More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume I [11]
how soon I should eat their fruit.
August 15th. In a few days the box will go by the "Emulous" packet (Capt. Cooke) to Falmouth and will be forwarded to you. This letter goes the same way, so that if in course of due time you do not receive the box, will you be kind enough to write to Falmouth? We have been here (Monte Video) for some time; but owing to bad weather and continual fighting on shore, we have scarcely ever been able to walk in the country. I have collected during the last month nothing, but to-day I have been out and returned like Noah's Ark with animals of all sorts. I have to-day to my astonishment found two Planariae living under dry stones: ask L. Jenyns if he has ever heard of this fact. I also found a most curious snail, and spiders, beetles, snakes, scorpions ad libitum, and to conclude shot a Cavia weighing a cwt.--On Friday we sail for the Rio Negro, and then will commence our real wild work. I look forward with dread to the wet stormy regions of the south, but after so much pleasure I must put up with some sea-sickness and misery.
LETTER 4. TO J.S. HENSLOW. Monte Video, 24th November 1832.
We arrived here on the 24th of October, after our first cruise on the coast of Patagonia. North of the Rio Negro we fell in with some little schooners employed in sealing: to save the loss of time in surveying the intricate mass of banks, Capt. Fitz-Roy has hired two of them and has put officers on them. It took us nearly a month fitting them out; as soon as this was finished we came back here, and are now preparing for a long cruise to the south. I expect to find the wild mountainous country of Terra del Fuego very interesting, and after the coast of Patagonia I shall thoroughly enjoy it.--I had hoped for the credit of Dame Nature, no such country as this last existed; in sad reality we coasted along 240 miles of sand hillocks; I never knew before, what a horrid ugly object a sand hillock is. The famed country of the Rio Plata in my opinion is not much better: an enormous brackish river, bounded by an interminable green plain is enough to make any naturalist groan. So Hurrah for Cape Horn and the Land of Storms. Now that I have had my growl out, which is a privilege sailors take on all occasions, I will turn the tables and give an account of my doing in Nat. History. I must have one more growl: by ill luck the French Government has sent one of its collectors to the Rio Negro, where he has been working for the last six months, and is now gone round the Horn. So that I am very selfishly afraid he will get the cream of all the good things before me. As I have nobody to talk to about my luck and ill luck in collecting, I am determined to vent it all upon you. I have been very lucky with fossil bones; I have fragments of at least 6 distinct animals: as many of them are teeth, I trust, shattered and rolled as they have been, they will be recognised. I have paid all the attention I am capable of to their geological site; but of course it is too long a story for here. 1st, I have the tarsi and metatarsi very perfect of a Cavia; 2nd, the upper jaw and head of some very large animal with four square hollow molars and the head greatly protruded in front. I at first thought it belonged either to the Megalonyx or Megatherium (4/1. The animal may probably have been Grypotherium Darwini, Ow. The osseous plates mentioned below must have belonged to one of the Glyptodontidae, and not to Megatherium. We are indebted to Mr. Kerr for calling our attention to a passage in Buckland's "Bridgewater Treatise" (Volume II., page 20, note), where bony armour is ascribed to Megatherium.); in confirmation of this in the same formation I found a large surface of the osseous polygonal plates, which "late observations" (what are they?) show belong to the Megatherium. Immediately I saw this I thought they must belong to an enormous armadillo, living species of which genus are so abundant here. 3rd, The lower jaw of some large animal which, from the molar teeth, I should think belonged to the Edentata; 4th,
August 15th. In a few days the box will go by the "Emulous" packet (Capt. Cooke) to Falmouth and will be forwarded to you. This letter goes the same way, so that if in course of due time you do not receive the box, will you be kind enough to write to Falmouth? We have been here (Monte Video) for some time; but owing to bad weather and continual fighting on shore, we have scarcely ever been able to walk in the country. I have collected during the last month nothing, but to-day I have been out and returned like Noah's Ark with animals of all sorts. I have to-day to my astonishment found two Planariae living under dry stones: ask L. Jenyns if he has ever heard of this fact. I also found a most curious snail, and spiders, beetles, snakes, scorpions ad libitum, and to conclude shot a Cavia weighing a cwt.--On Friday we sail for the Rio Negro, and then will commence our real wild work. I look forward with dread to the wet stormy regions of the south, but after so much pleasure I must put up with some sea-sickness and misery.
LETTER 4. TO J.S. HENSLOW. Monte Video, 24th November 1832.
We arrived here on the 24th of October, after our first cruise on the coast of Patagonia. North of the Rio Negro we fell in with some little schooners employed in sealing: to save the loss of time in surveying the intricate mass of banks, Capt. Fitz-Roy has hired two of them and has put officers on them. It took us nearly a month fitting them out; as soon as this was finished we came back here, and are now preparing for a long cruise to the south. I expect to find the wild mountainous country of Terra del Fuego very interesting, and after the coast of Patagonia I shall thoroughly enjoy it.--I had hoped for the credit of Dame Nature, no such country as this last existed; in sad reality we coasted along 240 miles of sand hillocks; I never knew before, what a horrid ugly object a sand hillock is. The famed country of the Rio Plata in my opinion is not much better: an enormous brackish river, bounded by an interminable green plain is enough to make any naturalist groan. So Hurrah for Cape Horn and the Land of Storms. Now that I have had my growl out, which is a privilege sailors take on all occasions, I will turn the tables and give an account of my doing in Nat. History. I must have one more growl: by ill luck the French Government has sent one of its collectors to the Rio Negro, where he has been working for the last six months, and is now gone round the Horn. So that I am very selfishly afraid he will get the cream of all the good things before me. As I have nobody to talk to about my luck and ill luck in collecting, I am determined to vent it all upon you. I have been very lucky with fossil bones; I have fragments of at least 6 distinct animals: as many of them are teeth, I trust, shattered and rolled as they have been, they will be recognised. I have paid all the attention I am capable of to their geological site; but of course it is too long a story for here. 1st, I have the tarsi and metatarsi very perfect of a Cavia; 2nd, the upper jaw and head of some very large animal with four square hollow molars and the head greatly protruded in front. I at first thought it belonged either to the Megalonyx or Megatherium (4/1. The animal may probably have been Grypotherium Darwini, Ow. The osseous plates mentioned below must have belonged to one of the Glyptodontidae, and not to Megatherium. We are indebted to Mr. Kerr for calling our attention to a passage in Buckland's "Bridgewater Treatise" (Volume II., page 20, note), where bony armour is ascribed to Megatherium.); in confirmation of this in the same formation I found a large surface of the osseous polygonal plates, which "late observations" (what are they?) show belong to the Megatherium. Immediately I saw this I thought they must belong to an enormous armadillo, living species of which genus are so abundant here. 3rd, The lower jaw of some large animal which, from the molar teeth, I should think belonged to the Edentata; 4th,