From T. M. Coan   25 July 1879

New York,

25th July 1879.

My dear Sir,

I take pleasure in sending you an article of mine, briefly summatory of the main causes of decline in the Hawaiian population.1 It contains little or nothing that is new; but it seems to me that the intellectual perturbation of savages under civilization, as a possible cause of their infertility, has not yet, perhaps, been sufficiently studied.

Let me say that I am in frequent correspondence with my father, the Rev. Titus Coan of Hilo, & that he would be happy to answer, either directly or through me, according to the best of his observations, any questions about the Islanders that you might take interest in asking.2

Very sincerely yours, | T. M. Coan.

Dr. Charles Darwin.

Coan sent his article ‘The decay of the Polynesian’ ([Coan] 1879); CD’s copy is in the Darwin Pamphlet Collection–CUL.
Coan’s father, Titus Coan, was a missionary based at Hilo, Hawaii, since 1835.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12171,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12171