From G. H. Darwin 25 April 1876
Trin. Coll
Tuesd. Ap 25. 76
My dear Father,
I hope poor Henrietta will have got well eno’ to allow of your coming up to London & after Mother’s letter of yesterday I write to London on spec’. Poor old mother too seems to have been baddish by what she says, but I hope she’s mended again now.1 There’s no external news that I know of, but I’m bursting with delight at my work of the last few days. I’ve been thinking day & night over Evans’ suggested problem about the alteration in the axis of the earth.2 After long thought I have got thro’ the hardest part & I think I see exactly what is the mathematical problem involved. What especially delights me is that I feel almost sure now that such an upheaval as he suggests wd. displace the axis, but at the same time I think it wd be a very slight displact. But if my argument is right there is no reason (except as to probabilities of upheavals taking place in the right places & in sufficient amount) why the pole shd.’nt be moved ever so much, & that without the upheavals being piled one on the top of the other, that is to say I conceive that the displaced pole would remain the pole even tho’ the upheaved part were gradually worn away by rivers & sea I have got a good deal of the mathematics down on paper, but there will be some terrible arithmetic to be done.
Altho’ the pole may be displaced in the Earth I don’t yet see what will be the effect on the climate of the earth i.e whether the arctic circle will tend to meet or recede from the tropics I see however how to attack this question but perhaps the mathcs. will stump me When I’ve got all of it down on paper—wh. may be some time—I think I shall go & talk to Adams about it, before I grind the arithmetic,—for wh. I hope I shall be able to employ calculators.3
I’m rather counting my chickens before they’re hatched, but I’m regular bursting with ideas on the subject & am at present much elated tho’ doubtless presently I shall get down in the mouth. I thought I never shd be able to master the mechanics of it, when the fertilising idea suddenly came into my head yesterday afternoon There now I’ve let off a little steam, tho’ I confess I can hardly keep my hands & head off the subject.
I’ve not thrown up the pitch by any means but most of my work at that is purely mechanical & consists of getting my hands frightfully dirty.4 I don’t think I’m working too hard just now & I’ll try not to—but it wont be easy if all goes on well.
I’m sorry to say my liver is going a little wrong again, because the cold in my head has stopped but still I’m better than Ive been for many months & play tennis very vigorously
Your affec. son | G H Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Evans, John. 1876. The anniversary address of the president. [Read 18 February 1876.] Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London 32, Proceedings, pp. 53–121.
Maas, Harro. 2005. William Stanley Jevons and the making of modern economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Summary
Is elated by his work on the alteration in the earth’s axis and the displacement of the poles. [See 10689.]
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-10472
- From
- George Howard Darwin
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Trinity College, Cambridge
- Source of text
- DAR 210.2: 51
- Physical description
- ALS 7pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 10472,” accessed on 26 September 2022, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-10472.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 24