Ɛpsilon

From G. G. Stokes to T. H. Huxley   8 December 1864

The Royal Society, | Burlington House, London. W.

8th Decr. 1864

My dear Huxley,

I believe in my last I made some confusion between Darwin’s proposer and seconder, which I beg you to conceive corrected.1

To pass to another matter. I called at Messrs. Taylor’s today,2 and found that you have had the proofs of your paper in hands for about 3 months.3 May I hope that you will soon return them, as they have a lot of type blocked up?

There are some Authors who are more ready to come down on the referees if they keep a paper, or on the Secretary if he does not stir them up,4 than to get on with their own proofs.

Yours very truly | G. G. Stokes

2
The reference is to Taylor & Francis, printers and publishers, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street, London (Post Office London directory 1864).
3
Stokes refers to Huxley’s paper ‘On the osteology of the genus Glyptodon’ (T. H. Huxley 1864b). The paper had been read at the Royal Society of London on 28 January 1864. It was published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 155 (1865): 31–70.
4
While a member of the Council of the Royal Society in 1860, Huxley had proposed that referees of articles for the Philosophical Transactions be requested to return papers promptly, and that the secretary apply to those referees whose reports did not come in within a certain time. The resolution was adopted (Royal Society, Council minutes, 29 March 1860).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-4709,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-4709