From J. J. Aubertin 3 September 1863
St Paul’s
Sep 3. 1863
My dear Mr Darwin—
I am much obliged to you for your letter of the 19th July—1 Our geological aspirants here are quite satisfied in finding your report of the stones I sent you from our tunnel confirmatory, more or less, of their own ventured opinions!2
This is indeed a strange country geologically as well as æthnologically! Everything in Creation has a real meaning I suppose! & so I suppose Brazil & the Brazilians must have! There is not much more variety in their Postage Stamps than there is in their pursuits, arts, & acquirements! But such as there are to be found I have much pleasure in enclosing for your boy, & wish they were prettier!3 The numbers on them represent the “reis”4—one thousand of which (according to “Cocker”)5 make the mil-reis— 1#000.
The value of this coin, at Mint Par, being (as perhaps you already know) 27d— That is the simplest division of money here, but there are a hundred & fifty other clumsy calculations, as bad as our own—
The House of Commons, I see, has voted the Decimal & Metric Systems, but is far from obtaining the satisfaction of all!—6 I suppose there are objections to every system—& lately I have heard the proposal to make “8” the Basis, as giving even halves & quarters &c—which of course “10” does not. There are a good many more, I fancy, troubled with having nothing to count than there are who are troubled to count what they have! At all events, in general matters of life, each of us pretty well knows how to state the account in his own favour!
I am very sorry to hear of such illness in your family, but trust you may now all be pretty well, yourself included.7 You have, I understand had a very beautiful summer in England, with every prospect of a most abundant harvest, which I hope has been by this time tolerably well realized.—
We have the small-pox very badly here, which makes terrible looking objects of some of the poor Blacks! I understand it has been an Epidemic too, in England this year!—8 I was re-vaccinated the other day, but it resulted ⟨in a⟩ false pustule!
Believe me very faithfully Yours | J. J. Aubertin.
Footnotes
Bibliography
Brewer: Brewer’s dictionary of phrase & fable. Revised by Adrian Room. Millennium edition. London: Cassell. 1999.
Connor, R. D. 1987. The weights and measures of England. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.
DNB: Dictionary of national biography. Edited by Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee. 63 vols. and 2 supplements (6 vols.). London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1912. Dictionary of national biography 1912–90. Edited by H. W. C. Davis et al. 9 vols. London: Oxford University Press. 1927–96.
EB: The Encyclopædia Britannica. A dictionary of arts, sciences, literature and general information. 11th edition. 29 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1910–11.
OED: The Oxford English dictionary. Being a corrected re-issue with an introduction, supplement and bibliography of a new English dictionary. Edited by James A. H. Murray, et al. 12 vols. and supplement. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1970. A supplement to the Oxford English dictionary. 4 vols. Edited by R. W. Burchfield. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1972–86. The Oxford English dictionary. 2d edition. 20 vols. Prepared by J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1989. Oxford English dictionary additional series. 3 vols. Edited by John Simpson et al. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1993–7.
Sixth report of the medical officer of the Privy Council: Sixth report of the medical officer of the Privy Council. With appendix. 1863. [British parliamentary papers, Session 1864, 28: 1–799.]
Summary
Thanks CD for his letter and geological report on the stones JJA sent.
Encloses postage stamps for CD’s son.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-4289
- From
- John James Aubertin
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Sao Paulo
- Source of text
- DAR 159: 124
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4289,” accessed on 14 May 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4289.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 11