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To M. C. Lloyd   4 August [1869]1

Down. | Beckenham | Kent. S.E.

Aug. 4th

My dear Miss Lloyd

I have thought that you wd. like to see the enclosed letter from Mr B. Dawkins, who has evidently been much pleased by his visit, though in some geological respects not so interesting as he expected.2 There is something wonderfully curious in coming across remains of an old savage progenitor, with their ground-down teeth.—3

Pray believe me | yours truly obliged | Ch. Darwin

Footnotes

1
The year is established by reference to William Boyd Dawkins’s visit to north Wales; see n.2, below.
2
Dawkins visited Lloyd’s family home at Rhagatt near Corwen in north Wales from 29 to 30 July 1869. He was investigating the site where a group of prehistoric bones, sent on to him by CD, had been discovered. (Dawkins 1870, Lucas 2007, p. 326; see also letter to W. B. Dawkins, 19 July [1869], and letter to M. C. Lloyd, [24 July 1869] and n. 2.) Dawkins’s letter to CD has not been found, but presumably reported the initial results of his investigation; see n. 3, below.
3
Dawkins commented in his later published account of the excavations that all the adult human teeth discovered at Rhagatt were ground perfectly flat (Dawkins 1870, p. 444).

Bibliography

Lucas, Peter. 2007. Charles Darwin, ‘little Dawkins’ and the platycnemic Yale men: introducing a bioarchaeological tale of the descent of man. Archives of Natural History 34: 318–45.

Summary

Encloses letter from W. B. Dawkins concerning "our old savage progenitors with their ground-down teeth".

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-6852
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
Mary Charlotte Lloyd
Sent from
Down
Source of text
American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.373)
Physical description
ALS 1p

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 6852,” accessed on 18 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-6852.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 17

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