3o6 LIFE AT DOWN. ^TAT. 33-45. [1845. 



C. Darwin to C. LyelL 



Down [July, 1845]. 



My DEAR Lyell, — I send you the first part * of the new- 

 edition [of the ' Journal of Researches '], which I so entirely 

 owe to you. You will see that I have ventured to dedicate it 

 to yoUjf 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 acknowledge more plainly than by mere refer- 

 ence, how much I geologically owe you. Those authors, how- 

 ever, who like you, educate people'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 upw^ard 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 powder I had owned, though imperfectly, my debt. 

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

 dedication 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, espe- 

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

 added a good deal about the Fuegians, and cut dowm 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 



* No doubt proof-sheets. 



\ The dedication of the second edition of the 'Journal of Researches,' 

 is as follows : — " To Charles Lyell, Esq., F. R. S., this second edition is 

 dedicated with grateful pleasure — as an acknowledgment that the chief 

 part of whatever scientific merit this Journal and the other works of the 

 Author may possess, has been derived from studying the well-known and 

 admirable ' Principles of Geology.' " 



