To Catherine Darwin 6 April 1834
Summary
Describes Patagonia and its inhabitants.
Writes of his pleasure in geology.
Predicts that Falklands will become an "important halting place". Outlines Beagle’s future itinerary.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Emily Catherine (Catherine) Darwin; Emily Catherine (Catherine) Langton |
Date: | 6 Apr 1834 |
Classmark: | DAR 223 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-242 |
To Asa Gray 7 January [1860]
Summary
Comments on AG’s memoir on Japanese plants [see 2599]; relationship of Japanese flora to N. American.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Asa Gray |
Date: | 7 Jan [1860] |
Classmark: | Gray Herbarium of Harvard University (15) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2645 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … Charles Wright, botanist of the US North Pacific Exploring Expedition … With observations …
To H. W. Bates 6 February 1874
Summary
Orders five works on the Sandwich Islands from the Royal Geographical Society Library for his investigation of infanticide and population trends there.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Henry Walter Bates |
Date: | 6 Feb 1874 |
Classmark: | Royal Geographical Society |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-9267 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … Sandwich Islands: or, the heart of the Pacific, as it was and is. London: Richard Bentley. …
To Charles Lyell 25 June [1856]
Summary
Criticises at length the concept of submerged continents attaching islands to the mainland in the recent period. Notes drastic alteration of geography required, the dissimilar species on opposite shores of continents, and differences between volcanic islands and mountains of mainland areas. Admits sea-bed subsidence, but not enough to engulf continents. Denies that theory can explain island flora and fauna.
Considers Edward Forbes’s idea a check on study of dissemination of species.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | 25 June [1856] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.132) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1910 |
To G. H. Darwin 27 April [1876]
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | George Howard Darwin |
Date: | 27 Apr [1876] |
Classmark: | DAR 210.1: 51 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10480 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … now stand, & great subsidence in the Pacific. Most geologists now believe that continents …
To John Washington [14 October 1839]
Summary
Returns proofs of J. O. French’s article ["Account of the province of La Rioja: S. America", J. R. Geogr. Soc. 9 (1839): 381–406].
Gratified by Humboldt’s praise of Journal of researches [J. R. Geogr. Soc. 9 (1839): 502].
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | John Washington; Royal Geographical Society |
Date: | [14 Oct 1839] |
Classmark: | Royal Geographical Society |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-537 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … South Atlantic, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific, is frequently cited by CD in Coral …
To Edward Cresy [before May 1848?]
Summary
Agrees that naval expeditions to the Arctic are a waste of money. Believes Sir J. Barrow responsible. "Dr [Richard?] King is quite right in the advantage of Land Expeditions".
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Edward Cresy, Jr |
Date: | [before May 1848?] |
Classmark: | DAR 143: 304 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-805 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … or polar passage between the Atlantic and Pacific. London. [Reprint edition. Devon: South …
To [Frederick Wollaston Hutton] 8 December [1864]
Summary
Regrets he has no notes on periods when albatrosses were abundant off Cape Horn.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Frederick Wollaston Hutton |
Date: | 8 Dec [1864] |
Classmark: | Canterbury Museum, Christchurch, New Zealand |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4710 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … was preparing on the birds of the South Pacific, which contains descriptions of several …
To Basil Hall [7 January 1840]
Summary
CD regrets inconvenience caused by his having Royal Geographical Society’s copy of Krusenstern’s Atlas [de l’océan Pacifique (1824–7)]. Locates Sulphur Island from it.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Basil Hall |
Date: | [7 Jan 1840] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-550 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … also, in the general chart of the northern Pacific a Sulphur Rock (Position Doubtful) in …
To C. L. Denison 14 January 1874
Summary
Seeks information on the number of Pitcairn islanders and the effect on their fertility of the transfer to Norfolk Island.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Caroline Lucy Denison |
Date: | 14 Jan 1874 |
Classmark: | National Library of Australia (MS 73) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-9241 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … 360–3. Pitcairn Island is in the southern Pacific Ocean. First inhabited by Tahitians and …
To John Murray 14 May [1859]
Summary
