To Charles Lyell 7 February [1866]1
Down
Feb 7.
My dear Lyell
I am very much obliged for your note & the extract which have interested me extremely.2 I cannot disbelieve for a moment Agassiz on Glacial action after all his experience, as you say, & after that capital book with plates which he early published;3 as for his inferences & reasoning on the valley of the Amazon that is quite another question; nor can he have seen all the regions to which Mrs A. alludes.4
Her letter is not very clear to me & I do not understand what she means by “to a height of more than 3000 ft”.5 There are no erratic boulders (to which I particularly attended) in the low country round Rio. It is possible or even probable that this area may have subsided; for I cd detect no evidence of elevation or any tertiary formations or volcanic action.6
The Organ Mts. are from 6000 to 7000 ft in height & I am only a little surprized at their bearing the marks of glacial action.7 For some temperate genera of plants viz Vaccineum, Andromeda, Gaultheria, Hypericum, Drosera, Habenaria, inhabit these Mts. & I look at this almost as good evidence of a cold period as Glacial action.8 That there are not more temperate plants can be accounted for by the isolated position of these Mountains.
There are no erratic boulders on the Pacific coast North of Chiloe & but few glaciers in the Cordillera; but it by no means follows I think that there may not have been formerly gigantic glaciers on the Eastern & more humid side.9
In the 3rd Ed. of the Origin p 403, you will find a brief allusion, on authority of Mr D. Forbes, on the former much lower extension of glaciers in the equatorial Cordillera.10 Pray also look at p 407 at what I say on the nature of Tropical vegetation (which I could now much improve) during the glacial period.11 I feel a strong conviction that soon every one will believe that the whole world was cooler during the glacial period.12
Remember Hooker’s wonderful case recently discovered of the identity of so many temperate plants on the summit of Fernando Po & on the Mts. of Abyssynia:13 I look at as certain that these plants crossed the whole of Africa from E. to W. during this same period. I wish I had published a long chapter written in full & almost ready for the press on this subject which I wrote ten years ago.14 It was impossible in the Origin to give a fair abstract.15
My health is considerably improved, so that I am able to work nearly 2 hours a day & so make some little progress with my everlasting book on domestic varieties.16
You will have heard of my sister Catherine’s easy death last Friday morning.17 She suffered much, & we all look at her death as a blessing for there was much fear of prolonged & greater suffering. We are uneasy about Susan, but she has hitherto borne it better than we cd have hoped.18
Emma joins me in love to Lady Lyell19 & believe me dear Lyell | yours affectionately | Charles Darwin
Remember glacial action of Lebanon, when you speak of no glacial action in S. & on Himalaya & in S.E. Australia.—20
P.S. I have been very glad to see Sir C. Bunbury’s letter.21 If the genera which I name from Gardner are not considered by him, as usually temperate forms, I am of course silenced;22 but Hooker looked over the M.S chapter some ten years ago & did not score out my remarks on them,23 & he is generally ready enough to pitch into my ignorance, & snub me as I often deserve.— My wonder was how any, even so few, temperate forms reached the mountains of Brazil; & I supposed they travelled by the rather high land & ranges (name forgotten) which stretch from the Cordillera towards Brazil— Cordillera genera of Plants have, also, somehow reached the Silla of Caraccas.24
When I think of the vegetation of N. Zealand & W. coast of S. America, where glaciers now descend to, or very near, to the sea, I feel it rash to conclude that all Tropical forms wd be destroyed by a considerably cooler period under the Equator.—25
Footnotes
Bibliography
Agassiz, Louis. 1839. Remarks on glaciers. Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal 27: 383–90.
Agassiz, Louis. 1840c. Études sur les glaciers. Neuchâtel: Jent and Gassmann.
Agassiz, Louis. 1866b. Aperçu du cours de l’Amazone. Bulletin de la Société de Géographie 12: 433–57.
Agassiz, Louis and Agassiz, Elizabeth. 1868. A journey in Brazil. Boston: Ticknor and Fields.
Columbia gazetteer of the world: The Columbia gazetteer of the world. Edited by Saul B. Cohen. 3 vols. New York: Columbia University Press. 1998.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Fleming, James Rodger. 1998. Charles Lyell and climatic change: speculation and certainty. In Lyell: the past is the key to the present, edited by Derek J. Blundell and Andrew C. Scott. London: Geological Society.
Gardner, George. 1846b. The vegetation of the Organ mountains of Brazil. Journal of the Horticultural Society of London 1: 273–86.
Haast, John Francis Julius von. 1864f. Glacial deposits in New Zealand. Natural History Review n.s. 4: 474–6.
Hartt, Charles Frederick. 1870. Thayer Expedition: scientific results of a journey in Brazil by Louis Agassiz and his travelling companions: geology and physical geography of Brazil. Boston, Mass.: Fields, Osgood, & Co.
Hooker, Joseph Dalton. 1861b. On the vegetation of Clarence Peak, Fernando Po; with descriptions of the plants collected by Mr Gustav Mann on the higher parts of that mountain. [Read 7 March 1861.] Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society (Botany) 6 (1862): 1–23.
Hooker, Joseph Dalton. 1862a. On the cedars of Lebanon, Taurus, Algeria, and India. Natural History Review n.s. 2: 11–18.
Humboldt, Alexander von and Bonpland, Aimé Jacques Alexandre. 1822. Personal narrative of travels to the equinoctial regions of the new continent, during the years 1799–1804. Volume 3. Translated by Helen Maria Williams. 2d edition. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, & Brown.
Imbrie, John and Imbrie, Katherine Palmer. 1979. Ice Ages: solving the mystery. London and Basingstoke: Macmillan Press.
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.
Lyell, Charles. 1867–8. Principles of geology or the modern changes of the earth and its inhabitants considered as illustrative of geology. 10th edition. 2 vols. London: John Murray.
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.
Natural selection: Charles Darwin’s Natural selection: being the second part of his big species book written from 1856 to 1858. Edited by R. C. Stauffer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1975.
Origin 3d ed.: On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. 3d edition, with additions and corrections. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1861.
Origin 4th ed.: On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. 4th edition, with additions and corrections. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1866.
Origin 5th ed.: On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. 5th edition, with additions and corrections. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1869.
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.
Peckham, Morse, ed. 1959. The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: a variorum text. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Variation: The variation of animals and plants under domestication. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1868.
Summary
Discussion of Mrs Agassiz’s letter [to Mary Lyell, forwarded to CD] regarding S. American glacial action,
with comments on Bunbury’s letter on temperate plants.
Refers to opinions of Agassiz, David Forbes, Hooker, and CD on glacial period and glaciers.
Wishes he had published a long chapter on glacial period [Natural selection, pp. 535–66] written ten years ago.
Tells of death of his sister, Catherine, and other family matters.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-4999
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.312)
- Physical description
- LS(A) 10pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4999,” accessed on 26 September 2022, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4999.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 14