More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume I

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On some of the large patches of perpetual snow, I found the famous red snow
of the Arctic countries; I send with this letter my observations and a
piece of paper on which I tried to dry some specimens. If the fact is new
and you think it worth while, either yourself examine them or send them to
whoever has described the specimens from the north and publish a notice in
any of the periodicals. I also send a small bottle with two lizards, one
of them is viviparous as you will see by the accompanying notice. A M.
Gay--a French naturalist--has already published in one of the newspapers of
this country a similar statement and probably has forwarded to Paris some
account; as the fact appears singular would it not be worth while to hand
over the specimens to some good lizardologist and comparative anatomist to
publish an account of their internal structure? Do what you think fit.

This letter will go with a cargo of specimens from Coquimbo. I shall write
to let you know when they are sent off. In the box there are two bags of
seeds, one [from the] valleys of the Cordilleras 5,000-10,000 feet high,
the soil and climate exceedingly dry, soil very light and stony, extremes
in temperature; the other chiefly from the dry sandy Traversia of Mendoza
3,000 feet more or less. If some of the bushes should grow but not be
healthy, try a slight sprinkling of salt and saltpetre. The plain is
saliferous. All the flowers in the Cordilleras appear to be autumnal
flowerers--they were all in blow and seed, many of them very pretty. I
gathered them as I rode along on the hill sides. If they will but choose
to come up, I have no doubt many would be great rarities. In the Mendoza
bag there are the seeds or berries of what appears to be a small potato
plant with a whitish flower. They grow many leagues from where any
habitation could ever have existed owing to absence of water. Amongst the
Chonos dried plants, you will see a fine specimen of the wild potato,
growing under a most opposite climate, and unquestionably a true wild
potato. It must be a distinct species from that of the Lower Cordilleras
one. Perhaps as with the banana, distinct species are now not to be
distinguished in their varieties produced by cultivation. I cannot copy
out the few remarks about the Chonos potato. With the specimens there is a
bundle of old papers and notebooks. Will you take care of them; in case I
should lose my notes, these might be useful. I do not send home any
insects because they must be troublesome to you, and now so little more of
the voyage remains unfinished I can well take charge of them. In two or
three days I set out for Coquimbo by land; the "Beagle" calls for me in the
beginning of June. So that I have six weeks more to enjoy geologising over
these curious mountains of Chili. There is at present a bloody revolution
in Peru. The Commodore has gone there, and in the hurry has carried our
letters with him; perhaps amongst them there will be one from you. I wish
I had the old Commodore here, I would shake some consideration for others
into his old body. From Coquimbo you will again hear from me.

LETTER 7. TO J.S. HENSLOW.
Lima, July 12th, 1835.

This is the last letter which I shall ever write to you from the shores of
America, and for this reason I send it. In a few days time the "Beagle"
will sail for the Galapagos Islands. I look forward with joy and interest
to this, both as being somewhat nearer to England and for the sake of
having a good look at an active volcano. Although we have seen lava in
abundance, I have never yet beheld the crater. I sent by H.M.S. "Conway"
two large boxes of specimens. The "Conway" sailed the latter end of June.
With them were letters for you, since that time I have travelled by land
from Valparaiso to Copiapo and seen something more of the Cordilleras.
Some of my geological views have been, subsequently to the last letter,
altered. I believe the upper mass of strata is not so very modern as I
supposed. This last journey has explained to me much of the ancient
history of the Cordilleras. I feel sure they formerly consisted of a chain
of volcanoes from which enormous streams of lava were poured forth at the
bottom of the sea. These alternate with sedimentary beds to a vast
thickness; at a subsequent period these volcanoes must have formed islands,
from which have been produced strata of several thousand feet thick of
coarse conglomerate. (7/1. See "Geological Observations on South America"
(London, 1846), Chapter VII.: "Central Chile; Structure of the
Cordillera.") These islands were covered with fine trees; in the
conglomerate, I found one 15 feet in circumference perfectly silicified to
the very centre. The alternations of compact crystalline rocks (I cannot
doubt subaqueous lavas), and sedimentary beds, now upheaved fractured and
indurated, form the main range of the Andes. The formation was produced at
the time when ammonites, gryphites, oysters, Pecten, Mytilus, etc., etc.,
lived. In the central parts of Chili the structure of the lower beds is
rendered very obscure by the metamorphic action which has rendered even the
coarsest conglomerates porphyritic. The Cordilleras of the Andes so worthy
of admiration from the grandeur of their dimensions, rise in dignity when
it is considered that since the period of ammonites, they have formed a
marked feature in the geography of the globe. The geology of these
mountains pleased me in one respect; when reading Lyell, it had always
struck me that if the crust of the world goes on changing in a circle,
there ought to be somewhere found formations which, having the age of the
great European Secondary beds, should possess the structure of Tertiary
rocks or those formed amidst islands and in limited basins. Now the
alternations of lava and coarse sediment which form the upper parts of the
Andes, correspond exactly to what would accumulate under such
circumstances. In consequence of this, I can only very roughly separate
into three divisions the varying strata (perhaps 8,000 feet thick) which
compose these mountains. I am afraid you will tell me to learn my ABC to
know quartz from feldspar before I indulge in such speculations. I lately
got hold of a report on M. Dessalines D'Orbigny's labours in S. America
(7/2. "Voyage dans l'Amerique Meridionale, etc." (A. Dessalines
D'Orbigny).); I experienced rather a debasing degree of vexation to find he
has described the Geology of the Pampas, and that I have had some hard
riding for nothing, it was however gratifying that my conclusions are the
same, as far as I can collect, with his results. It is also capital that
the whole of Bolivia will be described. I hope to be able to connect his
geology of that country with mine of Chili. After leaving Copiapo, we
touched at Iquique. I visited but do not quite understand the position of
the nitrate of soda beds. Here in Peru, from the state of anarchy, I can
make no expedition.

