Ɛpsilon

From Smith, Elder & Co.   1 May 1876

15, Waterloo Place, | London, | S.W.

1st. May 1876

Charles Darwin Esqre. | Down, | Beckenham.

Dear Sir,

We have the pleasure to inform you that the woodblocks of the illustrations to your works “The Geology of South America” and “Volcanic Islands” are in our possession with the exception of Figs 14, 18. 19. 24 of “South America” and Figs 3, 5. 6. 7. 11 of “Volcanic Islands”.1 We shall be obliged if you will ascertain whether the missing woodblocks are now in your possession.2

We are, Dear Sir, | Yours faithfully, | Smith Elder & C.

CD annotations

1.3 Figs 3,] ‘Bomb, borrowed by me for Journal’3 pencil
1.4 5.] ‘incrustation | used in Journal’4 pencil
1.4 6. 7.] circled pencil; ‘not used by [illeg]’5 pencil
1.4 11] circled pencil; ‘Journal | Map of Galapagos’6 pencil
Top of letter: ‘18 borrowed for Geolog Soc. | 19 never used by me | 14 do do. | 24 do do.’7 blue crayon
End of letter: ‘ My Geological Papers’8 blue crayon
1
Following Julius Victor Carus’s request for copies of Volcanic islands and South America to translate into German, Smith, Elder & Co. decided to bring out new editions of these out-of-print works (see letter to Smith, Elder & Co., 20 April [1876], and letter to J. V. Carus, 24 April 1876). They were published by Smith, Elder & Co. in a single volume in 1876 (Geological observations 2d ed.).
2
CD had borrowed some of the missing illustrations for use in his later works (see nn. 3, 4, and 6, below), and one had already been used in an earlier article (see n. 7).
3
Figure 3 in Volcanic islands, p. 36, depicts a spherical volcanic bomb; the figure was reproduced in Journal of researches (1860), p. 494, published by John Murray.
4
Figure 5 in Volcanic islands, p. 51, depicts an incrustation of calcareous and animal matter coating the tidal rocks at Ascension Island; the figure was reproduced in Journal of researches (1860), p. 9.
5
Figure 6 depicts enlarged opaque brown sphaerulites, and figure 7 shows the sphaerulites as they appear when united in a layer in a feldspathic stone; both figures appear in Volcanic islands, p. 59.
6
Figure 11 in Volcanic islands, p. 98, is a map of the Galápagos Archipelago that CD reproduced in Journal of researches (1860), p. 372.
7
Figure 18 in South America, p. 114, shows a section of the plains of Patagonia on the banks of the river Santa Cruz; it was first used in CD’s paper ‘Distribution of the erratic boulders’, published in the Transactions of the Geological Society in 1842 (Shorter publications, p. 148). Figure 19 shows a section of the cliffs at Point Tenuy (part of Corona Head, Chiloé Island), Patagonia (South America, p. 122), figure 14 shows a ground-plan of a bifurcating valley in the Cordillera (South America, p. 63), and figure 24 shows strata of the valley of Despoblado (in the Atacama Desert) in Chile (South America, p. 231).
8
In Geological observations 2d ed., pp. v–vi, CD referred readers to four of his geological papers in order to complete the account of the geological observations made during the voyage of the Beagle.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-10488,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-10488