Ɛpsilon

To Charles Lyell   31 May [1874]1

Down, | Beckenham, Kent.

May 31st

My dear Lyell

I have been glad to receive your note & see Mr Scrope’s.2 What you have done may be the first step in an admirable plan.— I admire the wisdom of your bequest,3 & if I had not so many sons I would have followed your steps. I much enjoyed seeing you here.4

My dear Lyell | Your affectionate old pupil | Ch. Darwin

I am glad you sent Dohrn’s paper to Mr Scrope5

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from Charles Lyell, 24 April 1874.
2
In his letter of 24 April 1874, Lyell pledged to give £25 to the subscription to complete Anton Dohrn’s Zoological Station at Naples. The note from George Julius Poulett Scrope has not been found.
3
In his will, dated 1874, Lyell made a bequest to the Geological Society of London of £2000, and a medal to be awarded annually. One-third of the annual interest on the fund was to accompany the medal, and the rest was for the encouragement of geology and allied sciences (K. M. Lyell ed. 1881, 2: 477–8).
4
According to Emma Darwin’s diary (DAR 242), Lyell visited Down on 13 May 1873.
5
The paper was probably Dohrn 1872, an article on the foundation of zoological stations published in Nature.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-9477,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-9477