From George Rolleston 26 December 1876
Oxford.
Tuesday— | Dec. 26. 1876
My dear Sir
I forwarded Balfour’s Certificate to Prof. Ray Lankester as he was with Sir B. C. Brodie, Hawthornden, Torquay.1 I signed it myself of course & I hope it has reached you again by this time.
I send you in return Moseley’s Certificate and as I learn from him that you can now sign from personal knowledge I will ask you to put your name as I am sure he would (as I should) like it to stand first in the list of such signatories— Sharpey & Busk I should wish to have as also Carpenter & Wyville Thomson but I will not trouble you for this.2
I have been intending to ask you for some time back whether you had seen a paper by one of the Smithsonian Institution-Staff, Emil Bessels on the Eskimos die Inuit des Smith-Sundes in the Archiv für Anthropologie for 1875 Bd. viii. 2. p 111 note & p. 112—3 There are two points given, ll cc which shew as the author says and more extensively than he means I think eine wirklichen Thierliche Handlung.4 Though in no other way [nice], these facts when coupled with such a fact (and I have it from our Deputy for Max Müller the Revd. G. H. Sayce)5 as that of the Eskimo language being one of the oldest forms of language, & with such another set of facts as the former condition of things in the Miocene period having been what the Germans call Paradisaical & what after such a day as this I should call so too, have I think a considerable significance. I will if you have not the paper at hand, copy the passages & send them to you—
I always feel honoured by any reference you make to me but I cannot think the facts at the bottom of the 469th. page of the first Volume of your second Edition of “the Variation of Animals under Domestication” are mine— I believe I may have been the first person to draw your attention to Mr Sedgwick’s papers & the little finger’s deformities I have more than once seen hereditarily transmitted though not when artificially produced. These are mentioned on the same page but I have no recollection of the two cases spoken of at the bottom of the page.6
I am | Yours very Truly | George Rolleston
Footnotes
Bibliography
Bessels, Emil. 1875. Einige Worte über die Inuit (Eskimo) des Smith-Sundes: nebst Bemerkungen über Inuit-Schädel. Archiv für Anthropologie: Zeitschrift für Naturgeschichte und Urgeschichte des Menschen. 8: 107–22.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
ODNB: Oxford dictionary of national biography: from the earliest times to the year 2000. (Revised edition.) Edited by H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. 60 vols. and index. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2004.
Record of the Royal Society of London: The record of the Royal Society of London for the promotion of natural knowledge. 4th edition. London: Royal Society. 1940.
Sedgwick, William. 1861. On sexual limitation in hereditary disease. British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review n.s. 27: 477–89; 28: 198–214.
Variation 2d ed.: The variation of animals and plants under domestication. By Charles Darwin. 2d edition. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1875.
Summary
Has sent Balfour’s certificate on to Ray Lankester, and encloses a certificate for Moseley for CD to sign.
Calls attention to a paper by Emil Bessels on Eskimos, which he extracts [see 10737].
CD has cited GR for material that is not his in Variation, 2d ed., 1: 469, on transmission of mutilation.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-10734
- From
- George Rolleston
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Oxford
- Source of text
- DAR 176: 212
- Physical description
- ALS 5pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 10734,” accessed on 20 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-10734.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 24