From William Duppa Crotch 10 April 1865
Uphill House | Weston Super Mare
April 10/65
Dear Sir
Since I was in Shetland—3 or 4 years ago1—I have twice visited the Canary Islands in search of development & an Atlantis!2 & have brought back more than 40.000 specimens—mostly entomological—& some confirmed opinions—
Those on the mutation of species needed no confirmation—but with regard to the great continent, in part submerged—which connected America with Africa in the miocene & subsequent eras, I feel more confident than ever that the Sahara is the ocean bed which separated this land from Africa, & that migration worked Eastward of Greenland—across the telegraphic plateau,3 then a portion of the dry land of Atlantis—rather than across Asia via Behring’s Straits (which must have been a perfect Noah’s Ark) as Asa Gray supposes—4 The utter non-existence of infra-Saharan species in the Canary Islands, & continual occurrence of Transatlantic types is very surprising— I do not know how intimately you investigated these Islands & shall feel extremely obliged to you for any expression of opinion with regard to the Atlantis Hypothesis—5
Further than this I think Adhemar’s theory of the Antarctic glaciers6 not only possible but as probably explaining the submergence of the Western portion of Atlantis— I brought home with me about 50 sketches & hope to publish an account of doings, beholdings & theorisings shortly, which I should like to dedicate to you,7 if you will permit me—since, in common with many others, I owe to you entirely the scientific adjustment of the crude Lamarckian doctrines8 which I held, as the nearest approach to the truth.
Believe me | Yours sincerely | W. D. Crotch M.A. Oxon.
Footnotes
Bibliography
Adhémar, Alphonse-Joseph. 1842. Révolutions de la mer. Paris: Carilian-Goeury et V. Dalmont.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Dupree, Anderson Hunter. 1959. Asa Gray, 1810–1888. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University.
Forbes, Edward. 1845. On the distribution of endemic plants, more especially those of the British Islands, considered with regard to geological changes. Report of the 15th meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science held at Cambridge, Transactions of the sections, pp. 67–8.
Gray, Asa. 1858–9. Diagnostic characters of new species of phænogamous plants, collected in Japan by Charles Wright, botanist of the US North Pacific Exploring Expedition … With observations upon the relations of the Japanese flora to that of North America, and of other parts of the northern temperate zone. [Read 14 December 1858 and 11 January 1859.] Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences n.s. 6: 377–452.
Heer, Oswald. 1855. Ueber die fossilen Pflanzen von St. Jorge in Madeira. [Read 5 November 1855.] Neue Denkschriften der allgemeinen Schweizerischen Gesellschaft für die gesammten Naturwissenschaften n.s. 5 (1857): paper 2.
Natural selection: Charles Darwin’s Natural selection: being the second part of his big species book written from 1856 to 1858. Edited by R. C. Stauffer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1975.
Origin 3d ed.: On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. 3d edition, with additions and corrections. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1861.
Origin: On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1859.
Russell, W. H. 1865. The Atlantic telegraph. London: Day & Son.
Summary
Supports Atlantis hypothesis.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-4811
- From
- William Duppa Crotch
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Weston-super-Mare
- Source of text
- DAR 161: 274
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4811,” accessed on 27 September 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4811.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 13