LIFE OF JAMES DWIGHT DANA 



" I shall take great pleasure in hearing from you, and 

 if a photograph of yourself could be added to your letter 

 it would enhance greatly the pleasure. Although so long 

 silent, there is no failing of esteem and admiration on the 

 part of your friend." 



DARWIN TO DANA 



" DOWN, BROMLEY, KENT, Jan. 7, 1863. 



" I was most truly rejoiced to hear by your letter of 

 December 4th that your health is considerably re-estab- 

 lished and that you are at work on Science again. From 

 one to three hours a day must be a great change to you ; 

 but for me during many years three hours has been a 

 most unusually hard day's work. I hope to God that 

 your health will steadily, though slowly must be ex- 

 pected, improve. I have received the printed Corrigenda, 

 but am sorry to say that your Manual has not arrived. 

 I wrote to the Geological Society, and it has not there 

 arrived for the Society, as I heard this morning. I en- 

 close a photograph as you request. It was made by my 

 eldest son, and is the only one which I have. One, 

 almost too large for post, has been made in London. 



My health of late has been very indifferent, and I 

 have not seen one man of science for months ; so I really 

 have no news. Man is our great subject at present, and 

 Lyell has been working very hard, and I cannot conceive 

 why his book has not appeared. Murray on day of sale 

 disposed of four thousand copies! The fossil bird with 

 the long tail and fingers to its wings (I hear from Falconer 

 that Owen has not done the work well) is by far the 

 greatest prodigy of recent times. This is a great case for 

 me, as no group was so isolated as birds ; and it shows 

 how little we knew what lived during former times. 



" Oh, how I wish a skeleton could be found in your so- 

 called red sandstone footstep beds! I am not at all 

 surprised that you had not read the Origin. All my 

 friends say it takes much thought (which really surprises 

 me), and most have had to read it two or three times. I 

 am at present at work on dry parts and dry bones, prepar- 

 ing a work to be entitled Variation under Domestication" 



312 



