Ɛpsilon

From R. A. Blair   9 June 1881

Sedalia Mo.

June 9. 81,

Dear Sir,

After the interest you kindly manifested about the Geese you will not regret hearing they still reproduce the form of modified wing.1

I am pleased to state that one year last Octo. I had the good pleasure of exhuming from a small section, ‘say fifteen feet square’ of a pit in a small boggy place, the teeth and various other parts of 8 or 9 Mastodons: covering all ages and conditions. The collection is wonderful in a good many ways. Your British Museum mastodon is from an adjoining County. Benton.2

I keep my collection in my business House; and when I think of the thousands upon thousands who can not possibly see these without being bettered I am reminded of the fact that they are all indebted to you for it. What little stimulus I possess inciting me to an interest in such things came from Origin of Species.3

Believe me your Friends in my country are many and if the benefits you have done man were enumerated, verily—“The world itself could not contain the books that should be written” My little girl Jessie a six year old sits copying Plates from “The Crayfish”.4

Earnestly hoping you are recovered from reported illness5 and that many days of life with its assured blessings remain to you I am humbly, but very sincerely. | Your obdt. servt. | R. A. Blair.

CD annotations

Top of letter: ‘Queer letter of exaggerated praise’ pencil
1
In 1878, Blair had reported a case of an injury to the wing of a goose, which was apparently transmitted to some of its offspring. CD had asked Blair to send some specimens to William Henry Flower, who examined them. Although Flower found a deformity in the wings of the young birds that were examined, he could not find any indication that the wing of the parent had ever been injured (see Correspondence vol. 26, letter from W. H. Flower, 6 [December] 1878).
2
The mastodon in the British Museum (Mastodon americanus, a synonym of Mammut americanum) had been exhibited from 1840 and purchased by the museum in 1844 (British Museum (Natural History) 1904–6, 1: 207).
3
In the conclusion to Origin, p. 482, CD had stated, ‘Whoever is led to believe that species are mutable will do good service by conscientiously expressing his conviction’.
4
Jessie Alice Blair was copying illustrations from Thomas Henry Huxley’s The crayfish. An introduction to the study of zoology (T. H. Huxley 1880a). The book had one plate and eighty-one woodcut illustrations throughout the text.
5
Blair may refer to short reports that had appeared in several newspapers in December 1880 stating that CD was confined to his bed but able to read and converse (see, for example, the Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, 23 December 1880, p. 5). Similar reports appeared in American newspapers (see, for example, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 8 January 1881, p. 319, and 15 January 1881, p. 335).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13200,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13200