Ɛpsilon

To C. L. Brace   20 July [1872]1

Down | Beckenham Kent

July 20th.

My dear Sir

I am much obliged for your extremely kind note.2 I cannot speak positively about the Sequoia, but my impression is that Heer found it in the lignite beds of Devonshire.3

Since you were here my wife has read aloud to me more than half of your work and it has interested us both in the highest degree & we shall read every word of the remainder.4 The facts seem to me very well told and the inferences very striking   But after all this is but a weak part of the impression left on our minds by what we have read; for we are both filled with earnest admiration at the heroic labours of yourself & others,

with hearty respects and our very kind remembrances to Mrs. Brace.5 | Believe me. | My dear Mr Brace. | Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin.

Copy

1
The year is established by the reference to Letitia and Charles Loring Brace’s visit to Down (see n. 4, below).
2
Brace’s note has not been found.
3
Oswald Heer had described the fossil Sequoia couttsiae (now Quasisequoia couttsiae) found in some of the lignite beds of Bovey Tracy, Devon, in Heer 1861.
4
Letitia and Charles Loring Brace visited Down on 11 July 1872 (Emma Darwin’s diary (DAR 242)). CD refers to Brace’s book The dangerous classes of New York, and twenty years’ work among them (Brace 1872), a copy of which is in the Darwin Library–Down.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-8419,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-8419