164 DOWN. [ch. viii. 



completed in 1845. It was published by Mr. Murray in the 

 Colonial and Home Library, and in this more accessible 

 form soon had a large sale. 



C. D. to Lijell Down [July, 1845]. 



My dear Lyell I send you the first part * of the new 

 edition, which I so entirely owe to you. You will see that 

 I have ventured to dedicate it to you, and I trust that this 

 cannot be disagreeable. I have long wished, not so much 

 for your sake, as for my own feelings of honesty, to acknowl- 

 edge more plainly than by mere reference, how much I 

 geologically owe you. Those authors, however, who, like 

 you, educate j)eople's minds as well as teach them special 

 facts, can never, I should think, have full justice done them 

 except by posterity, for the mind thus insensibly improved 

 can hardly perceive its own upward ascent. I had intended 

 putting in the present acknowledgment in the third part of 

 my Geology, but its sale is so exceedingly small that I should 

 not have had the satisfaction of thinking that as far as lay 

 in my power I had owned, though imperfectly, my debt. Pray 

 do not think that I am so silly, as to suppose that my dedi- 

 cation can any ways gratify you, except so far as I trust you 

 will receive it, as a most sincere mark of my gratitude and 

 friendship. I think I have improved this edition, especially 

 the second part, which I have just finished. I have added 

 a good deal about the Fuegians, and cut down into half the 

 mercilessly long discussion on climate and glaciers, &c. I 

 do not recollect anything added to the first part, long 

 enough to call your attention to ; there is a page of descrip- 

 tion of a very curious breed of oxen in Banda Oriental. I 

 should like you to read the few last pages ; there is a little 

 discussion on extinction, which will not perhaps strike you 

 as new, though it has so struck me, and has placed in my 

 mind all the difficulties with respect to the causes of extinc- 

 tion, in the same class with other difficulties which are gen- 

 erally quite overlooked and undervalued by naturalists ; I 

 ought, however, to have made my discussion longer and 

 shown by facts, as I easily could, how steadily every species 

 must be checked in its numbers. 



A pleasant notice of the Journal occurs in a letter from 

 Humboldt to Mrs. Austin, dated June 7, 1844 f : 



* No doubt proof-sheets. 



+ Three Generations of Englishwomen, by Janet Ross (1888), vol. i. p. 195. 



