From Eduard von Eichwald 10 January 1872
Sir,
I have the honour to send you a paper on the coasts of Manghischlak and Alaska and beg you inform me, whether Mrs. Gibb and Meek have not published something like it on the same object.1 I have read in the newspapers that the Americans send a Commission with a young geologue Mr. Dall in order to measure the coasts of Alaska and the aleutic islands2 Has this young man published anything on this object? I should like to send him also a copy of my paper, if I only could be informed, where he is to be found.
Allow me, dear Sir, to ask you to help me on one occasion. I shoud wish to sell my palaeontogical museum, consisting of about 35000 specimens, of all the formations of Russia on Europe and Asia, fossils plants and animals, among which are those coming from Manghischlak and Alaska and described by me in the present paper. The prize for all the collection is mille p. st.3
The most interesting are the brachiopoda coming from the vicinity of Petersbourg, from the silurian rocks, especially the Orthis, Orthisina, Spirifer, Terebra tube and others genres,4 forming only varieties and not real species or genres, as there are not to be found among them two individuals one like the other. This is the reason why I formerly thought that there were no species, but only varieties in the oldest primary neptunian rocks.5
I am with much respect | yours truly admirer Dr. d’Eichwald
Petersbourg January 10 1872
Gagarin-street 12.
Footnotes
Bibliography
ANB: American national biography. Edited by John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes. 24 vols. and supplement. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1999–2002.
Challinor, John. 1978. A dictionary of geology. 5th edition. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.
Eichwald, Eduard von. 1871. Geognostisch-paleontologische Bermerkungen über die Halbinsel Mangischlak und die Aleutischen Inseln. St Petersburg: Buchdruckerei der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Summary
Sends paper on the coasts of Alaska.
Wishes to sell his large Russian palaeontological collection.
Wants to get in touch with American (Mr Dall), who is going to study geology of Alaskan and Aleutian coast.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-8155
- From
- Karl Eduard (Eduard) von Eichwald
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- St Petersburg
- Source of text
- DAR 163: 13
- Physical description
- ALS 2pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 8155,” accessed on 24 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-8155.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 20