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ALS signed “C. Darwin,” four pages on two adjoining sheets, 4.5 x 7.25, "Thursday 8th" [August 8, 1850]. Handwritten letter to Nathaniel Thomas Wetherell, underscoring Darwin's belief in the scientific significance of the study of Cirripedia (barnacles). In full: "I fear that you will think me a sad trespasser on your kindness & forbearance, when I tell you that I have not actually completed my description of Loricula; but I shall do it directly & write now to obtain your permission to take (myself) your specimen to Mr. James De C. Sowerby to [be] drawn for publication by the Palæontographical Society.—I have received Mr. [John Wickham] Flower’s specimens, & some from Denmark but none are related to the Loricula, which is as perplexing as ever to me.—Immediately that Mr. Sowerby has with your permission figured the Loricula (& I shall take it up in a fortnight) it shall be returned to you.—Is there any safe place where I could leave it in London for you, or shall I return it by a messenger?—I believe I did once before ask you, whether you have any other fossil Cirripedia.—To save you the trouble of answering, I will assume, without I hear to the contrary that Mr. Sowerby may figure it.” He adds a postscript: “I assure you that it has not been idleness which has delayed me, but numbers of specimens of other fossil Cirri[pe]des.” In very good to fine condition, with creasing, soiling, and professional repairs to small areas of paper loss.
During the period of 1846 to 1854 Darwin spent time studying barnacles (Cirripedia), publishing a monograph entitled Living Cirripedia in 1851. We are able to date this letter precisely because August 1850 was the only month with a "Thursday 8th" in the period between the Palaeontographical Society’s decision to publish Fossil Cirripedia and the publication of the first volume of this work in 1851, in which Loricula pulchella is described (Fossil Cirripedia (1851): 81-6).
James de Carle Sowerby drew all the figures of the specimens in the first volume of Fossil Cirripedia. At the time of writing, Darwin does not seem to have known that George Brettingham Sowerby, Jr., had described and figured this particular specimen in 1843. However, since that time Wetherell had cleared away more material from the specimen, revealing features not seen by G. B. Sowerby, Jr., and a new drawing was made for Darwin’s description (Fossil Cirripedia (1851): 81).
Published by the Darwin Correspondence Project, University of Cambridge, as letter no. DCP-LETT-1267.
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