CORRESPONDENCE WITH CHARLES DARWIN 



been most deeply interested by it. Your observations 

 on the Sandwich craters strike me as the most important 

 and original of any that I have read for a long time. 

 Now that I have read yours, I believe I saw at the Gala- 

 pagos, at a distance, instances of those most curious 

 fissures of eruption. There are many points of resem- 

 blance between the Galapagos and Sandwich Islands 

 (even to the shape of the mound-like hills), viz. : in the 

 liquidity of the lavas, absence of scoriae, and tuff-craters. 

 Many of your scattered remarks on denudation have 

 particularly interested me ; but I see that you attribute 

 less to sea and more to running water than I have been 

 accustomed to do. After your remarks in your last kind 

 letter, I could not help skipping on to the Australian 

 valleys, on which your remarks strike me as exceedingly 

 ingenious and novel, but they have not converted me. I 

 cannot conceive how the great lateral bays could have 

 been scooped out and their sides rendered precipitous by 

 running water. I shall go on and read every word of 

 your excellent volume. 



11 What an unfortunately short time you were permitted 

 to stay in many places, yet how much you managed to 

 see!" 



DARWIN TO DANA 



The Cirripedia Again : Blind Fauna of the Kentucky 

 Caves 



" DOWN, FARNBOROUGH, KENT, May 8, 1852. 



' Your letter has given me much pleasure, more than 

 you would anticipate, and more, perhaps, than it ought to 

 do, though I put down part of what you say to the kind- 

 ness of disposition which I have observed in your 

 memoirs and in your letters to me. I have had a short 

 letter from Muller of Berlin, expressing interest in my 

 book, and now, with what you have said, I feel highly 

 satisfied, and can go on with my work with a good heart. 

 Vou will perhaps be surprised at all this, but I think 

 every one wants sympathy in their pursuits, and I live a 

 very retired life in the country, and for months together 

 see no one out of my own large family. With respect to 



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