Ɛpsilon

To W. B. Dawkins   14 July [1869]1

[Caerdeon, Barmouth.]

Mr. dear Mr. Dawkins,

I know from your great paper on the glacial remains how much you are interested about cave animals.2 I have just heard from one of the Lloyds of Rhaggatt that a fissure has been opened in a limestone quarry, full of bones and teeth.3 The Rhaggatt estate lies between Ruthie & Llangollen. Some specimens including small jaws have been sent to me, & if you will give me your address by return of post I will send you by Railway or Post all the specimens or a few teeth & jaws, by which you will be able to judge whether the case is worth investigating. The bones are said to resemble in appearance those from the Cefn cave.4

The post is going immediately so that I can say no more at present. | Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin

LS(A)

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from W. B. Dawkins, 17 July 1869 (Correspondence vol. 17).
2
Dawkins, together with his colleague William Ayshford Sanford, had begun publishing a monograph on mammalian palaeontology; the first three parts of the first volume, on fossil Felidae, had been published between 1866 and 1869 (Dawkins and Sanford 1866–72, 1: i–l, 1–176).
3
Gertrude Jane Mary Lloyd, who was in charge of the Rhaggatt estate, superintended the collection of fossil remains found in the cave near Corwen in the hills south of the town of Ruthin in Wales (for more on CD’s acquisition of the bones, see Lucas 2007, pp. 325–6). CD was staying about forty miles away at Caerdeon in Wales (Correspondence vol. 17, Appendix II).
4
Cefn cave is in the parish of Cefn Meiriadog, Denbighshire, Wales. In August 1831, CD had visited the cave while on a geological tour with Adam Sedgwick (Browne 1995, p. 142).
5
The original letter is complete and is described in the sale catalogue as being three pages long. The second and third pages, ‘& Llangollen … Ch. Darwin’, have been transcribed from a facsimile. The rest of the transcription, described as a full quotation, is taken from the sale catalogue.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.6 by … specimens or] interl in CD’s hand

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-6857F,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-6857F