From Francis Galton   24 November 1871

42 Rutland Gate SW

Nov 24/71

My dear Darwin

The results are indeed most curious—1

You must kindly permit me to run down to you tomorrow (Saturday) for an hour or so , to see them & to time what to do. I see, my train wd. land me at Orpington2 at 11.12, so I suppose I should arrive at Down at about 12 past 12. If however it should be a really wet day, I would postpone coming till Tuesday. You are indeed most kind to have taken all three pairs for me & I sincerely trust the experiment may yet bear some fruit. I happened to be very unlucky with my Angora transfusion but there is no reason why they or the cross-circulation should not succeed & I will do my best to try it.3

Very sincerely yours | Francis Galton

1
Galton refers to a letter from CD that has not been found. He alludes to his ongoing experiments with rabbits (see letter from Francis Galton, 21 November 1871).
2
Orpington station, on the South Eastern Railway, was the nearest train station to Down.
3
Galton had been experimenting with albino angora rabbits and other rabbit breeds with little or no tendency to albinism (see Correspondence vol. 17, letter from Francis Galton, 11 December 1869). The experiments involved transfusing blood between the differently coloured varieties. More recently, Galton had tried joining rats surgically, so that blood could pass directly from one rat to another (see letter from Francis Galton, 13 September 1871).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-8085,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-8085