To Charles Lyell   21 June [1859]1

Down Bromley Kent

June 21st

My dear Lyell

It was extremely kind of you to take so much trouble to tell me about Haldeman’s paper, which I read several years ago & abstracted, & I have just looked at my abstract.2 I well remember thinking it a very clever paper; but I did not find much of any actual use to me. I think I have quoted him in my large Book about ranges of varieties; but in my present condensed volume, I have not alluded to the paper. The speculations approach mine & Wallace’s, but did not on any point seem to me identical. Some remarks on the young of some fresh-water shell struck me most, apparently a modified sea-mollusc.—3

You ask about specific centres, if you change terms into specific areas, my theory quite requires them; i.e. it is, I think, next door to an impossibility that the same species should have been formed identically the same in any two areas. This point is discussed in my volume.—4

I am working very hard, but get on slowly for I find that my corrections are terrifically heavy, & the work most difficult to me. I have corrected 130 pages; & the vol: will be about 500. I have tried my best to make it clear & striking; but very much fear that I have failed, so many discussions are, & must be, very perplexing.— I have done my best. If you had all my materials, I am sure you would have made a splendid Book. I long to finish, for I am nearly worn out.

My dear Lyell | Ever yours most truly | C. Darwin

1
Dated by CD’s reference to working on the proofs of Origin.
2
See letter from Charles Lyell to T. H. Huxley, 17 June 1859. CD had read Haldeman 1843–4 in May 1845 (Correspondence vol. 4, Appendix IV, 119: 16a). Samuel Steman Haldeman’s paper discussed the geographical distribution of species. CD’s abstract of this paper is in DAR 74: 163–4. He cited it in Natural selection, p. 116, in his chapter on variation under nature. Lyell recorded the work in his species journal after a long entry, made on or about 17 June 1859, considering the progression of fossil forms (Wilson ed. 1970, p. 262).
3
Haldeman 1843–4, pp. 475–6.
4
Origin, pp. 351–6.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.2 several] before omitted point
1.4 in my large Book] interl
1.7 seem] altered from ‘seemed’
2.1 change] after del ‘will’
2.1 terms] interl
2.3 in any two areas.] transposed by CD from after ‘formed’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-2470,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-2470