Approves specimen sheet [of Origin]. Sorry book will be so long. Has now written half of last chapter; it is as long as his estimate of the entire chapter. Now thinks it will run to 6000 or 7000 words. Will do his utmost to improve his style. Anxious to publish soon; he knows of two men already writing on the subject, starting from his Linnean Society paper ["On the tendency of species to form varieties", Collected papers 2: 3–19]. Will send a diagram for the book.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | John Murray |
Date: | 14 May [1859] |
Classmark: | National Library of Scotland (John Murray Archive) (Ms.42152 ff.40–40A) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2462 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … Charles Wright, botanist of the US North Pacific Exploring Expedition … With observations …
To Daniel Oliver 15 April [1862]
Summary
Encourages DO to publish his paper and put his name to it. [Paper apparently not published.] Concurs with his views on primordial nature of hermaphroditism.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Daniel Oliver |
Date: | 15 Apr [1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 261.10: 45 (EH 88206028) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4097 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … Charles Wright, botanist of the US North Pacific Exploring Expedition … With observations …
To Charles Lyell 4 December [1849]
Summary
Discusses J. D. Dana’s Geology [1849]. Pleased that the part on corals confirms his views [Coral reefs (1842)]. Discusses Dana’s observation that in Sandwich Islands lava streams often join dikes at right angles with no cone. Retracts earlier denial of this possibility. Criticises Dana’s view of Australian valleys.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | 4 Dec [1849] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.85) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1275 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … 1843. On the areas of subsidence in the Pacific, as indicated by the distribution of coral …
To A. G. Butler 23 August 1875
Summary
Sends a moth from Queensland, Australia. The sender says a large number have been caught with proboscises embedded in oranges. CD interested as having a bearing on his Orchis work. Can AGB name the family and any closely allied English genus? The proboscis seems an extraordinary structure [see F. Darwin, "On the structure of the proboscis of Ophideres fullonica", Q. J. Microsc. Sci. n.s. 15 (1875): 384–9].
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Arthur Gardiner Butler |
Date: | 23 Aug 1875 |
Classmark: | Royal Entomological Society (28/3) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10133 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … fullonica (now Eudocima phalonia , the Pacific fruit-piercing moth) was sent by Anthelme …
To J. S. Henslow [10 November 1839]
Summary
Urges JSH to describe Galapagos species in a paper on the flora of the islands.
Has been interested in geographical distribution and would be interested to have a paper by JSH on the general character of flora of Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia.
"I keep on steadily collecting every sort of fact which may throw light on the origin & variation of species."
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | John Stevens Henslow |
Date: | [10 Nov 1839] |
Classmark: | The Morgan Library and Museum, New York (Heineman Collection MA 7127) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-543 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … at Down House. Norfolk Island, in the Pacific, is about 800 miles east of New South Wales. …
To Asa Gray 11 November [1859]
Summary
Sends copy of Origin for comments.
Does not feel AG’s views of migration after the last glaciation explain distribution in U. S. as well as CD’s view of migration prior to glaciation.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Asa Gray |
Date: | 11 Nov [1859] |
Classmark: | Archives of the Gray Herbarium, Harvard University (17) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2520 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … Charles Wright, botanist of the US North Pacific Exploring Expedition … With observations …
To J. D. Hooker 28 [December 1859]
Summary
CD has written to Asa Gray criticising J. D. Dana’s arguments for a warm period subsequent to glacial period.
Remembers it is Alphonse de Candolle who states that many species are not true species.
Did Huxley write the excellent review in the Times?
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 28 [Dec 1859] |
Classmark: | DAR 115: 30 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2610 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … Charles Wright, botanist of the US North Pacific Exploring Expedition … With observations …
To Charles Lyell 30 July 1837
Summary
Galapagos land birds and reptiles.
No two naturalists agree on any fundamental idea [of species]. "Everything is arbitrary."
Has been with Richard Owen going over the S. American fossils.
Has worked out the non-relation between animals’ bulk and luxuriance of vegetation.
The horse once common on the Pampas. The mystery of the extinction of these animals.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | 30 July 1837 |
Classmark: | The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell Collection Coll-203/A1/69: 140–2) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-367 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … William. 1831. Narrative of a voyage to the Pacific and Beering’s Strait, to co-operate …
To A. C. Ramsay 19 October 1871
Summary
Thanks ACR for papers.
Glad present situation of our continents has been confirmed.