I hear from home, that my brother is going to send me a box with books, and
a letter from you. It is very unfortunate that I cannot receive this
before we reach Sydney, even if it ever gets safely so far. I shall not
have another opportunity for many months of again writing to you. Will you
have the charity to send me one more letter (as soon as this reaches you)
directed to the C. of Good Hope. Your letters besides affording me the
greatest delight always give me a fresh stimulus for exertion. Excuse this
geological prosy letter, and farewell till you hear from me at Sydney, and
see me in the autumn of 1836.

LETTER 8. TO JOSIAH WEDGWOOD.
[Shrewsbury, October 5th, 1836.]

My dear Uncle

The "Beagle" arrived at Falmouth on Sunday evening, and I reached home late
last night. My head is quite confused with so much delight, but I cannot
allow my sisters to tell you first how happy I am to see all my dear
friends again. I am obliged to return in three or four days to London,
where the "Beagle" will be paid off, and then I shall pay Shrewsbury a
longer visit. I am most anxious once again to see Maer, and all its
inhabitants, so that in the course of two or three weeks, I hope in person
to thank you, as being my first Lord of the Admiralty. (8/1. Readers of
the "Life and Letters" will remember that it was to Josiah Wedgwood that
Darwin owed the great opportunity of his life ("Life and Letters," Volume
I., page 59), and it was fitting that he should report himself to his
"first Lord of the Admiralty." The present letter clears up a small
obscurity to which Mr. Poulton has called attention ("Charles Darwin and
the Theory of Natural Selection," "Century" Series, 1896, page 25).
Writing to Fitz-Roy from Shrewsbury on October 6th, Darwin says, "I arrived
here yesterday morning at breakfast time." This refers to his arrival at
his father's house, after having slept at the inn. The date of his arrival
in Shrewsbury was, therefore, October 4th, as given in the "Life and
Letters," I., page 272.) The entries in his Diary are:--
October 2, 1831. Took leave of my home.
October 4, 1836. Reached Shrewsbury after absence of 5 years and 2 days.)
I am so very happy I hardly know what I am writing. Believe me your most
affectionate nephew,

CHAS. DARWIN.

LETTER 9. TO C. LYELL.
Shrewsbury, Monday [November 12th, 1838].

My dear Lyell

I suppose you will be in Hart St. (9/1. Sir Charles Lyell lived at 16,
Hart Street, Bloomsbury.) to-morrow [or] the 14th. I write because I
cannot avoid wishing to be the first person to tell Mrs. Lyell and
yourself, that I have the very good, and shortly since [i.e. until lately]
very unexpected fortune of going to be married! The lady is my cousin Miss
Emma Wedgwood, the sister of Hensleigh Wedgwood, and of the elder brother
who married my sister, so we are connected by manifold ties, besides on my
part, by the most sincere love and hearty gratitude to her for accepting
such a one as myself.

