From Heinrich Simon 10 December 1881
Summary
Remarks on the sinking of piles of cannonballs in old forts; presumably a consequence of earthworm activity.
| Author: | Gustav Heinrich Victor Amandus (Heinrich) (Henry) Simon |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 10 Dec 1881 |
| Classmark: | DAR 177: 165 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-13546 |
To John Lort Stokes [November–December 1845]
Summary
Comments on book by George Grey [Journals of two expeditions of discovery in north-west and Western Australia (1841)]. "The whole expedition was that of a set of School Boys".
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | John Lort Stokes |
| Date: | [Nov–Dec 1845] |
| Classmark: | DAR 144: 121b |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-940 |
To W. W. Baxter 11 March 1882
Summary
Orders morphia pills in case of severe pain, which he hopes may never occur.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | William Walmisley Baxter |
| Date: | 11 Mar 1882 |
| Classmark: | Bromley Historic Collections, Bromley Central Library (Baxter Collection, 1136/1) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-13724 |
From Hugh Falconer 24 August [1863]
Summary
Sends information about Pliocene fauna of the "Forest Bed" of the Norfolk coast.
A genus described as extinct by Owen is found by E. A. I. H. Lartet to exist in Russia.
Edouard Suess attributes to Oswald Heer and HF the generalisation "That the time during which a new species is formed, is (as a rule) very short in comparison with the time during which it persistently presents the same peculiar specific characters". [Edouard Suess, "Über die Verschiedenheit und die Aufeinanderfolge der tertiären Landfaunen in der Niederung von Wien", Sitzungsberichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien (Math-naturw. Klasse) 47 (1863): 306–31.] [See 4277.]
| Author: | Hugh Falconer |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 24 Aug [1863] |
| Classmark: | DAR 164: 16 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4273A |
From W. H. Dallinger 10 January 1876
Summary
Has confirmed CD’s observations on Drosera.
Asks whether CD agrees that it is "no longer a fact" that the bladders of Utricularia vulgaris enable the plant to become lighter for fecundation and heavier when that act is accomplished. Plans to undertake further observations, under very high-powered microscopes, of mechanism of digestion.
| Author: | William Henry Dallinger |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 10 Jan 1876 |
| Classmark: | DAR 162: 33 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10352 |
From George Grey 10 May 1846
Summary
Returns letter from CD to J. L. Stokes [see 940 and 1030].
| Author: | George Grey |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 10 May 1846 |
| Classmark: | DAR 144: 121c |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-979 |
From Charles Lyell 4 October 1859
Summary
Response to Origin. Praise for summary of chapter 10 and chapter 11.
The dissimilarity of African and American species is ‘necessary result of “Creation” adapting new species to the pre-existing ones. Granting this unknown & if you please miraculous power acting’.
C. T. Gaudin writes of Oswald Heer’s finding many species common between Miocene floras of Iceland and Switzerland. Interesting for CD’s migration theory.
| Author: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 4 Oct 1859 |
| Classmark: | DAR 170: 81; The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Notebook 241, pp. 75–90) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3132 |
Matches: 2 hits
- … 10 and chapter 11. The dissimilarity of African and American species is ‘necessary result of “Creation” adapting new species to the pre-existing ones. Granting this unknown & …
- … 10 th Ch is very striking. Ch. XI I have been always in the habit of considering the dis
〈 si〉 milarity of African & American species as the necessary resu〈 lt〉 of “Creation” adapting new species to the preexisting ones— Granting this unknown & …
To J. D. Dana 27 September [1853]
Summary
Admires JDD’s work on Crustacea, corals, and geology.
Commends young John Lubbock to his attention. Hopes JDD can give him encouragement; if he can resist his "great wealth, business, and rank, he may do good work in Natural History".
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | James Dwight Dana |
| Date: | 27 Sept [1853] |
| Classmark: | Yale University Library: Manuscripts and Archives (Dana Family Papers (MS 164) Series 1, Box 2, folder 43) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1533 |
From Fritz Müller 15 June 1869
Summary
FM much gratified by the appearance of Für Darwin translation.
Discusses dimorphism in Rubiaceae.
| Author: | Johann Friedrich Theodor (Fritz) Müller |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 15 June 1869 |
| Classmark: | DAR 110: B115; Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (Directors’ Correspondence 215/175) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-6783 |
From J. D. Hooker 13 October 1848
Summary
Hugh Falconer’s misbehaviour.
Waiting out rains at Brian Hodgson’s.
Will make botanical transverse section of Himalayas from plains to snow.
Arrangements to pass Sikkim Rajah’s territory.
No evidence of glacial or diluvial action in sub-Himalayan mountains. No evidence of detrital coal formation.
Hodgson’s replies to CD on introduced species and hybrids.
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 13 Oct 1848 |
| Classmark: | Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (India letters 1847–51: 112–14 JDH/1/10) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1203 |
From James Geikie 20 December 1880
Summary
Discusses Prehistoric Europe; establishing the existence of interglacial periods; iceberg vs glacier transport of erratic boulders.
| Author: | James Murdoch (James) Geikie |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 20 Dec 1880 |
| Classmark: | DAR 165: 32 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-12929 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … 10. The section is exposed for some 400 mètres—so that there is no doubt about the matter. M r . Mackintosh’s paper I read with much interest, but without being convinced that any of his erratics have been floated by sea-ice. The “intercrossings” of boulders upon which he rests his belief, are not unknown …
From Charles Lyell [after 3 October 1860]
Summary
CD would have carried the public more if he had explained adaptations by multiple causes, some unknown and some well known, i.e., natural selection.