Wishes ACR would prove his view of origin of Red Sandstones, which many dispute.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Andrew Crombie Ramsay |
Date: | 19 Oct 1871 |
Classmark: | DAR 261.9: 9 (EH 88205982) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-8019 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … of animals and plants across the Pacific could be explained by a former continent between …
To Anthelme Thozet 22 August 1875
Summary
Thanks for articles about moths sucking oranges.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Anthelme (Pomona) Thozet |
Date: | 22 Aug 1875 |
Classmark: | Rockhampton Bulletin, 6 November 1875, p. 2 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10132F |
Matches: 1 hit
- … a synonym of Eudocima phalonia , the Pacific fruit-piercing moth), based on specimens sent …
letter | (126) |
Darwin, C. R. | |
FitzRoy, Robert | (1) |
Hooker, J. D. | (35) |
Lyell, Charles | (18) |
Henslow, J. S. | (7) |
Darwin, Caroline | (5) |
Gray, Asa | (5) |
Darwin, C. R. | (126) |
Hooker, J. D. | (35) |
Lyell, Charles | (18) |
Henslow, J. S. | (7) |
Darwin, Caroline | (5) |
1831 | (2) |
1833 | (5) |
1834 | (4) |
1835 | (1) |
1836 | (3) |
1837 | (8) |
1839 | (7) |
1840 | (2) |
1841 | (1) |
1842 | (2) |
1844 | (4) |
1845 | (12) |
1846 | (2) |
1847 | (3) |
1848 | (4) |
1849 | (3) |
1850 | (1) |
1851 | (1) |
1855 | (2) |
1856 | (7) |
1857 | (4) |
1858 | (2) |
1859 | (10) |
1860 | (4) |
1861 | (1) |
1862 | (2) |
1863 | (1) |
1864 | (1) |
1865 | (1) |
1866 | (3) |
1867 | (1) |
1868 | (1) |
1869 | (1) |
1871 | (4) |
1872 | (1) |
1873 | (1) |
1874 | (3) |
1875 | (3) |
1876 | (2) |
1877 | (1) |
1878 | (1) |
1879 | (1) |
1880 | (1) |
1881 | (2) |
Darwin & coral reefs
Summary
The central idea of Darwin's theory of coral reef formation, as it was later formulated, was that the islands were formed by the upward growth of coral as the Pacific Ocean floor gradually subsided. It overturned previous ideas and would in itself…
Matches: 15 hits
- … he looked forward to verifying it when he could observe the Pacific islands. The central idea …
- … the islands were formed by the upward growth of coral as the Pacific Ocean floor gradually subsided. …
- … Darwin had expressed to his friend his expectation that the Pacific islands would furnish evidence …
- … ‘to hear of your report respecting the islands in the Pacific, and it will be curious if you find a …
- … the Beagle and not in the field. His spelling of ‘Pacific’ suggests that he was writing before …
- … both European and Chilean formations as well as the Pacific coral reefs. Coral formations are …
- … The tone is hypothetical and speculative: As in Pacific a Corall bed. forming as land …
- … Corall forming, Coralls.– I should conceive in Pacific. wear & tear of Reefs must form strata of …
- … crust and hypothesised a corresponding subsidence in the Pacific. The coral islands would thus …
- … him to depart from Lyell’s own view of the geology of the Pacific. In his chapter on coral reefs in …
- … how such reefs could have been formed in parts of the Pacific where the water was otherwise far too …
- … with Lyell’s chapter and with the observations of earlier Pacific voyagers, notably the British …
- … in the Marshall Islands confirmed that the foundations of Pacific atolls had indeed sunk many …
- … the elevation of South America was matched by the sinking of Pacific islands: 25 June 1835 . …
- … This coral episode: Darwin, Dana and the coral reefs in the Pacific. In Roy MacLeod and Philip F. …
Books on the Beagle
Summary
The Beagle was a sort of floating library. Find out what Darwin and his shipmates read here.
Satire of FitzRoy's Narrative of the Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle, by John Clunies Ross. Transcription by Katharine Anderson
Summary
[f.146r Title page] Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle Supplement / to the 2nd 3rd and Appendix Volumes of the First / Edition Written / for and in the name of the Author of those / Volumes By J.C. Ross. / Sometime Master of a…
Matches: 10 hits
- … N.W. n Australia – in combination with another from the Pacific (sent over the Torres Straits …
- … at the Cocos are influenced by the advancing swell of the Pacific coming on from Torres Straits. …
- … the Cordillera of the Andes – or even on the Coast of the Pacific – between Concepcion and Valdivia …
- … convicts had taken a very small craft and crossed the vast Pacific Ocean from Australia to Chile: ” …
- … the case of Australia – small Islands situated far in the Pacific, densely inhabited by Cannibals – …
- … from the Westward [ f.157r p.21 ] of the Indian and Pacific Oceans (as in the Atlantic) and …
- … instructed by Headquarters to examine (whilst in the Pacific Ocean) some of the circularly formed …
- … and reconcile with them – my “advancing swell from the Pacific” – but from apprehending that if I …
- … from a Polynesian Islander had I seen him in the Pacific. Two boys attracted my notice particularly …
- … The party of buccaneers with whom Dampier came across the Pacific from the West Coast of America – …
Darwin & Geology
