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Summary
Thanks for information about variability in shells.
Comments on Harvey’s Seaside book [1849].
“I am growing as bad as the worst about species and hardly have a vestige of belief in the permanence of species left in me”.
Transcription
Down. | Farnborough Kent.f1
July 18th (1856.)
My dear Sir
Very many thanks for your kindness in writing to me at such length,f2 and I am glad to say for your sake that I do not see that I shall have to beg any further favours.
What a range & what a variability in the Cyrena! Your list of the ranges of the Land & F. W. Shells, certainly is most striking & curious; & especially as the Antiquity of four of them is so clearly shewn.f3
I have got Harveys sea-side book, & liked it; but I was not particularly struck with it but I will reread the 1st. & last chapter.
I am growing as bad as the worstf4 about species & hardly have a vestige of belief in the permanence of species left in me, & thisf5 confession will make you think very lightly of me; but I cannot help it, such has become my honest conviction though the difficulties & arguments against such heresy are certainly most weighty.
Yours very sincerely | Ch Darwin.
Footnotes
- f1
- After October 1855, CD’s postal address was usually given as Bromley, but Farnborough was occasionally used.
- f2
- Letters from S. P. Woodward, 15 July 1856 and [15 July 1856].
- f3
- See letter from S. P. Woodward, [15 July 1856].
- f4
- In the copy of this letter, Francis Darwin substituted ‘worst’ for the copyist’s ‘rest’.
- f5
- Francis Darwin here substituted ‘this’ for the copyist’s ‘the’.