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Darwin Correspondence Project

To H. N. Moseley   5 November 18761

Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.

Nov. 5 1876

My dear Sir,

I am very much obliged to you for your kind present of the Japanese book, with its curious & amusing drawings.2 As I am no believer in Physiognomy I will not trouble you to lend me the other books. Many thanks also for the photograph (which however is not very clear) & for several of your papers on observations made during the voyage of the Challenger.3 It has been a grand thing for you to have taken part & done such capital work in the most memorable Scientific expedition which ever left England.

I have heard this morning from Ray Lankester, who tells me that you would like to pay me a visit.4 I can assure you that it will give me very great pleasure to make your acquaintance & to hear somewhat of what you have seen & done. But I must forewarn you that I am incapable of talking long with anyone, as my head suffers afterwards. If when you are next in London & can send me a line I shall be most happy if you will dine & sleep here. I can tell you the best route & time for this place when I hear from you

My dear Sir | Yours sincerely | Charles Darwin

Footnotes

This letter was first published in Correspondence vol. 24 from a copy; this version is from an image of the original.
See letter from H. N. Moseley, 3 November 1876. The book has not been found in the Darwin Libraries at CUL or Down.
Moseley was naturalist on the 1872–6 HMS Challenger expedition. There are no papers published by him before 1877 in the Darwin Archive–CUL; there is an extract of his paper on Peripatus capensis (now Peripatopsis capensis, a velvet worm; Moseley 1874) in the Darwin Library–Down.
Edwin Ray Lankester’s letter has not been found; he was a close friend of Moseley’s (ODNB).

Bibliography

Moseley, Henry Nottidge. 1874. On the structure and development of Peripatus capensis. [Read 21 May 1874.] Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 164: 757–82.

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.

Summary

Thanks for Japanese book and for HNM’s papers on observations made during Challenger voyage.

Would be pleased if HNM visited him.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-10663
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
Henry Nottidge Moseley
Sent from
Down
Source of text
Christie’s, London (dealers) (online 31 October – 8 November 2018, lot 7)
Physical description
LS 2pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 10663,” accessed on 19 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-10663.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 24

letter