify them.
Will have a close look at the plants in a few days’ time.
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).