To J. D. Hooker 26[–7] March [1864]1
Down Bromley Kent
Mar 26
My dear Hooker
Since receiving your pleasant letter of Feb. 9. I have daily been wishing to scribble to you in pencil, but have been unable from having had a good deal more sickness.2 We have had Dr Jenner down to see me, who feels sure there is no organic mischief & thinks I shall some day get over the sickness.3 The last lot of plants are doing well & I am very much obliged for them.4 They are a great amusemt to me & I have one or 2 of them in my bedroom at a time; not that the subject is worth all the trouble I give it.
You once said that you thot Veitch was a mere tradesman.5 Lately I ordered between 2 & 3£ worth of climbing plants from him. I told him that they were for observation as I begged him to choose growing plants. In answer he sent me more than I ordered & absolutely declined any payment, was not this very handsome, tho’ in one sense rather a bore?6 I am so magnificent that I am thinking of building a large greenhouse & turning the present green house into a cool Stove.7 Do look how Nepenthes climbs? to which you alluded—8 You did not answer me about Vanilla but I suppose it climbs by rootlets & if so I do not care—9
Sunday morning—
Hurrah! I have been 52 hours without vomiting!!10 I have had a capital letter from John Scott, but I grieve to hear that he has left Bot. Garden & says nothing about the cause or the future.11 I hope he has not quarrelled.— Pray tell me whether any steps have been taken about his Associateship. Linn: Socy.12 I earnestly hope it will not be forgotten— Have you settled for the Duke of Northd. Man?13 It must have been a fearful responsibility.—
Àpropos to what Frankland quotes I shd be very much obliged if you wd ask Tyndall when you next see him whether he supposes if only the present amount of snow fell on the Alps, that the climate of Europe fell to that of Greenland, whether the glaciers wd not greatly advance?14 I see the importance of the fall of snow, but does not Frankland exaggerate its importance. F. ought to look into my journal for the extraordinary flexure in the snow line in S. Chile.15 What superb work Tyndall seems to be doing as I see in the Reader16 Blessings on the Ed. he gives me a weekly treat.17
What a pity it is that Huxley & Falconer shd make their attacks & squabbles so public!18 Jukes has risen greatly in my opinion from the matter & more especially from the spirit of his letter.19
I have 1 or 2 little questions Is E. Blyth settled in Dublin?20 Is Owen’s lecture at Exeter Hall published?21
Please tell me to what order Siphomeris lingua belongs as I can nowhere find it?22 I enclose A. Gray’s letter tho’ remarkable for nothing but its niceness23
yours affectionately | Ch Darwin | (a forgery—)24
82 plants have now come up from the earth round the partridge’s leg25
Footnotes
Bibliography
Blyth, Edward. 1875. Catalogue of mammals and birds of Burma. With a memoir [by A. Grote] and portrait of the author. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal n.s. 43 (1874), pt 2, extra number (1875).
Brandon-Jones, Christine. 1997. Edward Blyth, Charles Darwin, and the animal trade in nineteenth-century India and Britain. Journal of the History of Biology 30: 145–78.
Calendar: A calendar of the correspondence of Charles Darwin, 1821–1882. With supplement. 2d edition. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1994.
‘Climbing plants’: On the movements and habits of climbing plants. By Charles Darwin. [Read 2 February 1865.] Journal of the Linnean Society (Botany) 9 (1867): 1–118.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Desmond, Ray. 1994. Dictionary of British and Irish botanists and horticulturists including plant collectors, flower painters and garden designers. New edition, revised with the assistance of Christine Ellwood. London: Taylor & Francis and the Natural History Museum. Bristol, Pa.: Taylor & Francis.
Herbert, Sandra. 1999. An 1830s view from outside Switzerland: Charles Darwin on the ‘beryl blue’ glaciers of Tierra del Fuego. Eclogae Geologicae Helvetiae 92: 339–46.
Journal of researches: Journal of researches into the geology and natural history of the various countries visited by HMS Beagle, under the command of Captain FitzRoy, RN, from 1832 to 1836. By Charles Darwin. London: Henry Colburn. 1839.
Lindley, John. 1853. The vegetable kingdom; or, the structure, classification, and uses of plants, illustrated upon the natural system. 3d edition with corrections and additional genera. London: Bradbury & Evans.
Loudon, John Claudius. 1841. An encyclopædia of plants. London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longmans.
Marginalia: Charles Darwin’s marginalia. Edited by Mario A. Di Gregorio with the assistance of Nicholas W. Gill. Vol. 1. New York and London: Garland Publishing. 1990.
Newton, Alfred. 1863. On an illustration of the manner in which birds may occasionally aid in the dispersion of seeds. [Read 21 April 1863.] Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London (1863): 127–9.
North, John S. 1997. The Waterloo directory of English newspapers and periodicals, 1800–1900. 10 vols. Waterloo, Ontario: North Waterloo Academic Press.
Orchids: On the various contrivances by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised by insects, and on the good effects of intercrossing. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1862.
Origin: On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1859.
Owen, Richard. 1864. Instances of the power of God as manifested in his animal creation. In Lectures delivered before the Young Men’s Christian Association, in Exeter Hall, from November, 1863, to February, 1864. London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co.
Rupke, Nicolaas A. 1994. Richard Owen, Victorian naturalist. New Haven, Conn., and London: Yale University Press.
Summary
John Scott has left Edinburgh Botanic Garden.
Asks JDH to ask Tyndall whether Frankland exaggerates the effect of snowfall on advance of European glaciers.
Huxley and Falconer squabble too much in public.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-4436
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Joseph Dalton Hooker
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- DAR 115: 225
- Physical description
- L(S)(A) 8pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4436,” accessed on 26 September 2022, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4436.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 12