I determined when last at Maer to try my chance, but I hardly expected such
good fortune would turn up for me. I shall be in town in the middle or
latter end of the ensuing week. (9/2. Mr. Darwin was married on January
29th, 1839 (see "Life and Letters," I., page 299). The present letter was
written the day after he had become engaged.) I fear you will say I might
very well have left my story untold till we met. But I deeply feel your
kindness and friendship towards me, which in truth I may say, has been one
chief source of happiness to me, ever since my return to England: so you
must excuse me. I am well sure that Mrs. Lyell, who has sympathy for every
one near her, will give me her hearty congratulations.

Believe me my dear Lyell
Yours most truly obliged
CHAS. DARWIN.

(PLATE: MRS. DARWIN. Walker and Cockerell, ph. sc.)

LETTER 10. TO EMMA WEDGWOOD.
Sunday Night. Athenaeum. [January 20th, 1839.]

...I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed my Maer visit,--I felt in
anticipation my future tranquil life: how I do hope you may be as happy as
I know I shall be: but it frightens me, as often as I think of what a
family you have been one of. I was thinking this morning how it came, that
I, who am fond of talking and am scarcely ever out of spirits, should so
entirely rest my notions of happiness on quietness, and a good deal of
solitude: but I believe the explanation is very simple and I mention it
because it will give you hopes, that I shall gradually grow less of a
brute, it is that during the five years of my voyage (and indeed I may add
these two last) which from the active manner in which they have been
passed, may be said to be the commencement of my real life, the whole of my
pleasure was derived from what passed in my mind, while admiring views by
myself, travelling across the wild deserts or glorious forests or pacing
the deck of the poor little "Beagle" at night. Excuse this much egotism,--
I give it you because I think you will humanize me, and soon teach me there
is greater happiness than building theories and accumulating facts in
silence and solitude. My own dearest Emma, I earnestly pray, you may never
regret the great, and I will add very good, deed, you are to perform on the
Tuesday: my own dear future wife, God bless you...The Lyells called on me
to-day after church; as Lyell was so full of geology he was obliged to
disgorge,--and I dine there on Tuesday for an especial confidence. I was
quite ashamed of myself to-day, for we talked for half an hour,
unsophisticated geology, with poor Mrs. Lyell sitting by, a monument of
patience. I want practice in ill-treatment the female sex,--I did not
observe Lyell had any compunction; I hope to harden my conscience in time:
few husbands seem to find it difficult to effect this. Since my return I
have taken several looks, as you will readily believe, into the drawing-
room; I suppose my taste [for] harmonious colours is already deteriorated,
for I declare the room begins to look less ugly. I take so much pleasure
in the house (10/1. No. 12, Upper Gower Street, is now No. 110, Gower
Street, and forms part of a block inhabited by Messrs. Shoolbred's
employes. We are indebted, for this information, to Mr. Wheatley, of the
Society of Arts.), I declare I am just like a great overgrown child with a
new toy; but then, not like a real child, I long to have a co-partner and
possessor.

(10/2. The following passage is taken from the MS. copy of the
"Autobiography;" it was not published in the "Life and Letters" which
appeared in Mrs. Darwin's lifetime:--)

You all know your mother, and what a good mother she has ever been to all
of you. She has been my greatest blessing, and I can declare that in my
whole life I have never heard her utter one word I would rather have been
unsaid. She has never failed in kindest sympathy towards me, and has borne
with the utmost patience my frequent complaints of ill-health and
discomfort. I do not believe she has ever missed an opportunity of doing a
kind action to any one near her. I marvel at my good fortune that she, so
infinitely my superior in every single moral quality, consented to be my
wife. She has been my wise adviser and cheerful comforter throughout life,
which without her would have been during a very long period a miserable one
from ill-health. She has earned the love of every soul near her.

LETTER 11. C. LYELL TO C. DARWIN.
[July?, 1841?].

(11/1. Lyell started on his first visit to the United States in July,
1841, and was absent thirteen months. Darwin returned to London July 23rd,
1841, after a prolonged absence; he may, therefore, have missed seeing
Lyell. Assuming the date 1841 to be correct, it would seem that the plan
of living in the country was formed a year before it was actually carried
out.)

