From Charles Lyell 28 August 1860
Summary
Objections to Origin which Owen and Wilberforce could have used. Why have incipient mammalian forms not arisen from lower vertebrates on islands separated since Miocene period? Knows CD would not derive Eocene Mammalia from higher reptiles, but would bats not be modified into other mammalian forms on an ancient island? This is not the case in New Zealand. Why have island seals not become terrestrial? Assumes rate of change is greatest in mammals. Difficulties are small compared with ability to explain absence of Mammalia in pre-Pliocene islands. Asks about descent of Amblyrhynchus. Believes objections apply equally well to independent creation of animal types, but not if the First Cause is allowed completely free agency.
Author: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 28 Aug 1860 |
Classmark: | The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell collection Coll-203/A3/6: 164–71) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2900A |
Matches: 14 hits
- … come into play, it may be said that no mammalia were wanted because it was foreseen that …
- … period? Knows CD would not derive Eocene Mammalia from higher reptiles, but would bats not …
- … compared with ability to explain absence of Mammalia in pre-Pliocene islands. Asks about …
- … discussed the geographical distribution of Mammalia and batrachians in Origin , pp. 393– …
- … The grand argument from absence of mammalia & batrachians in Oceanic islands is probably …
- … they must have retained some of the smaller mammalia. Also if atolls be remnants of sunk …
- … would prefer I conceive to derive Eocene mammalia from the Microlestes of the Trias rather …
- … ancient the bats would be modified into mammalia of other genera & orders long before any …
- … a dominant mammalian volant fauna & some lose their wings & become non-volant mammalia? …
- … Or why did not seals & marine mammalia turn terrestrial in their habits if they had such a …
- … in as much as the rate of change in mammalia is more rapid than in inferior grades & …
- … there have been in Europe several changes of mammalia since the Upper Miocene period. The …
- … shells would change much more slowly than mammalia. Still I grant that the conversion of a …
- … transmutation in the case of absence of mammalia & frogs from remote islands while they …
From Charles Lyell 18 September 1860
Summary
It is strange that Agassiz, who is for the "sanctity of species", should favour Pallas’s view of hybrid origin of domestic dog.
CL has not meant to advocate successive creation of types but to question assumption that all mammals descended from single stock. Why should a Triassic reptile or bird not move towards mammalian form because an ancestral marsupial has appeared? Believes recent appearance of rodents and bats in Australia explains their lack of development.
Can CD supply a reference on plant extinction on St Helena?
Believes marsupials better adapted for surviving drought in Australia than higher mammals.
Will not press argument about lack of development of mammalian forms on islands, but CD should note objection.
Does CD’s belief in multiple origin of dogs affect faith in single primates in different regions?
Does time lapse between putative independently descended mammalian forms mean first form will "keep down" later incipient one? Thus Homo sapiens has prevented improvement of other anthropomorphs; bats and rodents on islands would prevent improvement of lower forms into mammalian.
Author: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 18 Sept 1860 |
Classmark: | The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell collection Coll-203/A3/6: 187–95d) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2920C |
Matches: 7 hits
- … In Richard Owen’s classification of the Mammalia, the Gyrencephala included all the higher …
- … Can we assume as at all probable that all mammalia came from one original Stock instead of …
- … proposed as those of the first coming in of mammalia. But as I understand your views this …
- … them as the probable starting point of mammalia, what influence would the development of a …
- … a geological period, the earlier formed mammalia died out. I have always expected to find …
- … y r . argument respecting absence of other mammalia in islands, as I cannot conceive such …
- … to the want of migratory powers of mammalia, & that alone w d not do, unless the coming in …
From Charles Lyell 20 August 1862
Summary
Jamieson has revisited Glen Roy and confirmed his theory of glacier lakes.
A. G. More considers CD the most profound of reasoners.
Author: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 20 Aug 1862 |
Classmark: | K. M. Lyell ed. 1881, 2: 358; The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell collection Coll-203/B9) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3691 |
From Charles Lyell 30 September 1861
Summary
Asks for copy of CD’s paper ["Ancient glaciers of Caernarvonshire", Collected papers 1: 163–71]. Gathers that drift of Moel Tryfan is glacial.
Believes Glen Roy roads formed later than submergence of Scotland.
Asks CD’s opinion concerning relative chronology of various glacial deposits, particularly a flint tool find in the Ouse River near Bedford.
Author: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 30 Sept 1861 |
Classmark: | The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Gen.112/2813-16) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3270 |
To Charles Lyell [8 February 1845]
Summary
Remarks on fossils described in A. D. d’Orbigny’s Voyage dans l’Amérique méridionale.
Asks CL whether he has talked with John Murray concerning 2d ed. [of Journal of researches].
Mentions conversation with Hugh Cuming about South American shells. Has had G. B. Sowerby (elder) look at some specimens.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | [8 Feb 1845] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.42) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-824 |
From Charles Lyell 8 September 1860
Summary
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.
