Ɛpsilon

To Richard Owen   28 [December 1837]1

Dear Owen

As my servant is passing your way, I send a perfect revise of Toxodon. I have read it over, & marked the very few errata which caught my eye, which may help you in your final revision.—

I hope with all my heart you will return quite comfortable, and you must not work so hard, as usual, for some time.—

Yours most truly | Chas. Darwin.

Thursday 28th

36 Grt. Marlbro’ St.—

NB. I altered the 12,000. toises into 12,00 toises2 which I suspect is right, though it did not occur to me, when I first read it over.— Perhaps you had better just refer to Cuvier—3

1
The only Thursday 28th in 1837 on which CD was in London was in December. The Toxodon description was published in February 1838.
2
A French linear measure of 6.925 lineal feet. The reference occurs in Owen’s general introduction to Fossil Mammalia, p. 13. It is printed as 1200 toises, the height at which Humboldt found the bones of a species of Mastodon described by Cuvier.
3
Cuvier 1812.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.1 my] ‘m’ over ‘I’
5.1 toises into] ‘toises’ interl
5.1 toises which] ‘toises’ added
point omitted after : 1.1 ‘have’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-395,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-395