I have no doubt that your father did rightly in persuading you to stay [at
Shrewsbury], but we were much disappointed in not seeing you before our
start for a year's absence. I cannot tell you how often since your long
illness I have missed the friendly intercourse which we had so frequently
before, and on which I built more than ever after your marriage. It will
not happen easily that twice in one's life, even in the large world of
London, a congenial soul so occupied with precisely the same pursuits and
with an independence enabling him to pursue them will fall so nearly in my
way, and to have had it snatched from me with the prospect of your
residence somewhat far off is a privation I feel as a very great one. I
hope you will not, like Herschell, get far off from a railway.

LETTER 12. TO CATHERINE DARWIN.

(12/1. The following letter was written to his sister Catherine about two
months before Charles Darwin settled at Down:--)

Sunday [July 1842].

You must have been surprised at not having heard sooner about the house.
Emma and I only returned yesterday afternoon from sleeping there. I will
give you in detail, as my father would like, MY opinion on it--Emma's
slightly differs. Position:--about 1/4 of a mile from the small village of
Down in Kent--16 miles from St. Paul's--8 1/2 miles from station (with many
trains) which station is only 10 from London. This is bad, as the drive
from [i.e. on account of] the hills is long. I calculate we are two hours
going from London Bridge. Village about forty houses with old walnut trees
in the middle where stands an old flint church and the lanes meet.
Inhabitants very respectable--infant school--grown up people great
musicians--all touch their hats as in Wales and sit at their open doors in
the evening; no high road leads through the village. The little pot-house
where we slept is a grocer's shop, and the landlord is the carpenter--so
you may guess the style of the village. There are butcher and baker and
post-office. A carrier goes weekly to London and calls anywhere for
anything in London and takes anything anywhere. On the road [from London]
to the village, on a fine day the scenery is absolutely beautiful: from
close to our house the view is very distant and rather beautiful, but the
house being situated on a rather high tableland has somewhat of a desolate
air. There is a most beautiful old farm-house, with great thatched barns
and old stumps of oak trees, like that of Skelton, one field off. The
charm of the place to me is that almost every field is intersected (as alas
is ours) by one or more foot-paths. I never saw so many walks in any other
county. The country is extraordinarily rural and quiet with narrow lanes
and high hedges and hardly any ruts. It is really surprising to think
London is only 16 miles off. The house stands very badly, close to a tiny
lane and near another man's field. Our field is 15 acres and flat, looking
into flat-bottomed valleys on both sides, but no view from the drawing-
room, which faces due south, except on our flat field and bits of rather
ugly distant horizon. Close in front there are some old (very productive)
cherry trees, walnut trees, yew, Spanish chestnut, pear, old larch, Scotch
fir and silver fir and old mulberry trees, [which] make rather a pretty
group. They give the ground an old look, but from not flourishing much
they also give it rather a desolate look. There are quinces and medlars
and plums with plenty of fruit, and Morello cherries; but few apples. The
purple magnolia flowers against the house. There is a really fine beech in
view in our hedge. The kitchen garden is a detestable slip and the soil
looks wretched from the quantity of chalk flints, but I really believe it
is productive. The hedges grow well all round our field, and it is a noted
piece of hayland. This year the crop was bad, but was bought, as it stood,
for 2 pounds per acre--that is 30 pounds--the purchaser getting it in.
Last year it was sold for 45 pounds--no manure was put on in the interval.
Does not this sound well? Ask my father. Does the mulberry and magnolia
show it is not very cold in winter, which I fear is the case? Tell Susan
it is 9 miles from Knole Park and 6 from Westerham, at which places I hear
the scenery is beautiful. There are many very odd views round our house--
deepish flat-bottomed valley and nice farm-house, but big, white, ugly,
fallow fields;--much wheat grown here. House ugly, looks neither old nor
new--walls two feet thick--windows rather small--lower story rather low.
Capital study 18 x 18. Dining-room 21 x 18. Drawing-room can easily be
added to: is 21 x 15. Three stories, plenty of bedrooms. We could hold
the Hensleighs and you and Susan and Erasmus all together. House in good
repair. Mr. Cresy a few years ago laid out for the owner 1,500 pounds and
made a new roof. Water-pipes over house--two bath-rooms--pretty good
offices and good stable-yard, etc., and a cottage. I believe the price is
about 2,200 pounds, and I have no doubt I shall get it for one year on
lease first to try, so that I shall do nothing to the house at first (last
owner kept three cows, one horse, and one donkey, and sold some hay
annually from one field). I have no doubt if we complete the purchase I
shall at least save 1,000 pounds over Westcroft, or any other house we have
seen. Emma was at first a good deal disappointed, and at the country round
the house; the day was gloomy and cold with N.E. wind. She likes the
actual field and house better than I; the house is just situated as she
likes for retirement, not too near or too far from other houses, but she
thinks the country looks desolate. I think all chalk countries do, but I
am used to Cambridgeshire, which is ten times worse. Emma is rapidly
coming round. She was dreadfully bad with toothache and headache in the
evening and Friday, but in coming back yesterday she was so delighted with
the scenery for the first few miles from Down, that it has worked a great
change in her. We go there again the first fine day Emma is able, and we
then finally settle what to do.

