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To Ernst Dieffenbach   [before 9 July 1845]

[Down]

‘… It is evident that you have not time now to pay me a visit, & indeed as Mrs. Darwin is in daily expectation of her confinement1 I could hardly have asked you …

When I saw your name & that of so many other naturalists at Cambridge,2 I wished much to have been there; but my strength so often fails me, that I expected more mortification than pleasure …

I should have liked to have heard the Crater-of-Elevation discussion; after having read both sides, I cannot subscribe to that view; but I think there remains something unexplained about those many vast circular volcanic ruins …3

I presume it is very unprobable that there will ever be a second German Edition of my Journal4 … I have largely condensed, corrected & added to the Second English Edition, & I am sure have considerably improved & popularised it …’

Footnotes

1
George Howard Darwin was born on 9 July 1845.
2
The British Association met in Cambridge in June 1845. Dieffenbach read a paper on the geology of New Zealand, see Report of the 15th meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science held at Cambridge in 1845 Transactions of the sections, p. 50.
3
For a report of the discussion see Athenæum, no. 923, 5 July 1845, pp. 675–6.
4
A new translation by Julius Victor Carus was published by Schweizerbart, Stuttgart, in 1875 (Freeman 1977, no. 189).

Bibliography

Freeman, Richard Broke. 1977. The works of Charles Darwin: an annotated bibliographical handlist. 2d edition. Folkestone, Kent: William Dawson & Sons. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, Shoe String Press.

Summary

"It is evident that you have not time now to pay me a visit, & indeed as Mrs Darwin is in daily expectation of her confinement I could hardly have asked you … When I saw your name & that of many other naturalists at Cambridge, I wished much to have been there; but my strength so often fails me, that I expected more mortification than pleasure …

I should have liked to have heard the Crater-of-Elevation discussion; after having read both sides, I cannot subscribe to that view; but I think there remains something unexplained about those many vast circular volcanic ruins …

I presume it is very unprobable [sic] that there will ever be a second German Edition of my Journal … I have largely condensed, corrected & added to the Second English Edition, & I am sure have considerably improved & popularised it".

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-888
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
Ernst Dieffenbach
Sent from
Down
Source of text
J. A. Stargardt (dealers) (Catalogue 574 11–13 November 1965)

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 888,” accessed on 20 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-888.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 3

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