To Francis Boott    20 August 1848

Athenæum Club

Saturday | Augt 20. 1848.

My Dear Dr. Boott.

Since I saw you, I have been persuaded at the Brit. Museum to write direct to Dr. Gould at Boston, for I hear he is a very kind man & likes to assist everyone.1 Dr. Gould has attended to Cirripedia more than any one else & if he grants my request, I consider it superfluous to trouble anyone else.2 Should this channel fail, I will not fail to remember your most kind offer.

With my true thanks for all your sympathy & assistance about Chloriform—3 | pray believe me | Yours very sincerely | C. Darwin

1
See Correspondence vol. 4, letter to A. A. Gould, 3 September [1848]. CD wanted to borrow Augustus Addison Gould’s collection of cirripedes; he was interested not only in North American specimens but also in any others that Gould might have. This letter was published in Correspondence vol. 4. The complete text has been transcribed from a sale catalogue facsimile and transcription. The original footnotes have been altered.
2
Gould had published a Report on the invertebrata of Massachusetts in 1841 (A. A. Gould 1841). In Living Cirripedia (1851), p. vii, CD acknowledged Gould’s loan of ‘some very interesting specimens’.
3
Chloroform may have been used by Emma Darwin during the birth of Francis Darwin on 16 August 1848. See Correspondence vol. 4, letter to J. D. Hooker, 10 May 1848, where CD mentioned that it would be used. CD also mentioned the use of chloroform as a remedy for toothache (ibid., letter to J. B. Innes, [1848?]).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-1195,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-1195