Discusses Hooker’s views of extinction on St Helena.
Work on antiquity of man suspended.
Stopped by 11th edition of Principles of geology [1872].
| Author: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | [after 3 Oct 1860] |
| Classmark: | DAR 205.9: 397 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2937 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … unknown giving rise to variation & even occasionally to the great miracle & mystery of mysteries progression & one well known namely Natural Selection. ever affectly ys | Cha Lyell My work on antiquity of Man is entirely suspended tho‘ materials have accumulated but as new Ed n . of the Manual has stopped it so may now new or 10 …
To W. D. Fox 6 February [1849]
Summary
His memory of his recently deceased father is a treasure to him.
Thanks WDF for information on the water-cure. Dislikes the thought of it.
Reports results of his experiments with tied-up fruit-trees.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | William Darwin Fox |
| Date: | 6 Feb [1849] |
| Classmark: | Christ’s College Library, Cambridge (MS 53 Fox 71) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1222 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … 10 t h’. In January 1849 he began to keep a health diary in which he made meticulous daily entries of his symptoms and treatment until 1855; the diary is preserved at Down House. Henry Holland believed gout to be a hereditary disorder in which attacks were brought on by an accumulation of unknown …
To J. D. Hooker 7 August [1869]
Summary
Replies to JDH on Hallett; doubts that already improved varieties do not vary in other respects.
The North British Review article [see 6841] is worth reading "scientifically"; it made CD feel small.
Awaits JDH’s decision on affinities of Drosophyllum and Drosera.
Is curious to see proportion of males to females in recent census in India.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 7 Aug [1869] |
| Classmark: | DAR 94: 144–8 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-6855 |
From William Yarrell 29 July 1845
Summary
Answers CD’s queries about the number and distribution of species in certain fish genera.
| Author: | William Yarrell |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 29 July 1845 |
| Classmark: | DAR 183: 1 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-898 |
From George Rolleston 29 December 1876
Summary
Studying anatomy of the Irish pig.
Emil Bessels’ paper is in Archiv für Anthropologie 8 (1875): 107. He connects a band of poor Eskimos encountered at Smith’s Sound with glacial man.
| Author: | George Rolleston |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 29 Dec 1876 |
| Classmark: | DAR 176: 213 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10737 |
Matches: 1 hit
From Ernst Krause 1 September 1879
Summary
Acquaintances say principal contents of Seward book should be recounted in German edition of Erasmus Darwin.
Will CD check MS for errors?
| Author: | Ernst Ludwig (Ernst) Krause |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 1 Sept 1879 |
| Classmark: | DAR 92: B37–8 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-12208 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … 10. II 1.9.79. Most esteemed Sir! Various persons with whom I discussed the biography of Dr Erasmus Darwin have all confirmed me in the view that whatever the circumstances of the English edition, for the German edition it would be by all means advisable to recapitulate the main points of the Seward book and the other reports. For since in our parts these details are not merely unknown, …
From J. D. Hooker [6 December 1864]
Summary
Sabine’s address, printed in the Reader [4 (1864): 708–9], is good on the whole. Sends Huxley’s account of the row.
Praises John Ruskin’s eloquent reply to Jukes.
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | [6 Dec 1864] |
| Classmark: | DAR 101: 262–3 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4708 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … 10 December [1864] . See letter to J. D. Hooker, 4 December [1864] . Hooker was preparing an account of the family Cucurbitaceae for Genera plantarum (Bentham and Hooker 1862 –83, 1: 816–41). In this work, Hooker gave the native country of Peponopsis as America, but added that the exact locality was thus far unknown ( …
From C. S. Bate 7 April 1868
Summary
On dentition of moles. On double teeth [see Variation 2: 391].
Difference in size of male and female Crustacea.
| Author: | Charles Spence Bate |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 7 Apr 1868 |
| Classmark: | DAR 82: A67–8 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-6101 |
Matches: 1 hit
| Darwin, C. R. | (8) |
| Hooker, J. D. | (4) |
| Lyell, Charles | (2) |
| Bate, C. S. | (1) |
| Crüger, Hermann | (1) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (18) |
| Hooker, J. D. | (2) |
| Baxter, W. W. | (1) |
| Dana, J. D. | (1) |
| Darwin, S. E. | (1) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (26) |
| Hooker, J. D. | (6) |
| Lyell, Charles | (2) |
| Bate, C. S. | (1) |
| Baxter, W. W. | (1) |
emotion in Commentary
Darwin in letters, 1868: Studying sex
Summary
The quantity of Darwin’s correspondence increased dramatically in 1868 due largely to his ever-widening research on human evolution and sexual selection.Darwin’s theory of sexual selection as applied to human descent led him to investigate aspects of the…
Matches: 1 hits
- … On 6 March 1868, Darwin wrote to the entomologist and accountant John Jenner Weir, ‘If …
