[JAPAN. - two rare off-prints concerning the Omori Shell Mounds]

Charles DARWIN (1809-1882) & Edward Sylvester MORSE (1838-1925)

The Omori Shell Mounds (from Nature, London, April 15 1880). Some recent Publications on Japanese Archaeology (From the American Naturalist, Sept, 1880). [Salem, Mass.: 1880]. Octavo (9 x 6in; 230 x 150mm). Pp. [1; 654-]657-662, [1-4 including final blank page]. 1 illustration. (Light old dampstaining, creasing to final leaf). Stitched (old staple stab holes).

Rare off-print: a letter by Charles Darwin prefaces Morse’s letter defending his book “The Omori Shell Mounds” against the points raised by Frederick Victor Dickins (1838-1915) in his hostile review. Darwin writes in support of Morse.

[with:]

Edward Sylvester MORSE.  [Drop-head title:] A comparison between ancient and modern Molluscan Fauna of Omori, Japan… From the Memoirs of the Science Department, University of Japan. 1879. [No place but Japan?: 1879?]. Quarto (11 x 7 3/4in; 280 x 197mm). Pp. [1-]14, [1-2]. 1 illustration, 1 folding plate. (repairs to verso of folding plate using archival Filoplast P paper mending tape.) Original light grey paper wrappers (lacking lower cover), stapled into cream paper wrappers. Provenance: Alexander Emmanuel Rodolphe Agassiz (1835-1910, signature to upper cover). An off-print from the work that Dickins reviewed (see above) – here with an important provenance.

Edward Morse went to Japan to study brachiopod shells in 1877. There he discovered shell mounds in the Shinegawa ward of Tokyo, and began an excavation of them — the first scientific excavations conducted in Japan, and arguably the beginning of Japanese Archaeology. (2)

RIJ 4128