To Joseph Beete Jukes 8 October [1847]
Down Farnborough | Kent
Oct 8th
My dear Sir
Pray accept my thanks for your coloured map of N.E. Australia:1 it is the very thing I was wishing to have the other day, when I was reading your chapters on the Coral Reefs.—2 I have not yet been able to get a copy of your work to go through with it, but I have read carefully all you say on Coral Reefs & been very greatly flattered & pleased.3 I admire your boldness about this being a reef-building age & Lyell & myself agreed there was much probability in it. I have always felt that my coral-reef book was too bold & speculative & therefore you will not easily imagine how gratified I am when anyone, who has had opportunities of observation, does not give his verdict against it. The Barrier is certainly a grand feature; but you must have found the coast geology with its everlasting granite very dull: I remember that I used to hate granitic districts. How I wish that fate & your Captain had led you to examine the scattered reefs between the Barrier & N. Caledonia; I have always felt much curiosity about them. I daresay you know Mr Crawfurd:4 he was speaking to me the other day with much pleasure & interest about the ethnographical part of your book & on this he must be a good judge—
Pray believe me, my dear Sir, Yours very sincerely | C. Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Jukes, Joseph Beete. 1847. Narrative of the surveying voyage of HMS Fly, commanded by Captain F. P. Blackwood, R.N. in Torres Strait, New Guinea, and other islands of the Eastern Archipelago, during the years 1842–1846: together with an excursion into the interior of the eastern part of Java. 2 vols. London.
Summary
Flattered by JBJ’s discussion of coral reefs [in Voyage of H.M.S. "Fly" 1 (1847): 347–8]. CD has always thought his Coral reefs "too bold and speculative", so he is gratified "when anyone who has had opportunities of observation does not give his verdict against it".
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-1125
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Joseph Beete Jukes
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- University of Oklahoma Libraries History of Science Collections
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 1125,” accessed on 1 September 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-1125.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 4