To Michael Foster 26 June [1871]
6. Queen Anne St. W.
June 26
My dear Sir
I shall have real pleasure in seeing you whenever you are inclined to walk over.1 We lunch at 1 on week days, & at 1 on Sundays— There is Coffee & Tea at 4 every day; so you will know when you can get some refreshment after your long walk—
If our Horses have not been out, I can send you part of the way back—
We return home on Friday or Saturday & shall be at Down I hope for a fortnight, possibly longer, & then I am going away for a month’s rest.—2
Can you tell me where I could buy a few grains of Curare poison or Ourari?3 I want some extremely for some experiments on plants, i.e. if, as I suppose, it is soluble in water or vegetable acids.—
Can you tell me anything about strength, i.e. relatively to acetate of strychnine: I mean if I find 1 gr of acetate of strychnine to 1. oz of water strong enough for my purpose, wd. 1 gr. of curare probably be strong enough.—4 I ask to save waste. Could I buy it in Paris, if I cannot in London.— Huxley5 could not aid me & suggested that you could.—
Forgive me thus troubling you. | Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Insectivorous plants. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1875.
Summary
Invites MF to visit.
Asks where he can obtain curare for plant experiment.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-7832
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Michael Foster
- Sent from
- London, Queen Anne St, 6
- Postmark
- JU 26 71
- Source of text
- American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.400)
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 7832,” accessed on 13 December 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-7832.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 19