Search Results
Page: 1 2
Click on green bar to expand summary; 'direct' to go straight to entry. * indicates transcription available.
* direct »Letter 1643 — Darwin, C. R. to Hooker, J. D., 7 Mar [1855]
Latitude overrules everything in distribution. Alpine distributions are like insular. Tabulating proportions. T. V. Wollaston's Madeira insects: many flightless, thus not blown to sea. TVW's insects do not confirm Forbes's Atlantis.
* direct »Letter 1664 — Bunbury, C. J. F. to Darwin, C. R., 10 Apr 1855
Responds to CD's questions about mountain vegetation of the Cape of Good Hope. The distribution of some plants provides problems for both migration and special creation hypotheses.
* direct »Letter 2540 — Watson, H. C. to Darwin, C. R., 21 Nov [1859]
Believes natural selection will become recognised as an established truth in science, though it will shock the ideas of many men.
* direct »Letter 2908a — Lyell, Charles to Darwin, C. R., 8 Sept 1860
Believes CD's argument against special creation based on absence of terrestrial mammals on islands isolated before Pliocene era is very strong. However, the absence means Cetacea and bats have not modified towards terrestrial existence. There is similar lack of development of bats and rodents in Australia. Constancy among land shells of Madeira over long period shows that the majority of their species are immutable: a minority of "metamorphic" species maintains the overall number of true species while extinction removes many. Emphasis on the role of extinction discomfits CD's opponents since the power of generation of new species ought to keep pace. Mentions Ammonite deposits with reference to CD's comments on their apparent sudden extinction [Origin, pp. 321–2]. Perhaps absence of transmutation on slowly subsiding atolls indicates the slow rate of selective change.
* direct »Letter 2964 — Darwin, C. R. to Henslow, J. S., 26 Oct [1860]
CD does not mind C. R. Bree's dull, unvarying abuse and misrepresentation, but when he doubts CD's deliberate word, "that is the act of a man who has not the soul of a gentleman in him". JSH's letter in Athenæum ["Flints in the drift", 20 Oct. 1860, p. 516] is interesting. H. Freke's paper [On the origin of species by means of organic affinity (1861)] is beyond CD's scope.
* direct »Letter 3214 — Darwin, C. R. to Maw, George, 19 July [1861]
Has read GM's review and thanks him for its fair and liberal spirit. Discusses briefly several specific difficulties raised by it.
* direct »Letter 3236 — Maw, George to Darwin, C. R., 27 Aug [1861]
Thanks CD for his letter about GM's review of the Origin. Sends instances of correlative organisation and functions which he finds difficult to believe could have accumulated by gradual modifications. [Letter erroneously dated 1862 by GM.]
* direct »Letter 3334 — Wallace, A. R. to Darwin, C. R., 30 Nov [1861]
His opinion of the Origin, after repeated readings. Hopes the great work continues and that it will be published with copious illustrations. Comments on Owen's new version of "creation", now adopted by John Phillips [Life on earth (1860)]. Hopes H. W. Bates has sent his papers on Amazon insects [Trans. R. Entomol. Soc. Lond. 2d ser. 5 (1861) : 223–8, 335–61; Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 23 (1862) : 495–566] with their "valuable contribution to our cause".
* direct »Letter 3603 — Candolle, Alphonse de to Darwin, C. R., 13 June 1862
Has read the Origin several times. His position is like Asa Gray's: he wishes to believe in descent, but proofs of natural selection are lacking. Looks forward to CD's promised large book. Thanks for Primula paper [Collected papers 2: 45–63]. Did CD sow the seeds of his crosses? One would like to know whether the two forms reappear at random.
* direct »Letter 3629 — Maw, George to Darwin, C. R., 30 June 1862
Discusses cases of assumed correlation, e.g., facial hair and generative organs, sexual characters in castrated oxen. Finds it difficult to see how correlation of functions which would be useless separately can be accumulated gradually through natural selection.