To W. E. Darwin [19 July 1880]

My dear old W.—

As you helped me at Southampton about the gravel, I have thought that you w^d. like to see the enclosed, which has pleased me.¹ I have told G. about the celts at Southampton, & about the musk ox & woolly elephant remains in angular gravel at Greenstreet Green, which must have been deposited during an almost arctic climate & which I do not doubt was washed down from about Knockholt Beeches over frozen snow, accumulated in the large valleys.—² We are very quiet here, & I hope it is not very dull for your mother. But I am tired with long letter to Geikie & another difficult one about a prize-medal bearing my name & face, which has been founded at Birmingham.—³ Please return Geikie’s letter—

My best of loves to my dear “dutiful & affectionate daughter”, whom I do hope Buxton may do good to.—⁴ Love to Bessy & to Miss Ashburner, if I may presume so far⁵ | Your affectionate Father | C. Darwin

Footnotes

1

CD enclosed the letter from James Geikie, 15 July 1880. CD and William had discussed CD’s ideas about upright pebbles and interstratified gravel at Southampton in 1876 (see Correspondence vol. 24, letter to W. E. Darwin, [after 20 November 1876], and Correspondence vol. 30, Supplement, letter from W. E. Darwin, 30 November [1876].

2

See letter to James Geikie, 19 July 1880 and n. 4. Knockholt Beeches was a woodland near Sevenoaks, Kent; Greenstreet Green was about six miles to the north, and about three miles north-east of Down.

3

See letter from E. W. Badger, 17 July 1880, and letter to E. W. Badger, [19 July 1880].

4

Sara Darwin was consulting a physician and taking the waters at Buxton (see letter from W. E. Darwin to Charles and Emma Darwin, 22 July 1880).

5

Elizabeth Darwin and Anne Ashburner.