skip to content
Home

Darwin Correspondence Project

To ?   19 March [1860–1?]1

Down Bromley Kent

March 19th

Sir

I have the pleasure to inform you that you will find an excellent account, translated from Schiödte on the Styrian Cave insect in the Transactions of the Entomolog. Soc. of London. Vol I Part IV p. 134. & Part V p 145.2

On the American Cave animals you will find two papers by Agassiz & Prof. Silliman Junr in Sillimans North American Journal of Science New Series Vol XI. p. 127 & p. 336.—3

All these papers are well worth reading. The state of my health & largeness of subject will prevent my bringing out even the 1st vol of my larger work on Species for at soonest two years.4

Sir | Your faithful servant | Charles Darwin

Footnotes

1
The year range is conjectured on the assumption that the letter was written after the publication of Origin but before CD had corrected ‘Styria’ to ‘Carniola’ in his discussion of blind cave animals (see n. 2, below).
2
Jörgen Matthias Christian Schiödte had written on cave insects in Carniola, which bordered on Styria (both now part of Slovenia); see N. Wallich trans. 1851. CD mentioned the cave animals of Styria in Origin, p. 137, and Origin 2d ed., p. 137 (1860), correcting it to Carniola in Origin 3d ed., p. 154 (1861).
3
Louis Agassiz and Benjamin Silliman Jr wrote on the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky (L. Agassiz 1851 and Silliman 1851) in the American Journal of Science and Arts, of which Silliman was the editor.
4
On CD’s projected series, see Variation 1: 3–10; Variation was in fact the only work in the series to appear.

Bibliography

Agassiz, Louis. 1851a. Observations on the blind fish of the Mammoth Cave. American Journal of Science and Arts 2d ser. 11: 127–8.

Origin 2d ed.: 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. 1860.

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.

Silliman, Benjamin, Jr. 1851. On the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky. American Journal of Science and Arts 2d ser. 11: 332–9.

Variation: The variation of animals and plants under domestication. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1868.

Wallich, Nathaniel, trans. 1851. Specimen faunæ subterraneæ, being a contribution towards the subterranean fauna, by J. C. Schiödte. Translated from the Danish. [Read 6 January 1851.] Transactions of the Entomological Society of London n.s. 1 (1850–1): 134–57.

Summary

Recommends papers on Styrian Cave insects and American cave animals.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-13770G
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
Unidentified
Sent from
Down
Source of text
King’s College London Archives (TH/PP MISC)
Physical description
ALS 3pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 13770G,” accessed on 20 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-13770G.xml

letter

Darwin Correspondence Project
darwin@lib.cam.ac.uk

© University of Cambridge 2022

Copyright declaration

Privacy policy

Website by Surface Impression

 

Study at Cambridge

About the University

Research at Cambridge