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To Henry Johnson   22 February 1882

Down | Beckenham, Kent.

Feby 22nd. 1882.

Dear Sir,

As very few luggage trains call at our small station the great box arrived there only 2 days ago & I was not able to send for it until yesterday as there was a run on my horses.1 The specimen arrived quite safe owing to the great care with which it had been packed up.

The impressions are wonderfully distinct & the specimen seems to me a very interesting & curious one. I shall be anxious to show it to any geologists who may visit me and who may happen to have attended more carefully to impressions than I have ever done.

How I wish that my dear old friend Sir Charles Lyell had been alive!2

Prey accept my cordial thanks for the great kindness which you have shown in sending me this specimen.

Believe me my dear Sir | Yours sincerely | Charles Darwin

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1
Johnson had sent CD a slab of sandstone with fossil annelid worm tracks (see letter from Henry Johnson, 11 February 1882).
2
Charles Lyell, who died in 1875, had been an early supporter of CD’s work and a close friend. Some of the information for CD’s early paper ‘Formation of mould’ had been transmitted to CD through Lyell (see Correspondence vol. 2, letter from W. F. Lindsay-Carnegie to Charles Lyell, [14 February 1838]).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13699,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13699