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Darwin Correspondence Project

To Raphael Meldola   5 February 1882

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

Feb 5 1882

Dear Mr. Meldola

I have asked Mr Murray to send a copy of my worm-book to you, marked for the Club.—1

I shall be happy to propose you for the R. Soc, but I require a good deal of information. No, I believe the best plan will be to enclose a paper for you to fill up the blanks.— It is usual to give a pretty full list of all publications.2

You are probably aware that no one on the Council can sign & I know personally wonderfully few scientific men. I must therefore get you to suggest names & addresses of some chemists, physicists & naturalists (& there is no impropriety in your doing this), amounting to 6 in number of whom 3 must personally know you. I can suggest only Mr Stainton & Sir J. Lubbock; but whether they will sign I cannot say as some men are very chary of their signatures. So I had better have 6 or 7 names besides my own.—3

I suppose that you are aware that very rarely anyone is elected until the 2d or 3d year.—4

My dear Sir | In Haste | Yours sincerely | Ch. Darwin

Very many thanks for your kind note

Footnotes

See letter from Raphael Meldola, 3 February 1882 and n. 2. The copy of Earthworms was for the Epping Forest and County of Essex Naturalists’ Field Club.
See letter from Raphael Meldola, 3 February 1882 and n. 4. The ‘Certificate of a candidate for election’ had to be filled in by Meldola and signed by CD and others supporting his election to the Royal Society of London.
The signatures after Lubbock’s were added after the form was first submitted by CD (see letter to Raphael Meldola, 23 February 1882). Meldola’s application was resuspended (that is, resubmitted) four times before he was elected in 1886 (Royal Society Archives GB 117, EC/1886/10).

Bibliography

Earthworms: The formation of vegetable mould through the action of worms: with observations on their habits. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1881.

Summary

Agrees to propose RM for the Royal Society.

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 13662,” accessed on 19 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-13662.xml

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