From Horace Darwin to Emma Darwin [early 1877?]

Dear Mother

I will give you a short account of my movements. I left Cam on Monday, and dined at Mr. Easton’s; there was a big dinner party there & I took in a Miss Muller, I had met her there before and she is free thinking, and I had a great deal of talk with her. She is B.A Girton Coll. Cam. & very advanced in her views about women, she was very much down on Newnham, & said that they went in for “womens spheres”, & that they all married their lecturers; she soon found out that my opinions were not at all “sound” on the women; in her dress she only showed her advanced opinions by fuzzy hair, she was pretty too & well dressed, & was not at all like Theodora’s description of Miss Simcox. I came down here with Mr Easton, & I got my instructions, I stayed one night at the Albion Hotel, recommended by Dew Smith, so in consequence it was dear; the waiter is a friend of Dews, so I asked him about lodgings & he told me of these which seem nice. Mr. Easton dined with me at the hotel & went up to town after dinner. Baker came & saw us in the evening & went on in his usual style, I have also seen the little girls & Mrs Baker, I’m going to dine there on Sunday.

What I have to do is this; Brighton is divided into 4 zones of different levels, each of which is supplied with water by its own reservoirs; the zone called “Middle” is supplied by 2 reservoirs a long way apart, & they are connected by a net work of pipes & also to the two pumping stations which fill them, one reservoir empties too quick & the other not quick enough, & this has to be remedied by new mains; I have to arrange the taking of the pressure in this network of pipes, at the same times for a good many hours during the day & night, first I think I shall take the pressure at 8 different points settled by Mr. Easton every hour from 1p.m. till 7 p.p., next from 9pm to 1a.m. & lastly from 5am till 1p.m.. Baker will manage to get the 8 men, or rather 6 with himself & myself who will do it with us— When these pressures are known & the levels of each of these points, I shall work out the quantity of water running through each, & thus see how it goes & the greatest function in the pipes is & loss by leak if there is any. Mr. E thinks it will take about 10 days but I think it will take more, We shall have to dig down to the mains & connect short piectes of pipe to them in several places to get the pressures by. After that I shall have to get the levels of the water in wells in the chalk as as many places as I can; I expect I shall be down here about 2 or 3 months. We were talking about self recording instruments & Mr Easton said that if he could get a good design of one to record the water pressure he would try it as it would be very useful, so I am making a drawing of what I think is a pretty good one & I shall send it to him. I shall come home for a Sunday soon. I want to hear some news of the wormograph tell Frank.

Your affec son Horace Darwin

Can you send me a night shirt as soon as you can, by rail is the best I shd. think