Ɛpsilon

To G. H. Darwin   9 December [1880]1

6. Q. A. St

Dec. 9th

My dear George

The Kowalevskys have been to lunch & a very interesting visit it was—2 Madame has been greatly interested by your papers & if you can spare a copy of your last one do send her one to “13 Montagu Place Russell Sqr.”—3 I never saw such a funny little woman   she bubbled over with enthusiasm about Sir W. Thomson’s papers & work— She was indignant with Cayley & declares that he makes his work far more difficult than it really is.—4

Yours affect | C. Darwin

I am half-dead with K. grating Voice.—

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter to V. O. Kovalevsky, 25 November [1880].
2
Sofia Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya and Vladimir Onufrievich Kovalevsky. Kovalevsky had planned a visit to Down on 25 November but was unable to go (see letter to V. O. Kovalevsky, 25 November [1880]). The Darwins were in London from 7 to 11 December 1880 (Emma Darwin’s diary (DAR 242)).
3
George had been working on problems associated with the rotation of a viscous or elastic body; his most recent paper was ‘On the analytical expressions which give the history of a fluid planet of small viscosity, attended by a single satellite’ (G. H. Darwin 1880). Kovalevskaya was interested in the rotation of a rigid body around a fixed point; she later published a prize-winning essay on the topic (Kovalevskaya 1889). For more on her contributions to mathematics, see Koblitz 1983.
4
Arthur Cayley was a professor of mathematics at Cambridge. William Thomson was well known for his work in thermodynamics and the age of the earth; he had encouraged George in his work on secular cooling.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

0.1 6 … St] above del ‘Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | (Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12902,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12902