Author: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 8 Sept 1860 |
Classmark: | The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell collection Coll-203/A3/6: 179–86) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2908A |
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 |
From Charles Lyell 25 September 1860
Summary
Returns "excellent" MS in which CD favours hybrid origin of domestic dog, which CL believes strengthens case for common progenitor of wild species.
Doubts CD’s authorities for antiquity of dingo.
Variation will raise many points for investigation.
"Leporine" hare–rabbit hybrid should be investigated.
Has re-read passages in Origin that CD suggested.
Annals of Natural History would probably reprint Gray’s review of Origin at their own expense.
CD’s thought that modern reptiles could not develop into existing Mammalia but only into another high form is a "grand notion" compatible with "the infinite capacity of the creative power".
Comments on New Guinea marsupials.
Still thinks that the Australian genera and species are so well fitted for extraordinary droughts that they would get the better of the dingo.
Suggests that once there were more races of man, though from common stock. Competition and then hybridity checked divergence.
Falconer’s views on elephant classification. CL attaches little value to Falconer’s objection that mastodons and elephants do not come in chronologically, as they should in CD’s view.
Author: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 25 Sept 1860 |
Classmark: | The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell collection Coll-203/A3/7: 3–12) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2927A |
From Charles Lyell 30 September 1860
Summary
Expects lack of diversification of immigrant mammals on long isolated islands will come to show slowness of selective change.
Asks whether CD has speculated on turtles becoming terrestrial on remote islands.
Perhaps non-diversification on islands is explained by tiny proportion of variable species. Those that vary on continent may not do so on island.
A. Gray is afraid of objections to Origin from imperfection of fossil record.
His argument with Falconer over the hypothesis of limited modifiability.
Are the bird-like characters of the Apteryx parts not yet suppressed or nascent organs?
Extinctions of ammonites, belemnites, and hippurites are striking. Perhaps ammonites made way for higher cuttle-fish.
Believes hybrid origin of domestic dog would weaken objections to treating white man and negro as species. Are there not many reputed species among the Mammalia more closely related than these races?
Objects not to the term "selection" but to what CD assigns to it. It should not be confused with the "Creative power" behind variation and the "capacity of ascending in the scale of being".
Author: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 30 Sept 1860 |
Classmark: | The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell collection Coll-203/A3/7: 13–19) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2932A |
To Charles Lyell 8 October [1860]
Summary
Encloses advertisement [for C. R. Bree, Species not transmutable (1860)].
Discusses Bronn’s chapter of criticisms.
Mentions variation in rats.
Has ordered book by Bree.
Discusses suggestion that southern corners of Australia may once have been islands.
Mentions "wild speculations" about change in earth’s axes.
CL’s ideas on variation.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | 8 Oct [1860] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.232) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2942 |
From Charles Lyell [13–14 February 1860]
Summary
Discusses phases of climate.
Describes fossil mammals discovered by Auguste Bravard in South America.
Has had argument with Bishop of Oxford [Samuel Wilberforce] about CD’s book [Origin].
Discusses review in Annals and Magazine of Natural History. Guesses that T. V. Wollaston is the author.
Discusses evidence of shells on Madeira.
Comments on paper by Wallace ["On the zoological geography of the Malay Archipelago", J. Proc. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Zool.) 4 (1860): 172–84].
Author: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [13–14 Feb 1860] |
Classmark: | DAR 205.3: 283, DAR 205.9: 395 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2694 |
From Charles Lyell [16 January 1857]
Summary
Enumerates fossil mammals known in Secondary strata.
Lack of angiosperm plants in rocks older than Chalk is no reason to anticipate rarity of warm-blooded quadrupeds.
Author: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [16 Jan 1857] |
Classmark: | DAR 205.9: 394 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2039 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … Mammalia in the whole world Eocene Thanet Sands 0 hiatus 0 Secondary Maestricht beds 0 …
To Charles Lyell 4 [February 1863]
Summary
Thanks CL for "the great book" [Antiquity of man (1863)].
Richard Owen "ought to be ostracised by every Naturalist in England".
CL’s book will "give the whole subject of change of species an enormous advance".
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | 4 [Feb 1863] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.287) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3967 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … be placed in a distinct sub-class of the mammalia on the premise that the human brain was …
To Charles Lyell [16 December 1843]
Summary
Description and defence of his view of the tosca in Banda Oriental, along the Rio Uruguay and at the Rio Negro, taking issue with A. D. d’Orbigny. Refers to the pumice in the Patagonian Territory. Two tables show the layered tosca formation along the Uruguay.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | [16 Dec 1843] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.33) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-724 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … limestone, (at A) with the bones of Mammalia. —. In fact we have everywhere proofs, that …
To Charles Lyell 21 February [1865]
Summary
Belated thanks to CL for copy of Elements. Praises CL’s work. Notes especially Atlantic continents, the Weald, the Purbeck beds, glacial action, and the formation of lake-basins.
Also mentions account of Heer’s work
and CD’s disagreement with J. D. Forbes.
Suggests that CL have Murray print a two-volume edition [of the Elements].
