Dear Lady Lubbock

I trust I have been trained to take sufficient interest in all scientific investigations, not to think any question impertinent or unwarrantable the answer to which can in any way further that object. Indeed I felt very much inclined to write to M^r. Darwin of my own accord when reading his interesting book on the Descent of Man when it first appeared on the subject.² I am sorry however to say the Surgeon who performed the operation on my eldest son (D^r Trench Staff surgeon at Malta) has been dead several years but I will try as far as I can to make up for the more accurate & technical details he no doubt c^d. have given.³ The extra digit or thumb was amputated by congelation in March /56 when my son was 4 months old. The excrescence was simply cartilage growing a little above the joint with a perfect nail as in the drawing I enclose which my son has just made of his hand as it was & is now with the regrowth which is entirely covered with nail quite loose from the bone—⁴ I don’t know whether M^r. Darwin heard that the inheritance was from my grandfather— J. T. late L^d. Stanley of Alderley who died at 84 in 1850⁵   his had been amputated I believe when he was about 4 years old & the regrowth was much larger & more clumsy than that on my son’s hand— no other instances in the family are known but there was a curious legend in the family of a miller who was to be born with 3 thumbs who w^d. hold a king’s horse up to his knees in blood. My grandfather had a mill & 3 thumbs there the similitude ends!—

I don’t know whether Sir John has been favoured with an account of Col. Fox & C^os. latest exploits at Cissbury or whether he was able to assist at the discovery of the skeleton of which I was informed by the Sergeant who had to go & unearth him—with an order that he was to go & command a Brigade at Wimbledon yesterday.⁶ He had to leave his interesting investigations & went up to London where he by some means of which I am ignorant found himself relieved from the duty & rushed back to his skeleton far more congenial to his tastes.

Will you kindly forward my letter & sketch to Mr. Darwin & tell him I shall be most happy to answer any other questions in my power, tho’ I think I have given all the particulars I can

With kind regards to Sir John | believe me | Y^rs very truly | Alice Lane Fox