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From William Lonsdale   15 June 1839

My dear Darwin

Pray accept my best acknowledgements for a copy of your excellent volume; and I hope you will excuse my not having proferred them sooner— I was anxious to make some progress in the work before I thanked you for your kindness. The matter and manner are excellent; the spirit of the reader does not weary, and there are copious stores of information, to meditate upon. The work will afford me a long summer’s instructive reading.

I send a note from Dr. Fitton. A letter on the same subject has been received from Mr. Caldcleugh and the details are generally the same.—1 If you could find leisure I shall be happy to shew you Mr. C’s notice.—

Believe me to be | My dear Darwin | Ever gratefully & Sincerely yrs | Wm. Lonsdale Saturday Evg.

15thJune 1839

1
Lonsdale probably refers to communications to the Geological Society, of which he was Curator and Librarian. No letter from William Henry Fitton has been found. A letter from Alexander Caldcleugh dated 18 February 1839, which may have arrived from Chile by mid-June, was read at the meeting of 6 November. It contained a translation of an account of a supposed submarine volcanic eruption near the island of Juan Fernandez on 12 February 1839 (Proceedings of the Geological Society 3 (1838–42): 146–7).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-521,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-521