Ɛpsilon

To Archibald Geikie   11 November 1881

Down,| Beckenham, Kent. | ( Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.)

November 11th. 1881

My dear Sir

I have been much interested by your account in Nature of the great “find” in the Lower Carboniferous strata. As so many Scorpions were found, one might hope for other terrestrial animals & plants, if some new places were searched by blasting away the overlying rocks.—1 But I daresay you would not think yourself justified in employing the officers of the Survey in such work.2 This leads me to make an offer,—& I hope & trust that you will not think that I am taking a liberty in doing so,—namely to subscribe £100 or £200, if you can find anyone whom you could trust to send, & if you think it worth while to make further search for the chance of fresh & greater palæontological treasures being discovered.—

If my offer seems to you superfluous or presumptuous, pray forgive me & believe me, | My dear Sir | Yours sincerely | Ch. Darwin

1
Geikie’s article ‘A recent “find” in British palæontology’ was published in Nature, 3 November 1881, pp. 1–3; it included a description of scorpion fossils found in shale deposits on the banks of the River Esk in Dumfriesshire, Scotland.
2
Geikie was director of the Geological Survey of Scotland (ODNB).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

0.1 (Railway … S.E.R.)] parentheses added
1.2 strata.] after del ‘m’
1.2 Scorpions] ‘S’ over ‘s’
1.5 work.] after del ‘a’
1.7 £100 or £200] ‘£’ above ‘100’; ‘£’ above ‘200’
1.9 palæontological] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13451,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13451