Summary
The lessons Darwin learned from Adam Sedgwick at Cambridge, and in the field in North Wales, stood him in good stead during the Beagle voyage. While he was attached to the Beagle from 1831 to 1835, Darwin actually spent about two-thirds of his time ashore,…
Matches: 1 hits
- … to the heights of the Andes, and the coral reefs of the Pacific, Darwin’s notes on geology …
Thomas Henry Huxley
Summary
Dubbed “Darwin’s bulldog” for his combative role in controversies over evolution, Huxley was a leading Victorian zoologist, science popularizer, and education reformer. He was born in Ealing, a small village west of London, in 1825. With only two years of…
Matches: 1 hits
- … as assistant surgeon on H.M.S. Rattlesnake in the South Pacific (1846–1851). He pursued natural …
Charles Darwin’s letters: a selection 1825-1859
Summary
The letters in this volume span the years from 1825, when Darwin was a student at the University of Edinburgh, to the end of 1859, when the Origin of Species was published. The early letters portray Darwin as a lively sixteen-year-old medical student. Two…
Matches: 1 hits
- … being prepared for a survey voyage to South America and the Pacific. The letters that Darwin …
Bay of Islands, New Zealand
Summary
In praise of missionaries
Matches: 1 hits
- … Writes of his trip across the Pacific Ocean and his 10 days on Tahiti and defends the work of …
The geology of the Beagle voyage
Summary
The primary concern that linked much of Darwin’s geological work in the Beagle years was to understand the changing relation between the levels of land and sea. As he studied the shores of South America, and discovered shells inland at thousands of feet…
Matches: 1 hits
- … the harbour at Concepcion, Chile, several feet out of the Pacific Ocean. Some of Darwin’s …
Darwin & the Geological Society
Summary
The science of geology in the early nineteenth century was a relatively new enterprise forged from the merging of several distinct traditions of inquiry, from mineralogy and the very practical business of mining, to theories of the earth’s origin and the…
Matches: 1 hits
- … volcanoes. He argued, for example, that sections of the Pacific Ocean floor were sinking in …
Bibliography of Darwin’s geological publications
Summary
This list includes papers read by Darwin to the Geological Society of London, his books on the geology of the Beagle voyage, and other publications on geological topics. Author-date citations refer to entries in the Darwin Correspondence Project’s…
Matches: 1 hits
- … —On certain areas of elevation and subsidence in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, as deduced from the …
Darwin’s reading notebooks
Summary
In April 1838, Darwin began recording the titles of books he had read and the books he wished to read in Notebook C (Notebooks, pp. 319–28). In 1839, these lists were copied and continued in separate notebooks. The first of these reading notebooks (DAR 119…
Matches: 3 hits
Darwin’s earthquakes
Summary
Darwin experienced his first earthquake in 1834, but it was a few months later that he was really confronted with their power. Travelling north along the coast of Chile, Darwin and Robert FitzRoy, captain of HMS Beagle, were confronted with a series of…
Matches: 1 hits
- … high plains of South America, the low coral islands of the Pacific Ocean, and even the geology of …
Conrad Martens
Summary
Conrad Martens was born in London, the son of an Austrian diplomat. He studied landscape painting under the watercolourist Copley Fielding (1789–1855), who also briefly taught Ruskin. In 1833 he was on board the Hyacinth, headed for India, but en route in…
Matches: 1 hits
- … an end, during his voyage from South America via a number of Pacific Ocean islands to New Zealand …
Darwin in letters, 1858-1859: Origin
Summary
The years 1858 and 1859 were, without doubt, the most momentous of Darwin’s life. From a quiet rural existence filled with steady work on his ‘big book’ on species, he was jolted into action by the arrival of an unexpected letter from Alfred Russel Wallace…
Matches: 1 hits
- … of alternate zones of elevation and depression in the Pacific and Indian Oceans’. It also mentioned …
Introduction to the Satire of FitzRoy's Narrative of the Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle
Summary
'a humble toadyish follower…': Not all pictures of Darwin during the Beagle voyage are flattering. Published here for the first time is a complete transcript of a satirical account of the Beagle’s brief visit in 1836 to the Cocos Keeling islands…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Blossom as assistant surveyor to Captain F.W. Beechey on a Pacific voyage of 1825-28. In HMS …
Darwin's in letters, 1873: Animal or vegetable?
Summary
Having laboured for nearly five years on human evolution, sexual selection, and the expression of emotions, Darwin was able to devote 1873 almost exclusively to his beloved plants. He resumed work on the digestive powers of sundews and Venus fly traps, and…
Matches: 1 hits
- … and place at the table with the commander in chief of the Pacific Station were held out as …