To Robert Chambers   [14 February – 20 March 1848]1

Down Farnborough Kent

Monday

My dear Sir

I just send one line to thank you very much for the trouble you have taken in sending me the account of the Hand-level, which I have recommended in my Instructions.—2 I am delighted to hear what progress your Book3 has made; I had no idea you were going to publish so grand an affair as 30 engravings sounds like. I am glad you are prepared to fight stoutly with the sceptical geologists.4

Yours very sincerely | C. Darwin

1
The period during which CD worked on the geology chapter of Herschel ed. 1849.
2
CD discussed the use of the hand-level in surveying in Herschel ed. 1849, p. 161 (Collected papers 1: 230), and described an instrument, sold by Adie and Son of Edinburgh: ‘Mr. R. Chambers, moreover, and others have found, that an observer having previously ascertained the exact height of his eye when standing upright, can measure the altitude of any point with surprising accuracy’.
3
Chambers 1848.
4
Chambers defended the view that large areas of Scotland been submerged and that the ‘parallel roads’ in the present glens were ancient sea beaches. To account for the change he maintained that the sea had receded; CD had suggested an elevation of the land (‘Observations on the parallel roads of Glen Roy’, Collected papers 1: 89–137). See letter to Charles Lyell, [16 June 1848], for CD’s comments on Chambers 1848.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-1160,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-1160