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Darwin Correspondence Project

To Symington Grieve   22 March 1882

Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | (Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.)

March 22d 1882

Dear Sir

The subject of your Essay would, I think, be well worth pursuing.1 I have long known that stones were transported by floating Fuci; but I cannot remember my authority.—2 Perhaps cases are given by Lyell.—3 It is, however, quite new to me that stones are thus dragged along the bottom leaving a trail behind them.

I remain Dear Sir | Yours faithfuly | Ch. Darwin

Footnotes

1
Grieve’s letter has not been found. The essay was ‘Note on the physical effects produced by the floating power of some of the family Fucaceæ observed at the strand between Colonsay and Oransay, 25 August 1880’ (Grieve 1881).
2
Fucus is a genus of brown algae, formerly in the kingdom Plantae but now in the kingdom Chromista. In the nineteenth century the term was also used more generally to refer to seaweed and kelp. In Journal of researches, pp. 303–5, CD had discussed what he termed ‘kelp or Fucus giganteus of Solander’, which could support rocks. Daniel Solander and Joseph Banks had calculated the length of the kelp in a bay within Cape St Vincent, Tierra del Fuego, to be around 126 feet (see Banks 1896, p. 48). The alga is now classified as Macrocystis pyrifera (giant kelp).
3
No reference to stones being transported on seaweed has been found in the works of Charles Lyell.

Bibliography

Banks, Joseph. 1896. Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks Bart., K.B., P.R.S. during Captain Cook’s first voyage in H.M.S. Endeavour in 1768–71 to Terra del Fuego, Otahite, New Zealand, Australia, the Dutch East Indies, etc. London and New York: Macmillan and Co.

Grieve, Symington. 1881. Note on the physical effects produced by the floating power of some of the family Fucaceæ observed at the strand between Colonsay and Oransay, 25 August 1880. [Read 10 March 1881.] Transactions and Proceedings of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh 14 (1879–83): lviii–lxii.

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.

Summary

Subject of SG’s essay would be well worth pursuing. CD has long known that stones were transported by floating Fuci, but not that they were dragged along the sea-bottom.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-13733
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
Symington Grieve
Sent from
Down
Source of text
Scotsman, 18 January 1929, p. 12
Physical description
ALS 1p

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 13733,” accessed on 19 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-13733.xml

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