Ɛpsilon

To J. W. Judd   [15 August 1880]1

17 Botolph Lane | Cambridge.

My dear Mr Judd.

If you are in London & disengaged on Friday the 20th. would you come & lunch with me at 1 oclock at my Brothers House 6 Queen Anne St Cavendish Square—2 I should very much like to have 12 an hour geological talk with you— I ought to come to you but it is a rather long journey for me in a rough Cab to S. Kensington.3 If you cannot come to lunch & are inclined to call at any other hour on Friday—I would stay in if you would inform me when you would call.— We return home early on Saturday morning.

I remain. | Yours very faithfully— | Charles Darwin.

Since poor dear Lyell’s death4 I rarely have the pleasure of any geological talk with any one.—

Copy

1
The date is established by a postmark of ‘15 August 1880’ recorded on the copy.
2
CD visited Horace and Ida Darwin in Cambridge from 14 to 19 August 1880, and then stayed in London with Erasmus Alvey Darwin, returning home on 21 August (CD’s ‘Journal’ (Appendix II)).
3
Judd was professor of geology at the Royal School of Mines in South Kensington, London (ODNB).
4
Charles Lyell had died in 1875.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12688,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12688