From Charles Lyell 1–2 May 1856
Summary
Urges CD to publish his theory with small part of data.
Corrects names of land shells on list of shells picked up at Down.
Discusses transport of Ancylus from one river-bed to another by water-beetle.
"I hear that when you & Hooker & Huxley & Wollaston got together you made light of all Species & grew more & more unorthodox."
Mentions discussion of old Atlantis by Oswald Heer.
Comments on Helix and Nanina.
Mentions beetle discovered with small bag of eggs of water-spider under wing.
Madeira evidence favours single species birth-place theory.
| Author: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 1–2 May 1856 |
| Classmark: | DAR 205.3: 282 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1862 |
To S. P. Woodward [after 4 June 1856]
Summary
Queries from CD on the distribution of molluscan genera referring to SPW’s Manual of the Mollusca [pt 3 (1856)], with SPW’s answers.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Samuel Pickworth Woodward |
| Date: | [after 4 June 1856] |
| Classmark: | DAR 72: 59–61 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1890 |
From Charles Lyell 17 June 1856
Summary
CD forgets an author [CD himself in Coral reefs] "who, by means of atolls, contrived to submerge archipelagoes (or continents?), the mountains of which must originally have differed from each other in height 8,000 (or 10,000?) feet".
CL begins to think that all continents and oceans are chiefly post-Eocene, but he admits that it is questionable how far one is at liberty to call up continents "to convey a Helix from the United States to Europe in Miocene or Pliocene periods".
Will CD explain why the land and marine shells of Porto Santo and Madeira differ while the plants so nearly agree?
| Author: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 17 June 1856 |
| Classmark: | DAR 146: 475 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1905 |
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 J. D. Hooker 5 July [1856]
Summary
Troubled by JDH’s connection between Antarctic island flora and Fuegia, which CD sees as part of a general relation to southern circumpolar flora. Encloses list [not found] of plants from Tristan d’Acunha.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 5 July [1856] |
| Classmark: | DAR 114: 167 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1919 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … linked South America, Australia, some Pacific islands, and the Antarctic islands with New …
From J. D. Hooker [26 June or 3 July 1856]
Summary
Can no longer make out story of NW. American plants; consulting Asa Gray.
Questionable validity of seed-salting experiments.
Aristolochia and Viscum seem to shed pollen before flower opens.
Ray Society should only do translations.
Thomas Thomson in India has rediscovered Aldrovanda, a rare relative of Drosera.
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | [26 June or 3 July] 1856 |
| Classmark: | DAR 104: 197 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1911 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … Am. advance much further North on the two Pacific coasts than they do in the interior of …
To Charles Lyell 16 [June 1856]
Summary
Condemns theory of Edward Forbes and others that many islands were formerly connected to South America by now submerged continents.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
| Date: | 16 [June 1856] |
| Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.131) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1902 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … extend a continent to every island in the Pacific & Atlantic oceans! And all this within …
From J. D. Hooker 9 November 1856
Summary
JDH approves MS section on geographical distribution.
Never felt so shaky about species before.
His objections to some mechanisms of distribution that CD proposes.
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 9 Nov 1856 |
| Classmark: | DAR 100: 105–10 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1983 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … west passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific; performed in the years 1824–25, in His …
To J. D. Hooker 11 May [1856]
Summary
CD is unsure about JDH’s recommendation that he publish a separate "Preliminary Essay". It is unphilosophical to publish without full details.
CD will work for Huxley’s admission to Athenaeum.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 11 May [1856] |
| Classmark: | DAR 114: 162 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1874 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … areas of elevation and subsidence in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, as deduced from the …
To Syms Covington 9 March 1856
Summary
Thanks SC for his interesting account of the state of the colony. SC was wise to settle there where his sons have much better prospects.
Has finished his book on barnacles [1854]. Royal Medal awarded him chiefly for this work.
Asks SC whether he has observed any odd imported breeds of poultry, for his work on variation of species.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Syms Covington |
| Date: | 9 Mar 1856 |
| Classmark: | Sydney Mail, 9 August 1884, p. 255 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1840 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … ducks, imported from China, or Indian, or Pacific islands? If so, you could not make me a …
To J. D. Hooker 17–18 [June 1856]
Summary
Comments on Huxley–Falconer dispute [see "On the method of palaeontology", Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 18 (1856): 43–54].
Wollaston’s On the variation of species [1856].
Has exploded to Lyell against the extension of continents.
Plants common to Europe and NW. America as result of temperate climate.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 17–18 [June 1856] |
| Classmark: | DAR 114: 170 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1904 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … not seem to doubt that every island in Pacific & Atlantic are the remains of continents, …
From H. C. Watson 20 June 1856
Summary
Conveys [? J. T. I. Boswell-]Syme’s opinion of variability of agrarian weeds and ranges of species common to U. S. and W. Europe. The Hispano-Hibernian connection.
| Author: | Hewett Cottrell Watson |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 20 June 1856 |
| Classmark: | DAR 181: 34 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1907 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … two coasts of the upper part of the N. Pacific, & intervening islands, to allow of the …
From J. D. Dana 8 September 1856
Summary
Responds to CD’s query about the blind fauna of Mammoth Cave.
Gives information from L. Agassiz. Distribution of Crustacea, especially along southern coastlines.
| Author: | James Dwight Dana |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 8 Sept 1856 |
| Classmark: | DAR 205.3: 269 (Letters), DAR 162: 38 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1951 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … America, and also in the N. Atlantic & N. Pacific. There are 2 known northern species, & …
| letter | (13) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (7) |
| Hooker, J. D. | (2) |
| Lyell, Charles | (2) |
| Dana, J. D. | (1) |
| Watson, H. C. | (1) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (6) |
| Hooker, J. D. | (3) |
| Lyell, Charles | (2) |
| Covington, Syms | (1) |
| Woodward, S. P. | (1) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (13) |
| Hooker, J. D. | (5) |
| Lyell, Charles | (4) |
| Covington, Syms | (1) |
| Dana, J. D. | (1) |
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 – …
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 …
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 …
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 …
