Ɛpsilon

To ?   19 March [1860–1?]1

Down Bromley Kent

March 19th

Sir

I have the pleasure to inform you that you will find an excellent account, translated from Schiödte on the Styrian Cave insect in the Transactions of the Entomolog. Soc. of London. Vol I Part IV p. 134. & Part V p 145.2

On the American Cave animals you will find two papers by Agassiz & Prof. Silliman Junr in Sillimans North American Journal of Science New Series Vol XI. p. 127 & p. 336.—3

All these papers are well worth reading. The state of my health & largeness of subject will prevent my bringing out even the 1st vol of my larger work on Species for at soonest two years.4

Sir | Your faithful servant | Charles Darwin

1
The year range is conjectured on the assumption that the letter was written after the publication of Origin but before CD had corrected ‘Styria’ to ‘Carniola’ in his discussion of blind cave animals (see n. 2, below).
2
Jörgen Matthias Christian Schiödte had written on cave insects in Carniola, which bordered on Styria (both now part of Slovenia); see N. Wallich trans. 1851. CD mentioned the cave animals of Styria in Origin, p. 137, and Origin 2d ed., p. 137 (1860), correcting it to Carniola in Origin 3d ed., p. 154 (1861).
3
Louis Agassiz and Benjamin Silliman Jr wrote on the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky (L. Agassiz 1851 and Silliman 1851) in the American Journal of Science and Arts, of which Silliman was the editor.
4
On CD’s projected series, see Variation 1: 3–10; Variation was in fact the only work in the series to appear.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13770G,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13770G