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Darwin Correspondence Project

To Francis Darwin   4 [June 1881]1

Glenryhdding House | Paterdale— Penrith.

Sat. 4th.

My dear F.

I have worked this morning at Ch. VI. & have taken almost all your very good corrections & omissions.—2 I have not ventured to alter that clumsy sentence about “half of two-thirds &c”, because this was written by George, & he might swear that I had spoiled the mathematical accuracy of the statement. Tomorrow I shall do the short Ch. VII. in which the corrections seem heavy.3 Thank Heaven all the heavy work is done. I am extremely glad that you approve on the whole of the little book, for I have felt awfully doubtful.—

I can have no doubt that you ought to publish about the false circumnutation due to light, not only as a caution about the necessary rate of a klinostat (& this is very important) but as showing in how short a time light acts most efficiently on the mould.—4 By Jove will it not be very difficult writing in German? I rather regret its appearing in German, but now do be a good boy & send a full abstract to Nature.—5

How very nicely Elfing takes the affair & how friendly he feels towards you.— I suppose that he is too poor to pay you a visit at Down.— His discovery about a Galvanic stream causing movement is very remarkable.—6 Suggest to him to excite the extreme tip of the radicle alone; & this could be done if the rest of the radicle was kept in very moist air, & then he could observe whether the upper part of radicle became curved. Why on earth does he use zinc plates, instead of platina? Would it not be worth while to tell him that I suspected that zinc-plates in peat & moss killed Drosera. If the tips are really sensitive to Galvanism,—it is a new & fine case.— I will not mention it to a soul.7

I am rather sorry to hear about Tieghem, for the book seems to me a very good one—(though he evidently despises me!)8

Our house here is an excellent one & most comfortable in every way, with plenty of rooms & large ones.— I have just been trespassing at near end of Mr Marshalls park & found it perfectly charming.9 I do so wish you were here.—

Henrietta, Bessy & Leonard have just started in Steamer up Lake to meet Litchfield, who will be here at 4 P.M.— Bernard very jolly, but has become fearfully sensitive; he walked with us into Mr. Marshalls Park, carrying all the way the Soldiers received this morning, which made his little eyes sparkle like diamonds.10

When I began this note, I intended to write only single page & this will account for all the scraps.—11

I have just had an awful invitation from Paget to lunch with him on Augt 3d to meet the Prince of Wales.12

Good Bye—dear old Backy wish that you were here. | Your affectionate Father, | C. Darwin

Footnotes

The month and year are established by the address. The Darwins visited Patterdale in the Lake District from 3 June to 4 July 1881 (Emma Darwin's diary (DAR 242)).
CD and Francis were correcting proof-sheets of Earthworms.
George Howard Darwin often assisted CD with mathematical aspects of his work. In Earthworms, p. 266, a sentence reads, ‘Now if the two-thirds which is below the hole be divided into two equal parts, the upper half of this two-thirds exactly counterbalances the one-third which is above the hole, so that as far as regards the one-third above and the upper half of the two-thirds below, there is no flow of earth down the hill-side.’ Chapter 7 was the conclusion; it was nine pages long in the published version.
See letter from Francis Darwin, [before 4 June 1881] and n. 8. Francis was preparing a paper on his experiments on circumnutation of the mould Phycomyces nitens; he had observed what he described as a clearly circular movement of the sporangium in response to the rotation of the klinostat. The movement was very regular, unlike typical circumnutation, and stopped when the speed of rotation of the klinostat was reduced (see F. Darwin 1881b, pp. 477–8).
Francis’s paper appeared in Botanische Zeitung, 29 July 1881; no English abstract was published in Nature.
Francis had enclosed a letter from Fredrik Elfving to him with his letter to CD of [before 4 June 1881]; Elfving’s letter has not been found, but he evidently discussed the fact that Julius Wortmann decided to publish his observations on circumnutation in a sporangium earlier than he originally planned so as to publish before Elfving (see letter from Francis Darwin, 19 [May 1881] and nn. 3 and 4). Elfving published his observation of an autochemotropic (avoidance) response in Phycomyces nitens in Elfving 1881.
Elfving was studying the tropic effects of galvanic currents on roots. In his paper, ‘Ueber eine Wirkung des galvanischen Stromes auf wachsende Wurzeln’ (On an effect of galvanic current on growing roots; Elfving 1882, p. 259), Elfving noted that for electrodes he used zinc or platina (an alloy of platinum) or occasionally carbon. He further noted that the eventual death of the root happened regardless of the nature of the electrode, and therefore concluded it was not due to the toxic effect of zinc. In Insectivorous plants, p. 273, CD had noted that most metal salts were highly poisonous and caused rapid and strong inflection in tentacles of Drosera (sundew), but that zinc chloride did not cause inflection and was not poisonous; however, CD did not discuss root absorption of substances.
In his letter of [before 4 June 1881], Francis had mentioned that both Anton de Bary and Ernst Stahl had a low opinion of Philippe van Tieghem’s Traité de botanique (Treatise on botany; Tieghem 1884).
Victor Marshall’s Monk Coniston estate was familiar to CD from a previous visit to the Lake District in 1879, when the family stayed at the Waterhead Hotel, Coniston, on Marshall’s estate (see Correspondence vol. 27, letter to Victor Marshall, 25 August 1879).
Henrietta Emma Litchfield, Elizabeth Darwin, and Leonard Darwin were going to meet Richard Buckley Litchfield. Francis’s son Bernard Darwin was fond of the paper soldiers that Francis regularly sent him.
The letter is written on three separate sheets of paper, the final sheet being a different size from the other two.
See letter from James Paget, 1 June 1881. The prince of Wales was the future King Edward VII.

Bibliography

Darwin, Francis. 1881b. Ueber Circumnutation bei einem einzelligen Organe. Botanische Zeitung, 29 July 1881, pp. 473–80.

Earthworms: The formation of vegetable mould through the action of worms: with observations on their habits. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1881.

Elfving, Fredrik. 1881. En obeaktad känslighet hos Phycomyces. Botaniska Notiser (1881): 105–7.

Elfving, Fredrik. 1882. Ueber eine Wirkung des galvanischen Stromes auf wachsende Wurzeln. Botanische Zeitung 40: 257–64, 273–8.

Insectivorous plants. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1875.

Tieghem, Philippe van. 1884. Traité de botanique. Paris: F. Savy.

Summary

Has taken almost all FD’s corrections for chapter six [of Earthworms]. Is glad FD approves of the book.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-13193
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
Francis Darwin
Sent from
Patterdale
Source of text
DAR 211: 80
Physical description
ALS 6pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 13193,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-13193.xml

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