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Letter 1315

Darwin, C. R. to Fitch, Robert

[13? Apr 1850]

    Summary Add

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    Illustration of RF's fossil cirripede specimens by J. de C. Sowerby.

Transcription

Down Farnborough Kent

Saturday

My dear Sir

I send one line to say that I have got back some of your specimens safe & drawn, & taken all the others to Mr Sowerby.— I am ready to go to press, & therefore you may rely on it, I shall urge Mr Sowerby on in his Drawings, but he has one longish job in Hand.—

Mr Sowerby, took the liberty, of clearing, a little bit of chalk away from your best specimen, which he ought not to have done, but he has improved the specimen.— In one corner of it, he has displayed a little Terebratula or Crania, which he says is a new species to him!—

I wish with all my heart that my M.S. was printed & done with, for I have become at last tired of the fossil species.—

This obviously requires no answer.—

Yours sincerely | & | obliged | C. Darwin

    Footnotes Add

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    f1 1315.f1
    Dated by CD's reference to having visited James de Carle Sowerby (see letter to J. de C. Sowerby, [13 April 1850]).
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    f2 1315.f2
    See letter to James de Carle Sowerby, [13 April 1850].
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    f3 1315.f3
    CD experienced protracted delays with the preparation of the plates for Fossil Cirripedia and did not actually go to press with his first volume for the Palaeontographical Society until early 1851.
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    f4 1315.f4
    Possibly a reference to CD's foreign species of barnacles, which were given to James de Carle Sowerby (see letter to J. de C. Sowerby, 4 May [1850]).
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    f5 1315.f5
    CD ‘commenced systematic Sessilia’ on 28 April 1850, as recorded in his ‘Journal’ (Correspondence vol. 4, Appendix I).
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