Ɛpsilon

To Smith, Elder & Co.   21 August [1876]

Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.

Aug. 21st

Dear Sir

The Maps do excellently & are returned by this post—1

I beg leave to call your attention to the paper on which the long map in the Coral Reefs has been printed. My copy has not been much used (indeed very little) & already it is separating along the lines of folding.2 If thinner & tougher paper were used it wd be very much better.—

Dear Sir | Yours faithfully | Ch. Darwin

Postmark: AU 21 76

1
Smith, Elder & Co. were producing a new combined edition of Volcanic islands and South America, with the title Geological observations on the volcanic islands and parts of South America visited during the voyage of HMS ‘Beagle’ (Geological observations 2d ed.). The maps were made from woodblocks borrowed from the Geological Society of London (see letter to Smith, Elder & Co., 15 May 1876 and n. 1).
2
In Coral reefs 2d ed. (published by Smith, Elder & Co. in 1874), pl. 3, showing an overview of the distribution of coral reefs, was a long foldout insertion placed before the frontispiece; when folded up, it had one horizontal and six vertical folds.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

2.1 long] interl
2.2 (indeed very little)] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-10582,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-10582