Ɛpsilon

To Richard Owen   [April? 1848]1

Down, Farnborough, Kent.

My dear Owen,—

… I am much pleased at your praise of my Coral volume, and am very glad you recommend it to the notice of voyagers.2 It would undoubtedly be far more suggestive to any one who will really attend to the subject, but for the generality, perhaps, the abstract in my journal would be the most [useful]… .3 I have lately read with very great interest all the parts which I could follow in your Report on Archetypes, &c.4 You may remember that I suggested explanations to the woodcuts. I am not a quarter satisfied yet. You may with perfect justice say you do not write for tyros; but if ever you take compassion (and there is no other claim) on ignoramuses such as myself, you will in every woodcut give the name to every letter or number in your woodcuts, even if repeated 500 times, for just that many times will it make your work intelligible to the ignorant.

Believe me, | Yours very sincerely, | C.DARWIN.

1
Erroneously dated 1843 in R. S. Owen 1894, 1: 208. The revised date is established by the references to Owen’s recommendation of Coral reefs and to his book, On the archetype and homologies of the vertebrate skeleton, which was publicly available at the beginning of April 1848 (see n. 4, below).
2
In Owen’s chapter on zoology in the Admiralty manual (Herschel ed. 1849, p. 349).
3
Journal of researches 2d ed., pp. 465–82.
4
R. Owen 1848, originally a report delivered at the British Association meeting of 1846. It was expanded and published as a separate volume between 14 and 29 March 1848 (Publishers’ Circular, 1 April 1848). On 1 January 1848, CD recorded that he had read all the reports of the British Association up to 1847 (DAR 119; Correspondence vol. 4, Appendix IV), so the comparison between Owen’s paper and the published book may have been fresh in his mind.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-997,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-997