From H. N. Moseley 9 October 1881
University of London, | Burlington Gardens. W.
Sunday. Oct 9. 81
Dear Mr Darwin
I hope you will excuse my troubling you with another letter especially as I fear the last I wrote which was very hurried was scarcely presentable.1
On p 238 of your book which I have just read through with the greatest delight, you refer casually to “Meteoric Dust”.2 You may perhaps care to glance over the first article in the enclosed “Naturforscher” on this subject which is written to prove that the dust in question need not be of meteoric origin at all but on the other hand is as far as can yet be made out always nearly related in its mineral consituents to the rocks of the district where it occurs.3
I have never believed in the cosmic dust which Murray of the Challenger believes he has found in deep sea mud.4 The matter is one of so great interest that I thought you might like to read what von Lasaulx has to say about it.
Will you kindly send me back leaflet as I bind the Naturforscher.
Yours truly | H. N. Moseley.
There is a misprint on p. 134 at bottom 1.9 of an inch for .195
Footnotes
Bibliography
Earthworms: The formation of vegetable mould through the action of worms: with observations on their habits. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1881.
Freeman, Richard Broke. 1977. The works of Charles Darwin: an annotated bibliographical handlist. 2d edition. Folkestone, Kent: William Dawson & Sons. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, Shoe String Press.
Lasaulx, Arnold von. 1880. Ueber sogenannten kosmischen Staub. Mineralogische und petrographische Mitteilungen 3 (1880–1): 517–32.
Murray, John. 1878. On the distribution of volcanic debris over the floor of the ocean,—its character, source, and some of the products of its disintegration and decomposition. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 9: 247–61.
ODNB: Oxford dictionary of national biography: from the earliest times to the year 2000. (Revised edition.) Edited by H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. 60 vols. and index. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2004.
Summary
Sends a paper by Arnold von Lasaulx ["Ueber sogenannten kosmischen Staub", Mineralogische und petrographische Mitteilungen 3 (1880–1): 517–32. HNM does not believe in meteoric dust, which CD takes for granted in Earthworms.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-13384
- From
- Henry Nottidge Moseley
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- University of London, Burlington Gardens
- Source of text
- DAR 171: 261
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 13384,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-13384.xml