(12/2. The following fragmentary "Account of Down" was found among Mr.
Darwin's papers after the publication of the "Life and Letters." It gives
the impression that he intended to write a natural history diary after the
manner of Gilbert White, but there is no evidence that this was actually
the case.)

1843. May 15th.--The first peculiarity which strikes a stranger
unaccustomed to a hilly chalk country is the valleys, with their steep
rounded bottoms--not furrowed with the smallest rivulet. On the road to
Down from Keston a mound has been thrown across a considerable valley, but
even against this mound there is no appearance of even a small pool of
water having collected after the heaviest rains. The water all percolates
straight downwards. Ascertain average depth of wells, inclination of
strata, and springs. Does the water from this country crop out in springs
in Holmsdale or in the valley of the Thames? Examine the fine springs in
Holmsdale.

The valleys on this platform sloping northward, but exceedingly even,
generally run north and south; their sides near the summits generally
become suddenly more abrupt, and are fringed with narrow strips, or, as
they are here called, "shaws" of wood, sometimes merely by hedgerows run
wild. The sudden steepness may generally be perceived, as just before
ascending to Cudham Wood, and at Green Hill, where one of the lanes crosses
these valleys. These valleys are in all probability ancient sea-bays, and
I have sometimes speculated whether this sudden steepening of the sides
does not mark the edges of vertical cliffs formed when these valleys were
filled with sea-water, as would naturally happen in strata such as the
chalk.

In most countries the roads and footpaths ascend along the bottoms of
valleys, but here this is scarcely ever the case. All the villages and
most of the ancient houses are on the platforms or narrow strips of flat
land between the parallel valleys. Is this owing to the summits having
existed from the most ancient times as open downs and the valleys having
been filled up with brushwood? I have no evidence of this, but it is
certain that most of the farmhouses on the flat land are very ancient.
There is one peculiarity which would help to determine the footpaths to run
along the summits instead of the bottom of the valleys, in that these
latter in the middle are generally covered, even far more thickly than the
general surface, with broken flints. This bed of flints, which gradually
thins away on each side, can be seen from a long distance in a newly
ploughed or fallow field as a whitish band. Every stone which ever rolls
after heavy rain or from the kick of an animal, ever so little, all tend to
the bottom of the valleys; but whether this is sufficient to account for
their number I have sometimes doubted, and have been inclined to apply to
the case Lyell's theory of solution by rain-water, etc., etc.

The flat summit-land is covered with a bed of stiff red clay, from a few
feet in thickness to as much, I believe, as twenty feet: this [bed],
though lying immediately on the chalk, and abounding with great,
irregularly shaped, unrolled flints, often with the colour and appearance
of huge bones, which were originally embedded in the chalk, contains not a
particle of carbonate of lime. This bed of red clay lies on a very
irregular surface, and often descends into deep round wells, the origin of
which has been explained by Lyell. In these cavities are patches of sand
like sea-sand, and like the sand which alternates with the great beds of
small pebbles derived from the wear-and-tear of chalk-flints, which form
Keston, Hayes and Addington Commons. Near Down a rounded chalk-flint is a
rarity, though some few do occur; and I have not yet seen a stone of
distant origin, which makes a difference--at least to geological eyes--in
the very aspect of the country, compared with all the northern counties.

The chalk-flints decay externally, which, according to Berzelius ("Edin.
New Phil. Journal," late number), is owing to the flints containing a small
proportion of alkali; but, besides this external decay, the whole body is
affected by exposure of a few years, so that they will not break with clean
faces for building.