Ɛpsilon

From H. N. Moseley   27 November 1881

University of London. W

Nov 27. 81.

Dear Mr Darwin

You will no doubt have heard that I have been elected to the Linacre professorship at Oxford. I write to thank you sincerely for the powerful support which you gave me in my candidature.1 You have always helped me most kindly and I am very deeply indebted to you for this as for so many sources of daily enjoyment.

Buchanan of the Challenger tells me as a secret which I have not communicated to any one else that he is about to put forward the theory that all the deep sea red mud &c is so finely comminuted because it like your vegetable mould has been worked through worm and echinoderm intestines.2 This seems to me very good. I had dining with me a few nights ago a Mr Price Surveyor General of Hong-Kong who tells me you knew his father in Chili in old times during the Beagle Voyage.3

Believe me with very kind regards | yours truly | H. N. Moseley.

1
CD had written a testimonial in support of Moseley’s candidacy for the position of Linacre Professor of anatomy and physiology at Oxford University (see letter to H. N. Moseley, 25 September 1881).
2
John Young Buchanan published a report on manganese deposits found on the sea bed during the Challenger expedition and other dredging operations (see Buchanan 1881). CD discussed the digestive powers of worms extensively in Earthworms.
3
John MacNeile Price; his father, Richard Evan Price, had been a merchant in Valparaiso, Chile (see ‘Beagle’ diary, pp. 75, 79).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13516,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13516