[page] 444

While he was at Copenhagen in August 1837 thus pondering the range of species of shells in space and time, Lyell received a letter from Charles Darwin written from 36 Great Marlborough St., London, and dated 30 July 1837. Darwin was at this time still writing his Journal of Researches. He seems to have been working on the chapter on the Galapagos Islands and he had also recently begun his first notebook on the transmutation of species.

He wrote:

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[page] 445

I believe there are 27 land birds from the Galapagos, all new except one, (a species of very wide range) yet all of an American form, some north, some south. Now as the Galapagos is on the Equator is not this curious? Reptiles the same.

Has your late work at shells startled you about the existence of species? I have been attending a very little to species of birds, & the passages of forms, do appear frightful—everything is arbitrary; no two naturalists agree on any fundamental idea that I can see. I had a most interesting morning with Owen (who is gone to rest for a month in the N. of England) at the Coll. of Surgeons. We made out the rems. of 11 or 12 great animals, besides these some rodents, one of wh. is a distinct species, but most strictly S. American genus. At Bahia Blanca there were no less than five great Edentata! What could these monsters have fed upon. I am well convinced like the present Armadillos they lived on land nearly desert. I have worked out the non-relation of bulk of animals & luxuriance of vegetation, & I have been perfectly astonished at some of the facts given me by Dr. Smith.27 If it would be any satisfaction to you I think it could be proved rhinoceroses live upon air, certain it is they must be light feeders. What will you say to the tusk of a boar like the African species being imbedded with the Edentata. Lastly I am sure when you read my evidence (& see the tooth) you will be as much convinced as I am that a horse was formerly common on the Pampas as at the present day. What an extraordinary mystery it is, the cause of the death of these numerous animals, so recently, & with so little physical change.28

Lyell's reply to this letter has been lost. He thought the passage sufficiently interesting to transcribe into his notebook. It would have been unlike him not to answer and in his answer to discuss Darwin's questions fully. Darwin seems to have told Lyell that he had begun to collect facts which might bear on the question of the possible transmutation of species, and they possibly discussed the species question occasionally during the winter of 1837-38. On 13 September 1838 he wrote to Lyell, who was then at Kinnordy:

 

27. Sir Andrew Smith (1797-1872), ornithologist and African traveler, was a friend of Darwin whom he had met at Cape Town during the voyage of the Beagle.

28. Ms. Notebook 69, pp. 140-42. Kinnordy mss.

[page] 452

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Darwin outlined these general conclusions concerning the subsidence and re-elevation of South America in his Journal of Researches. He began to send it to press in August 1837 and it was printed between August and November of 1837, but publication was delayed until Captain Fitzroy completed his account of the voyage.

However, Darwin gave a copy in printed sheets to Lyell, and Lyell had begun to read it in October. Mary seems to have read it to him in installments in the evenings during the winter of 1837-38. On 10 March 1838 she wrote to her father, "We have

[page] 453

not been reading anything very particular lately since we finished Mr. Darwin's journal which is most interesting to the last.''42

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42, M. E. L. to her father. 10 March 1838. Kinnordy mss.

[page] 480

There could be no further argument and after his return to London the following week Lyell revised his discussion of the crag in the Elements.44 Perhaps Darwin was hinting that Lyell

might have said a little more when he wrote the following September, with reference to the Elements:

 

44. Elements, pp. 300-02.

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Charlesworth, I think, is annoyed that you have not quoted him more about the embedding of the older shells in the newer beds. But poor Charlesworth is of an unhappy discontented disposition. He is, moreover, very much to be pitied. The Zoological Soc. are going to give up the Ass't Secretary's place & it is feared that he has a disease of the heart, so that altogether he is greatly to be pitied.45

[…]

45. C. Darwin to C. L., J r. 13 Sept. 1838. APS mss.