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | 21 Feb [1865] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.306) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4775 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … of the fossil record with respect to the Mammalia, pp. 377–84 (see Marginalia 1: 524–5). …
From Charles Lyell to T. H. Huxley 17 June 1859
Summary
Extended discussion of their respective difficulties with the definition and status of species and with the extent to which the theory of transmutation may be applied.
Has rediscovered S. S. Haldeman’s 1844 paper defending the transmutation theory with great skill.
Asks for reference to Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire’s first enunciation of the progressive development and transmutation theory.
Author: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Addressee: | Thomas Henry Huxley |
Date: | 17 June 1859 |
Classmark: | Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine Archives (Huxley 6: 20) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2469A |
Matches: 1 hit
- … once admit the probable want of Placental Mammalia in the Lower Silurian & we require such …
To Charles Lyell 23 [September 1860]
Summary
Hopes to get Asa Gray’s review of Origin republished.
Argues for single origin of mammals.
Encloses two phylogenetic diagrams indicating possible descent of mammals.
Comments on rodents, marsupials, and dingo in Australia,
and on a paper on the survival of stumps as a result of root grafting.
Argues that man had a single progenitor and consists of a single species.
Comments on destruction of non-white races.
Discusses introduction of rodents to islands by man.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | 23 [Sept 1860] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.227) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2925 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … Owen based his classification of the Mammalia on a detailed anatomical comparison of the …
To Charles Lyell 22 August [1862]
Summary
Relates personal news about family members.
CD is "glad Glen Roy is settled".
Mentions evolutionary remarks on birds by Owen.
Compares variability among lower and higher organisms. Comments on Hooker’s view of the subject.
Forthcoming publication of Huxley’s book [Evidence as to man’s place in nature (1863)] and Lyell’s [Antiquity of man (1863)].
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | 22 Aug [1862] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.281) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3695 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … that: the longevity of species in the mammalia is, upon the whole, inferior to that of the …
To Charles Lyell 20 November [1860]
Summary
Admires Edward Forbes’s theory of continental extensions, but it will discourage investigation of distribution.
Mentions Oswald Heer’s proposed map of Atlantis.
Discusses extinction of plants caused by the glacial era. Migration of plants and animals during glacial period.
Encourages CL’s work [on Antiquity of man (1863)].
Comments on unfriendly reviews. Asks CL’s opinion about including a reply to reviewers in next edition of Origin.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | 20 Nov [1860] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.233) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2989 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … but I remember that the distribution of Mammalia & the very regular relation of the alpine …
To Charles Lyell [8 April 1851]
Summary
Detailed critique of CL’s A manual of elementary geology [3d ed. (1851), used in editing 4th ed. (1852)].
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | [8 Apr 1851] |
Classmark: | Kinnordy MS (private collection) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1384 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … well say a seal or whale was allied to the mammalia. p. 282. Those who do not know you to …
letter | (24) |
Darwin, C. R. | (12) |
Lyell, Charles | (12) |
Lyell, Charles | (12) |
Darwin, C. R. | (10) |
Hooker, J. D. | (1) |
Huxley, T. H. | (1) |
Lyell, Charles | |
Darwin, C. R. | (22) |
Hooker, J. D. | (1) |
Huxley, T. H. | (1) |
George Robert Waterhouse
Summary
George Waterhouse was born on 6 March 1810 in Somers Town, North London. His father was a solicitor’s clerk and an amateur lepidopterist. George was educated from 1821-24 at Koekelberg near Brussels. On his return he worked for a time as an apprentice to…
Darwin in letters, 1837–1843: The London years to 'natural selection'
Summary
The seven-year period following Darwin's return to England from the Beagle voyage was one of extraordinary activity and productivity in which he became recognised as a naturalist of outstanding ability, as an author and editor, and as a professional…
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: 7 hits
- … American Journal of Science and Arts ]. Rengger on Mammalia of Paraguay [Rengger 1830]— …
- … 1807] read it— Erasmus has it Owens Brit. Mammalia [R. Owen 1846a]— Horner has it. (read) …
- … [Moquin-Tandon 1841] —— Owens Fossil British Mammalia [R. Owen 1846a] 27 th Elie de …
- … Sketch Read Classification & Geograph. Distrib of Mammalia.— Owen 5 o : Parker [R. Owen …
- … Edward. 1843–52. Catalogue of the specimens of Mammalia in the British Museum . 3 pts. (Pt 3: …
- … the classification and geographical distribution of the Mammalia, being the lecture … delivered …
- … 13a Sykes, William Henry. 1832a. Catalogue of the Mammalia observed in the Dakhan. …
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
- … —A sketch of the deposits containing extinct Mammalia in the neighbourhood of the Plata. …
New material added to the American edition of Origin
Summary
A ‘revised and augmented’ American edition of Origin came on the market in July 1860, and was the only authorised edition available in the US until 1873. It incorporated many of the changes Darwin made to the second English edition, but still contained…
Matches: 1 hits
- … to the coexistence of man and the ornithorhynchus amongst mammalia,—or amongst fish, of the shark …