To Benjamin Silliman Jr   4 December [1860]1

Down Bromley Kent

Decr. 4th

My dear Sir

I must trouble you with a few lines to thank you very sincerely for your note with some additional information on the Cave-Rat2 & for your printed letter, which I well remember reading some years ago in your Journal.3 Several of your statements in your letter have interested me much, & the whole subject of these cave blind animals seems to me eminently curious.—

I am much obliged to you for telling me about Prof. Dana;4 pray give him my very kind remembrances; I believe no one, except his personal friends, will more rejoice at his perfect recovery than I shall.—

I am preparing a new corrected Edition of my “Origin” & shall take the liberty to quote a few words from your letter on the Cave-Rat.—5

With sincere thanks & respect, pray believe me | My dear Sir | Yours sincerely | C. Darwin

1
Dated by the relationship to the letter from Benjamin Silliman Jr, 27 October 1860. CD’s letter to Silliman was enclosed with the letter to Jeffries Wyman, 3 December [1860], for Wyman to forward.
3
Silliman 1851 was published in the American Journal of Science and Arts, of which Silliman was principal editor. There is an annotated copy in the Darwin Pamphlet Collection–CUL.
5
Origin 3d ed., p. 154; Peckham ed. 1959, p. 253.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

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Please cite as “DCP-LETT-3007,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-3007