RECORD: Darwin, C. R. 9.1838. St Helena model. CUL-DAR44.31. Edited by John van Wyhe (The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online, http://darwin-online.org.uk/)
REVISION HISTORY: Transcribed by John van Wyhe, corrections by Kees Rookmaaker 5.2011, recto transcribed 6.2025. RN3
NOTE: See record in the Darwin Online manuscript catalogue, enter its Identifier here. Reproduced with the permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library and William Huxley Darwin. The volume CUL-DAR44 contains maps of South America, plans, diagrams and geological sections etc. drawn by Darwin.
Chancellor 1990 noted: "The next datable manuscript dealing with the geology of St Helena is a single sheet of Eyehorn 1837-watermarked paper, bound near the back of DAR 44. The recto of this document is dated 15 September 1838, and headed 'St Helena Model'; it is written in pencil with a few ink annotations and concerns the topography of the north-west and north-east coasts of St Helena. It is written in a similar style to, and clearly overlaps in subject matter with the first fifteen pages of the St Helena Model notebook. Both documents seem to have been written during or immediately after examination of the 'gigantic model' of St Helena, which we know Darwin saw at the East India Company's Military College at Addiscombe, which is now part of Croydon in Surrey (see Darwin 1844, hereinafter referred to as VI: 75 footnote; 1846, hereinafter referred to as GSA: 25)." See also the introduction to the Despoblado notebook.
31
[hand-drawn ink elevations and descriptive captions]
(No - )
High knoll (1907) ft
Foot of high knoll or hill?? in a country
foot of high hill only roughly laid down
1600 ft at foot of High knoll one mile & few yards more from beach.
shallow w shelf of basaltic lava
Ladder hill 600 ft
170 yds almost identical cliff sea beach
1125 yds from shore Ladder hill or 955 from beach
one mile from beach (Level of sea) ? old charl
N.B the slope too steep because in volcanic isld - upper part of shore is always steeper then lower part of flancks.
Probably lime of the original porphrys of the limestones
5 or 6 fathoms
line of rocky bottom
level of sea
Stratified shore of basaltic lava x rocky bottom at this depth (30 fathoms mud) mud (The bottom is smooth & even) (100 f.) 250 f.
(study the increments (angle about 55º? of cliff) the size of angle)
(To be [illeg] done in scale of fathoms All true scale Impossible)
(p. 169 old M.S 1845)
From Captain Austens aurvey)
Study Mauritius soundings-
-Keeling
31v
September 15. 1838. — St Helena Model
High Hill rises above general range. — at the distance of one mile (a few yards more) from beach it may be safely called only 1600 ft: ladder hill being considered as 600 (ie 1000 ft alone ladder Hill). —
The cliff of Sugar loaf Ladder Hill almost perpendicular; & coast is of about same height, from West side of Banks Battery by James Town to 1/2 3/4 miles West of Long Ledge, & the upward slate about same. But near Long Ledge itself, coast rather lower. —
The slope as drawn is really too steep because the upper part is always more inclined if this kind. [sketch]
The line of cliff between Prosperous Hill & Barn is about 1300, & likewise for a space, before coming to stony dip of same altitude.
Longwood is 1762 ft & a very gradual slope from Hold fast, (which perhaps have been slightly elevated.) — about 20 two miles inland distant. —
Citation: John van Wyhe, ed. 2002-. The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online. (http://darwin-online.org.uk/)
File last updated 30 June, 2025