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Darwin Correspondence Project

From Anton Dohrn   18 February 1881

Stazione Zoologica | di | Napoli

18th. February 1881.

Dear Mr. Darwin!

This time I am past date, and I know hardly whether you will not think me impertinent with my congratulations, your birthday being passed since some days already.1 But quite apart from the general reverence I never can nor will forget the day, when I was thoroughly down with the struggle here, out of strength and out of money, and when your generous gift and so exceedingly kind letter came to help me up again.2 It lasted some years longer to be afloat with the Zoological Station,—but it is afloat, and whilst there are again working Twenty one Naturalists at present, and others being announced, the German Government has continued the new subvention bestowed on the Station, and all the existing contracts with Governments have been prolonged so that more and more the Zoological Station with its curious international constitution becomes a matter of course.3 In fact we are so far out of trouble, that I am able to pay back in small instalments those sums which kindly and generously were lent to me, to assist me in building the Station and keeping it going till it might have gathered strength enough to live on its own account.

I have now to ask you a great favour, Mr. Darwin. I saw from the list of Messrs Williams & Norgate, that you have joined the Subscription for the “Fauna & Flora of the Gulf of Naples.” I hope you will honour us by accepting this and our other Publications once for ever as a small token of my gratitude if not as the hommage due to you, who gave a new turn to the thought of mankind and threw open lines of research for centuries to come, wherein among all the others also the Zoolog. Station moves and finds over rich harvest.4

I hope you will approve of our last enterprize, the Zoologische Jahresbericht, for which Prof. Carus acts as Editor. It will be my endeavour to persuade your country men to an amalgamation of their Zoological Record and our Jahresbericht.5 I am quite ready to use as well the English as the French and German language for publication,—but the chief thing, I believe, ought to be, to get the book as thoroughly complete and as punctually out as possible,—which is a question of organisation and money,—and both will be easier got, if there is unity in the productive forces.

I am very glad, this year have come to the Zool. Station three Englishmen; last year, there was none.6 There are negotiations pending with the States,—but I doubt, whether they will lead to a successful issue.— —7

Let me finish these lines with the sincerest wishes for your health, dear Mr. Darwin, and thank me for the privilege, in which you permit me to indulge, in sending mine and the congratulations of my fellow-workers in the Zool. Station to your birthday.

With kindest regards to Mrs. Darwin and Your Sons | believe me, dear Mr.  Darwin | Yours | respectful | Anton Dohrn

Footnotes

CD’s birthday was on 12 February.
See Correspondence vol. 22, letter to Anton Dohrn, 7 March 1874, in which CD donated £100 and George Howard Darwin and Francis Darwin each gave £10 towards the completion of the building of the Naples Zoological Station. CD had also drawn up a circular to register support for the station from British naturalists and to obtain financial contributions (see Correspondence vol. 21, letter to G. H. Darwin, 15 November [1873], and letter from T. H. Huxley to Anton Dohrn, 15 November 1873). For the difficulties Dohrn faced in building the zoological station at Naples, see Heuss 1991, pp. 114–52.
The station had developed a financial model based on renting work tables in the laboratory, a system that also fostered international scientific connections. It was only countries or institutions, not individuals, who could rent tables (see Heuss 1991, pp. 237–40).
Williams & Norgate were London booksellers who specialised in foreign scientific literature; they distributed the monograph series Fauna und Flora des Golfes von Neapel und der angrenzenden Meeres-Abschnitte, which had begun publication in 1880. CD’s copies of the four monographs published by 1881 are in the Darwin Library–CUL; the pages are uncut. The series ultimately ran to thirty-five volumes (Stazione zoologica di Napoli 1880–1921). Subscribers received the volumes for a third of the retail price (Heuss 1991, p. 172).
The Zoologischer Jahresbericht, initially edited by Julius Victor Carus, was intended to provide an annual overview of work in zoology. The Zoological Record was a British publication primarily devoted to taxonomy. Dohrn’s attempt to combine the publications was unsuccessful (Heuss 1991, pp. 170–1).
In early 1881, Allen Harker from Oxford and Francis George Penrose from London both had places on the table rented by the British Association for the Advancement of Science, while William Hay Caldwell had a place on the University of Cambridge table (Records of the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Naples). Harker and Penrose published reports about their time at the station in Report of the 51st meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1881): 182–3.
The Americans did not rent a table until the late 1880s (Heuss 1991, p. 240).

Bibliography

Heuss, Theodor. 1991. Anton Dohrn: a life for science. Translated from the German by Liselotte Dieckmann. Berlin and New York: Springer Verlag.

Stazione zoologica di Napoli. 1880–1921. Fauna und Flora des Golfes von Neapel und der angrenzenden Meeres-Abschnitte. 35 vols. Leipzig: W. Engelmann. Berlin: R. Friedländer & Sohn.

Summary

Belated birthday greetings

and reminiscences of CD’s help to the Station, which continues to prosper. A recent innovation is the establishment of the Zoologische Jahresbericht edited by J. V. Carus.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-13056
From
Felix Anton (Anton) Dohrn
To
Charles Robert Darwin
Sent from
Stazione Zoologica di Napoli
Source of text
DAR 162: 221
Physical description
ALS 4pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 13056,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-13056.xml

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