To Francis Darwin 28 [October 1881]
Summary
Earthworms is selling well.
Discussed how to repeat some of their plant experiments while in Cambridge.
Comments on Julius Wiesner’s views on plant movement.
S. H. Vines was very much surprised at the action of carbonate of ammonia on the roots of Euphorbia.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Francis Darwin |
| Date: | 28 [Oct 1881] |
| Classmark: | DAR 211: 88 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-13440 |
From Francis Darwin [after 14 November 1881]
Summary
Thanks for two letters from Pfeffer. Will return translation of Pfeffer and send a letter from Elfring. Looking forward to working on "antiWiesner" experiments. Will return on 26th or 27th.
| Author: | Francis Darwin |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | [after 14 Nov 1881] |
| Classmark: | DAR 274.1: 68 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-13485F |
To E. R. Lankester 13 October [1881]
Summary
Says that salt water kills earthworms.
Interested in ERL’s study of worm anatomy.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Edwin Ray Lankester |
| Date: | 13 Oct [1881] |
| Classmark: | DAR 146: 33 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-13396 |
To Francis Galton 18 [December 1881]
Summary
Can FG call on Monday evening?
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Francis Galton |
| Date: | 18 [Dec 1881] |
| Classmark: | UCL Library Services, Special Collections (GALTON/3/2/2/12 Letter 2) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-13560 |
To W. E. Darwin 8 February [1881]
Summary
Thanks WED for sending leaves and making observations on how earthworms drag them into their burrows.
Doubts justice of fierce review against J. Geikie’s book [Prehistoric Europe (1881)] in Nature [by W. B. Dawkins, 23 (1881): 309–10], but if reindeer and hippopotamus have really been found in close contact in same bed – "it tells horribly against interglacial periods".
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | William Erasmus Darwin |
| Date: | 8 Feb [1881] |
| Classmark: | DAR 210.6: 176 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-13042 |
From W. E. Darwin [24 April 1881]
Summary
Sends observations of wormcasts at Malvern. Describes stay at Abinger.
| Author: | William Erasmus Darwin |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | [24 Apr 1881] |
| Classmark: | Cornford Family Papers (DAR 275: 102) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-13141G |
To Francis Darwin 17 October 1881
Summary
Has been reading Julius von Wiesner’s book [Das Bewegungsvermögen der Pflanzen (1881)]. Comments that it is "an excellent book, but he vivisects me in the most grievous terms, but most effectively".
Has been experimenting on aggregation of chlorophyll but with little success.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Francis Darwin |
| Date: | 17 Oct 1881 |
| Classmark: | DAR 211: 86 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-13411 |
To W. E. Darwin 19 February [1881]
Summary
Uncle Erasmus is ill.
Thanks WED for his trouble about the cottages.
He has signed the note to Higgins.
CD has used WED’s Rhododendron case in Earthworms [p. 69].
Is using paper triangles in experiments on intelligence of worms.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | William Erasmus Darwin |
| Date: | 19 Feb [1881] |
| Classmark: | Houghton Library, Harvard University (Autograph File, D) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-13058 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … Darwin’s diary (DAR 242) records that Shaen stayed for five days, but the entries appear to be made one week out and incorrectly give the days as 10 to 15 February; Emma also incorrectly recorded that Francis Galton and William Cecil Marshall came to dinner on Saturday 12 February instead of Saturday 19 February. Both Galton and Marshall were still at Down on 20 February; Louisa Jane Galton , Galton’s wife, …
To Julius Wiesner 25 October 1881
Summary
Further comments on JW’s Das Bewegungsvermögen der Pflanzen [1881]. Discusses heliotropism and sensitivity of root tips. Bewildered by their differences concerning circumnutation.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Julius Wiesner |
| Date: | 25 Oct 1881 |
| Classmark: | DAR 148: 358 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-13432 |
From Asa Gray 27 January 1881
Summary
Apologises for his silence when Francis Darwin’s paper was read at the Linnean Society.
AG’s review of Movement in plants [Nation 32 (1881): 17–18].
| Author: | Asa Gray |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 27 Jan 1881 |
| Classmark: | DAR 165: 203 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-13028 |
To Francis Darwin 22 [October 1881]
Summary
Thinks FD should review Julius von Wiesner’s book [Das Bewegungsvermögen der Pflanzen (1881)]. CD comforted that Wiesner’s experiments support their findings but finds it laughable how differently he has interpreted them.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Francis Darwin |
| Date: | 22 [Oct 1881] |
| Classmark: | DAR 211: 87 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-13422 |
From T. H. Huxley 28 June 1881
Summary
Has heard from Haeckel the story of refusal [by Humboldt fund] of Berlin Academy to support him because he was supporter of Darwin. R. Virchow has been so unfair to Haeckel that THH is inclined to think it is a true account. But obtaining the funds in England is extremely difficult.
| Author: | Thomas Henry Huxley |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 28 June 1881 |
| Classmark: | Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine Archives (Huxley 9: 211) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-13223 |
To C. E. Norton 1 June 1881
Summary
No Benjamin Franklin letters to Erasmus Darwin preserved.
Was inaccurate about Franklin’s nephews [in Erasmus Darwin].
Recounts story about Franklin at court of France.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Charles Eliot Norton |
| Date: | 1 June 1881 |
| Classmark: | Houghton Library, Harvard University (Charles Eliot Norton Papers, MS Am 1088.14: 1599) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-13187 |
From J. B. Innes 20 September 1881
Summary
Did not intend his last letter as criticism. Is sure CD would not "wriggle out" of a difficulty if he had observed it.
Sends CD a wasps’ nest.
| Author: | John Brodie Innes |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 20 Sept 1881 |
| Classmark: | DAR 167: 40 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-13343 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … Francis 1876 , pp. 333–91). The invented ‘Queen of Sheba’ to refer to an earthworm used as bait was in keeping with such fanciful names. Erasmus Alvey Darwin had died on 26 August 1881; the announcement of his death appeared in The Times , 30 August 1881, p. 1. Eliza Parslow , Joseph Parslow ’s wife, …
To W. T. Thiselton-Dyer 12 November [1881]
Summary
Progress of his and Frank Darwin’s work; "all natural science seems now to depend on section-cutting".
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | William Turner Thiselton-Dyer |
| Date: | 12 Nov [1881] |
| Classmark: | Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (Thiselton-Dyer, W. T., Letters from Charles Darwin 1873–81: ff. 228–9) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-13480 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … wife, Harriet Anne Thiselton-Dyer ( letter from J. D. Hooker, [23 October 1881] ). Grape phylloxera ( Daktulosphaira vitifoliae ) is a small sap-sucking insect native to North America; it was accidentally introduced in the mid nineteenth century to Europe, where it devastated grapevines. For CD’s interest in phylloxera, see Correspondence vol. 28, letter to James Caird, 24 March 1880 , enclosure and n. 6. Joseph Dalton Hooker had suggested that Francis Darwin …
| letter | (15) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (10) |
| Darwin, Francis | (1) |
| Darwin, W. E. | (1) |
| Gray, Asa | (1) |
| Huxley, T. H. | (1) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (5) |
| Darwin, Francis | (3) |
| Darwin, W. E. | (2) |
| Galton, Francis | (1) |
| Lankester, E. R. | (1) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (15) |
| Darwin, Francis | (4) |
| Darwin, W. E. | (3) |
| Galton, Francis | (1) |
| Gray, Asa | (1) |
