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From H. N. Moseley   27 November 1881

University of London. W

Nov 27. 81.

Dear Mr Darwin

You will no doubt have heard that I have been elected to the Linacre professorship at Oxford. I write to thank you sincerely for the powerful support which you gave me in my candidature.1 You have always helped me most kindly and I am very deeply indebted to you for this as for so many sources of daily enjoyment.

Buchanan of the Challenger tells me as a secret which I have not communicated to any one else that he is about to put forward the theory that all the deep sea red mud &c is so finely comminuted because it like your vegetable mould has been worked through worm and echinoderm intestines.2 This seems to me very good. I had dining with me a few nights ago a Mr Price Surveyor General of Hong-Kong who tells me you knew his father in Chili in old times during the Beagle Voyage.3

Believe me with very kind regards | yours truly | H. N. Moseley.

Footnotes

1
CD had written a testimonial in support of Moseley’s candidacy for the position of Linacre Professor of anatomy and physiology at Oxford University (see letter to H. N. Moseley, 25 September 1881).
2
John Young Buchanan published a report on manganese deposits found on the sea bed during the Challenger expedition and other dredging operations (see Buchanan 1881). CD discussed the digestive powers of worms extensively in Earthworms.
3
John MacNeile Price; his father, Richard Evan Price, had been a merchant in Valparaiso, Chile (see ‘Beagle’ diary, pp. 75, 79).

Bibliography

‘Beagle’ diary: Charles Darwin’s Beagle diary. Edited by Richard Darwin Keynes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1988.

Buchanan, John Young. 1881. On manganese nodules, and their occurrence on the sea-bottom. [Read 2 September 1881.] Report of the 51st Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, held at York (1881): 583–4.

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

Summary

Thanks CD for support in his election as Linacre Professor at Oxford.

J. Y. Buchanan, of the Challenger, says deep-sea red mud is fine because, like CD’s vegetable mould, it has been digested by worms and echinoderms.

Visited by John MacNeile Price, the son of CD’s friend from Chile, Mr Price; the son is now Surveyor General of Hong Kong.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-13516
From
Henry Nottidge Moseley
To
Charles Robert Darwin
Sent from
University of London
Source of text
DAR 171: 262
Physical description
ALS 4pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 13516,” accessed on 16 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-13516.xml

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