Down, | Bromley, Kent. | Feb[ruary]. 23rd.
Dear Tyndall,
I send the letters.2 No. 1. tells most—It is only an inference that Mr Wedgwood3 saw congelation,4 but it seems to me pretty clear that he did. Letters No. 2. and 3. are hardly worth your looking at. Letter 4 contains reference to protrusion of glaciers by the swelling of frozen unfiltered water. I doubt whether the letters are worth your looking at, but it has amused me to see the speculations of philosophers (my two grandfathers) nearly 80 years ago on a subject which they so little understood. It seems that Dr. D.5 communicated the fact to Dr. Black6 by Mr Robert D.7 (who was my father) who lodged with Dr. Black in Edinburgh.
Dear Tyndall | Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin
P.S. | I send by this post, a pamphlet8 which contains the best account, pleasantly written, of my Origin, if you chance to care to read it.
RI MS JT/1/TYP/9/2802
LT Transcript Only
The date is taken from the Darwin Correspondence Project, DCP-LETT-3067. See n. 8.
I send the letters: Charles Darwin sent Tyndall four letters from his paternal grandfather Erasmus Darwin to his maternal grandfather Josiah Wedgwood Sr. See reference in n. 1 for further detail.
Mr Wedgwood: Josiah Wedgwood (1730–95), founder of the Wedgwood company (see n. 2).
congelation: a reference to Tyndall’s concept the fracture and regelation of ice to explain glacier motion. According to this concept, when ice is broken into fragments under pressure, the fragments, becoming moist through melting, reunite when they again come into contact with a film of water between them.
Dr. D.: Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802), see n. 2.
Dr. Black: Joseph Black (1728–99), Scottish physician and chemist.
Mr Robert D.: Robert Waring Darwin (1766–1848).
I send by this post, a pamphlet: Asa Gray, Natural selection not inconsistent with natural theology. A free examination of Darwin’s treatise on the origin of species, and of its American reviewers (London: Trübner. Boston, Mass.: Ticknor & Fields, 1861). Tyndall’s name appears on the presentation list that Charles Darwin drew up for the distribution of the pamphlet.
Please cite as “Tyndall1768,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on