Ɛpsilon

To Bernhard Studer   13 August [1847]

Down Farnborough Kent

August 13

My dear Sir

I have just received your note & heard with pleasure of your arrival in London.—. I suppose you received my letter addressed to Berne,1 in answer to yours, informing me of your intended visit to England. If you can spare the time, I should feel very great pleasure & honour in seeing you here at my house; if you cannot come here, & will be in town & at home on Monday morning, I will joyfully come up for the pleasure of making your acquaintance.— If you will favour me with a visit here, I will send my carriage to meet you half way. You would probably be glad to have your morning in London, & in that case if you will start by the Croydon Railway from London Bridge at 3o.15’, (from Hungerford St to London Bridge will take 34 of hour in a cab) you will get to Croydon (fare only 1s”3d) at 3o, 45’, where my one horse phaeton shall be waiting for you, & it will bring you in one hour & a half to this house, in time for dinner. And you can return the same way any day you like.—

Will you be so kind as to write me a note on Saturday morning, which I shall get on Sunday & will either come up myself, (if you remain in town) or gladly send my phaeton to meet you at Croydon. The distance is too great for you to come here & return the same day.—

You will have received incomparably better advice & assistance from Mr L. Horner & others than I can give; but if you have not seen Mr. Daniel Sharpe of 2. Adelphi Terrace, Strand, I would advise you to call on him, as he knows well Wales & has attended to cleavage: I informed him of your expected arrival.— If you intend travelling in Wales, I wd. advise you strongly to join for a time the Ordnance Survey2 & see them at work. When I heard of your intended visit, I wrote to Sir H. Delabeche,3 & he has given me instructions, how to find out where the party is, & if you like to join them, I can put you on the way.

I am well aware how little use I can be of, but if you can suggest anything, I shall be much pleased.— Have you Murchis⁠⟨⁠on’s⁠⟩⁠ Silurian System?4 if not, would you like to borrow from me the maps, they would perhaps be useful to you, in travelling.—

With much respect | Believe me | dear Sir | Yours very faithfully | C. Darwin To | Prof. B. Studer | &c &c &c

2
CD refers to the Geological Survey of Great Britain rather than to the Ordnance Survey. The Geological Survey was at this time working in Wales (Geikie 1895); the Ordnance Survey had completed its maps of the area by 1846 (Seymour ed. 1980, p. 115).
3
Henry Thomas De la Beche, director-general of the Geological Survey since 1835.
4
Murchison 1839. CD’s copy, including the maps, is in the Darwin Library–CUL.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.7 here,] comma over semicolon
1.9 (from … cab) 1.10] interl; opening square bracket in MS
1.12 bring you] before del ‘here’
3.8 & if] ‘&’ added
3.8 them,] comma over full stop
3.8 I can put you on the way.] added

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-1107,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-1107