The Omori Shell Mounds

I have received the enclosed letter from Prof. Morse, with a request that I should forward it to you.² I hope that it may be published, for the article in Nature to which it refers seemed to me to do very scant justice to Prof. Morse’s work.³ I refer more especially to the evidence adduced by him on cannibali[s]m⁴ by the ancient inhabitants of Japan—on their platycnemic tibiæ—on their degree of skill in ceramic art—and beyond all other points, on the changes in the molluscan fauna of the islands since the period in question.⁵

It is a remarkable fact, which incidentally appears in Prof. Morse’s memoir, that several Japanese gentlemen have already formed large collections of the shells of the Archipelago, and have zealously aided him in the investigation of the prehistoric mounds.⁶ This is a most encouraging omen of the future progress of science in Japan.

Charles Darwin

Down, Beckenham, Kent, April 9