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Darwin Correspondence Project

To Reeve Brothers   [August 1846]1

Down: Farnborough Kent.

Saturday

Sir

The section2 will do very well: there are a few trifling corrections. The writing is very bad; I do not allude to the mistakes which my bad-writing may excuse, though I never before had half so many made; but to the size of the lettering varying in every third & fourth name. Please just to look in Nor 2. at “Valley of Horcones” & at lower right hand corner at “Feldspathic Clay-slate”— Would you be so good as to look at Nor. 2. & consider what plan is best to separate the letters of reference from the names below.— In No 3d. I shd. think brackets would keep the names together best.

The paper must be cut close (as close as I have done on left side) to your border, otherwise it will not go into my volume.—

With respect to quality of Paper it must be thin for folding & yet take colour: I enclose a scrap, wh. answered well for copper in a former volume, but I must leave it to you to settle for stone.—

500 to be printed only 250 to be coloured.—

Please to observe to send me in second proof, before you print off, as I dare not trust the writer; & I must see one copy coloured on the paper which you propose to use.—

Gentlemen | Your obliged & obedt svt | C. Darwin To | Mrs Reeve, Brothers

Footnotes

The date is based on an entry in CD’s Account Book (Down House MS) dated 4 September 1846: ‘Cheque L. Reeve. Lithograph for G. of S. America £10. 2s.’
A coloured plate at the back of South America depicts the formations of the Portillo and Uspallata passes and the valley of Copiapó, Chile. See letter to Smith, Elder & Co., [19 October 1846], for CD’s response to the binding of the plate.

Bibliography

South America: Geological observations on South America. Being the third part of the geology of the voyage of the Beagle, under the command of Capt. FitzRoy RN, during the years 1832 to 1836. By Charles Darwin. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1846.

Summary

Discusses printing of a plate [for South America (1846)].

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 937,” accessed on 18 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-937.xml

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

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