March 13, 2025

PreetNama
English News

Cambridge launches appeal for missing Darwin notebooks

356

The University of Cambridge’s library on Tuesday launched a public appeal to help locate two notebooks of the iconic naturalist and alumnus, Charles Darwin, one of which contains his landmark 1837 ‘Tree of Life’ sketch, missing since 2001.
Following an exhaustive search, the library curators concluded that the priceless notebooks, first listed as missing in January 2001, have likely been stolen, the university said in the appeal on its website

The local police have been informed and the missing notebooks added to Interpol’s database of stolen artworks.

The appeal launch on November 24 coincides with what is commonly known each year as Evolution Day – recognising the anniversary of Darwin’s publication of On the Origin of Species on November 24, 1859. Darwin (1809-1882) was a student at Christ’s College.

Jessica Gardner, university librarian, said: “I am heartbroken that the location of these Darwin notebooks…is currently unknown, but we’re determined to do everything possible to discover what happened and will leave no stone unturned during this process”.“This public appeal could be critical in seeing the notebooks safely return, for the benefit of all, and I would ask anyone who thinks they may be able to help to get in touch. Someone, somewhere, may have knowledge or insight that can help us return these notebooks to their proper place at the heart of the UK’s cultural and scientific heritage.”

The library said the notebooks were removed from the Special Collections Strong Rooms– where the rarest and most valuable items are kept – for photography to take place in September 2000, but a subsequent routine check found that the small box containing the two notebooks had not been returned to its proper place.

For many years, previous librarians believed that the notebooks had been misplaced in the vast storerooms and collections of the library, which is home to around 10 million books, maps, manuscripts and other objects. Despite a number of searches over the years, they remained undiscovered.

Related posts

US says China may have conducted low-level nuclear test blasts

On Punjab

Ohio governor’s conflicting Covid-19 tests raise backlash

On Punjab

Seeking refuge in US, children fleeing danger are expelledWhen officers led them out of a detention facility near the US-Mexico border and onto a bus last month, the 12-year-old from Honduras and his 9-year-old sister believed they were going to a shelter so they could be reunited with their mother in the Midwest. They had been told to sign a paper they thought would tell the shelter they didn’t have the coronavirus, the boy said. The form was in English, a language he and his sister don’t speak. The only thing he recognized was the letters “Covid.” Instead, the bus drove five hours to an airport where the children were told to board a plane. “They lied to us,” he said. “They didn’t tell us we were going back to Honduras.” More than 2,000 unaccompanied children have been expelled since March under an emergency declaration enacted by the Trump administration, which has cited the coronavirus in refusing to provide them protections under federal anti-trafficking and asylum laws. Lawyers and advocates have sharply criticized the administration for using the global pandemic as a pretext to deport children to places of danger. No U.S. agents looked at the video the boy had saved on his cellphone showing a hooded man holding a rifle, saying his name, and threatening to kill him and his sister, weeks after the uncle caring for them was shot dead in June. And even though they were expelled under an emergency declaration citing the virus, they were never tested for COVID-19, the boy said. Three weeks after their uncle was killed, the children fled Honduras, crossing the U.S.-Mexico border alone. Under the normal process set out by U.S. law, they would have been referred to a government facility for youth and eventually placed with their mother. Instead, they were expelled on July 24 after three days in U.S. detention and now live in Honduras with another uncle who is looking to leave the country himself. U.S. Customs and Border Protection declined multiple requests for comment on the boy’s story, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement also declined, saying the children had been in Border Patrol custody until they boarded a deportation flight operated by ICE. Spokesmen for both agencies have refused to answer most questions about how they treat roughly 70,000 adults and children expelled under the emergency declaration issued in March. They have refused to say how they decide whether to expel children or where to detain them before expulsion, including in hotels where at least 150 unaccompanied children as young as 1 year old have been held. Much of what’s known about expulsions has come from the accounts of children like the 12-year-old boy, who recounted his experience to The Associated Press last week with a recall of details that makes him seem older.

On Punjab