Dear Sir

I shall be ready in a week’s time to send the M.S. of my Geolog. Obser. on S. America to press,² & therefore wish you to be so good as to draw up an agreement & make arrangements. The volume on the type hitherto used, would take up as I roughly calculate, 350 or 360 pages: there are 21 woodcuts—4 large copper-plates of engraved shells & one very large coloured section & a map.³ Hence the expence will be considerable & I must use every possible economy.⁴ I have already contracted through the Vice-Sec. of Geolog. Soc for all the engraving, printing off & paper for Plates, & cutting of wood-blocks, & these I will pay at once myself, so shall not draw on your funds for this expence.⁵ You are aware, that I shall give you no trouble going through the press, & that all you will have to do is to superintend sales &c & advance for printing, Paper, & Binding & advertisements.— Under these circumstances, I trust to your liberal kindness (which I have always experienced) to draw up as easy an agreement for me as you can fairly do towards yourselves; if it would make any considerable reduction in the per-centage commission charges &c I would undertake to pay the whole expence on the day of Publication; if not, I presume, at the balance at the end of the year.—⁶ Please turn this in your mind & let me hear soon: you had better perhaps, at once, send me a single copy of an Agreement for my Approval.

I sh^d like the paper to be of same price as before (has not the quality improved of late for same price?) namely 16s. 6d per ream.— With respect to type I find that a page of the Geological Journal (of which I send specimen, & please return it sometime) contains on an average 566 words, whereas my Coral & Volcanic vol’s contain only 381 words.; so that by using this type there would be a very great reduction in paper, printing off & cold pressing.⁷ Therefore with reluctance, I have resolved to sacrifice uniformity, keeping the outsides uniform, & use the type of the Geolog. Journal for text & notes.—

Being on the Council,⁸ I find M^r. Taylor’s⁹ charge for 750 copies, per sheet is £3〃8s〃0d, but this includes small type & woodcuts; which are very numerous in the Journal.— M^essrs Stewart & Murray¹⁰ for my works charges for 500 copies not including small type & woodcuts £2.9s. so that there will be a great saving in using the smaller type in setting up.—

I have asked the Vice-Secretary to make some more exact enquiries what M^r Taylor’s charges are, for 500 copies, & not including small type & woodcuts. I sh^d. be sorry not to print with M^essrs Stewart & Murray, to whose attention & kindness, I am indebted, but I have no choice, & am compelled to be rigidly economical. If they think it worth while to send me in an estimate of their charge for sheet of exactly same size, if the estimate be nearly the same, with M^r Taylor, I will certainly send my M. S. to them & shall much prefer doing so.:— I sh^d. be glad of an answer soon. —

With respect to the number of copies to be struck off, though I know, if more than 250, I must pay for 500, yet seeing that hitherto, only 216 copies of Coral Reef & 143 of Volcanic isl^d have been sold, I really doubt whether it be worth printing off more than 350 copies,— I sh^d. like to hear your opinion on this.— I suspect it would answer for you, (as well as me) if you could offer all three Geological Parts bound together at a much reduced price: I am determined to try this Part much cheaper than the others.—¹¹

I am sorry to have troubled you with so long a letter.

Dear Sir | Your’s very faithfully | C. Darwin