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Darwin Correspondence Project

To Arnold Dodel-Port   6 July 1877

Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.

July 6. 1877

Dear Sir,

I am much obliged for the two plates received this morning.1 They both seem to me excellent. Nothing can be better than the manner in which the secretion round the glands is shown. The drawing of the Volvox2 tells the whole history of the organism in a wonderfully clear manner; I cannot doubt but that the publication of your atlas will be most useful to all who have to teach Botany; & I hope that you may be successful in finding a good publisher. I know from experience how useful large diagrams are to a lecturer, for when I was at Cambridge above 40 years ago the Professor of Botany there (Henslow) made a large number of diagrams at the cost of much time; & he used to say that the great success & popularity of his lectures was largely due to these diagrams, which we nearly on the same scale as yours, but not nearly so well executed.3

Wishing you all success, I remain, dear Sir, | Yours faithfully | Ch. Darwin

Footnotes

See letter from Arnold Dodel-Port, 3 July 1877. The plates were for a projected publication, Anatomisch-physiologischer Atlas der Botanik für Hoch- und Mittelschulen (Dodel-Port and Dodel-Port 1878–83); they have not been found in the Darwin Archive–CUL.
Volvox globator, a species of green algae.
On John Stevens Henslow’s illustrated lecture-demonstrations, see Walters and Stow 2001, pp. 61–2.

Summary

Thanks AD-P for plates [from Arnold and Carolina Dodel-Port, Atlas der Botanik (1878–83)]. Will be useful to all who teach botany.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-11039
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
Arnold Dodel-Port
Sent from
Down
Source of text
Zentralbibliothek, Zürich (Ms Z VIII 417.2)
Physical description
LS 3pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 11039,” accessed on 29 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-11039.xml

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