Darwin Correspondence Project

16 Hart Street, London

Feb. 13. 1837

Dear Darwin

As I am just revising what I have said in my Anniversary Address, of you & your new Llama, Armadillos, gigantic rodents, & other glorious additions to the Menagerie of that new continent, which was heaved up,à un seul jet, Anno mundi 1656; it strikes me as right to tell you, to come up by all means on the 17th instt & be at the G. S. Somerset House, at 1 ock to ballot & hear my speech, & see the learned. I could think of nothing for days after your lesson on coral reefs, but of the tops of submerged continents.

It is all true, but do not flatter yourself that you will be believed, till you are growing bald, like me with hard work, & vexation at the incredulity of the world. The Anniversary dinner at which you must come & support Whewell, will be at 6 ok I presume that you have not had leisure like a certain Prebend at Norwich, to have what he terms “that beastly-swinish disease” the influenza.

Your lines of Elevation & subsidence will deservedly get you as great a name as De Beaumont's parallel Elevations, & yours are true, which is more than can be said of his.

Yours most faithfully | Chas Lyell