Autograph letter signed.
8vo. 3 pp. on bifolium.
€ 650,00
To a colleague, granting permission to have engraved a sketch he made of a skeleton at Madrid's natural history museum: "Having learned from my Brother that you wish to have an engraving made from the sketch I brought yesterday evening to the Geological Society, I take the opportunity of mentioning that it gives me much pleasure to be informed that you think it worthy of such attention. I have only to regret the want of leisure on the spot, to make a more careful drawing, and to add some measurements. So far, however, as it goes, I feel pretty confident of the accuracy of the sketch. The skeleton stands in the Cabinet of Natural History at Madrid, and is said there to have been brought from Buenos Ayres, where it was found in a bed of gravel. How far these facts are correct, I had little means of ascertaining. The people of the Museum seemed at a loss what name to give the skeleton: in the mean time the sketch is quite at your service [...]".
With a postscript by his brother: "My brother seems unwilling that his name should appear on the plate, & as it can be of no consequence, I beg you will leave it out. You can put what title you like to it. I should like to have 20 copies [...]".
Small tear to the lower margin of the second leaf. A slim strip of paper glued to the upper margin; 3 strips of old mounting tape on verso.
