Beschreibung:

DARWIN, CHARLES. Autograph note signed (third person), one page, 8vo, slight foxing at upper margin, remnants of mounting on verso : "With Mr. C. Darwin's Compliments. Ap. 7th. Down, Bromley, Kent"--DARWIN, ERASMUS. Autograph letter signed ("E Darwin") to "Dear Madam" (a Mrs. Sneyd?), Derby, 20 December 1794, one page, 4to : "...I trouble you with this line, which I hope you will receive in time, to desire you will wrap up my treatise on boarding schools [ A Plan...Female Education in Boarding Schools , pub. 1797], & send it by the coach directed to [a name and address follows]...as I have promised him the sight of it after you have done with it, & I shall be glad of any remarks, which may have occured to you"--LAYARD, Sir AUSTEN HENRY (1817-1894, excavator of Ninevah). Autograph letter signed to "Dear Twiss" (possibly Sir Travers Twiss), London, 26 June 1860, one page, 8vo, a social note--BACK, Sir GEORGE. (1796-1878, admiral and Arctic explorer). Three autograph letters signed to John Backhouse, London and Holyhead, 6 December 1835 - 1 January 1849, together 8 pages, mostly 4to, the first letter with a seal tear with loss of a few words, the second split across center horizontal fold with some letters affected. In the second letter (8 September 1837) Backs writes from Holyhead upon just returning from an Arctic voyage (which he commanded); he vividly recounts being trapped in ice for eleven months, how his ship was almost crushed, and how they barely made it back across the Atlantic to Ireland: "...I have made no discovery, but have surveyed a line of Coast not marked in the Admiralty Charts. My Crew have been afflicted with the Scurvy...three have died and others are dangerously ill. All were more or less attacked, in spite of Antiscorbutics and the strictest discipline..."; Autograph letter signed to "My dear Sir Francis," n.p., n.d. [1850?], 4 pages, 12mo, remnants of mounting : "...My hopes are still ripe that the survivors may, at this moment, be on board the North Star ; because, I see no reason why the drift which swept Ross [Sir John Ross in his ecxpedition in search of Sir John Franklin?] Southward may not have opened a passage for Franklin to Port Leopold." Most with typed transcripts. (7)