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From T. M. Coan   14 February 1874

Summary

On the declining population of the Hawaiian Islands [see Descent (1875), pp. 186–7, 187–8 n. 43].

Author:  Titus Munson Coan
Addressee:  Charles Robert Darwin
Date:  14 Feb 1874
Classmark:  DAR 69: A11, DAR 90: 40–3
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-9290

Matches: 4 hits

  • … Society. [Bates, George Washington. ] 1854. Sandwich Island notes. By a Häolé. New York: …
  • … Bishop 1838 . Coan refers to [Bates] 1854 . Häolé : white person, foreigner (Hawaiian). …
  • … in original ms. Coan refers to [Bates] 1854  and Wyllie [1848] . CD cited Coan for this …
  • … notes by a Häolé, (G.  W.  Bates), N.Y.  1854, has an intelligent estimate of past & …

From Herbert Spencer   11 November 1874

Summary

Wishes to know where, in his works, CD refers to some particular behaviour in dogs.

Mentions the sensitivity of cirripedes to passing shadows.

Author:  Herbert Spencer
Addressee:  Charles Robert Darwin
Date:  11 Nov 1874
Classmark:  DAR 177: 233
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-9716

Matches: 3 hits

  • … Ray Society. 1851. Living Cirripedia (1854): A monograph of the sub-class Cirripedia, with …
  • … pp.  51 and 242, and Living Cirripedia (1854) , p.  94, CD gave instances of cirripedes …
  • … By Charles Darwin. London: Ray Society. 1854. Spencer, Herbert. 1876–96. The principles of …

From Eugène Desmarest   27 February 1874

Summary

CD has been elected an Honorary Member of the Society.

Author:  Eugène Desmarest
Addressee:  Charles Robert Darwin
Date:  27 Feb 1874
Classmark:  DAR 162: 172
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-9320

Matches: 2 hits

  • … Desmarest may refer to CD’s work on barnacles ( Living Cirripedia (1851) , (1854); Fossil …
  • … Cirripedia (1851) , (1854)). CD did not publish a work devoted to insects alone. The …

From W. E. Darwin   [19? July 1874]

Summary

WED encloses a letter from H. M. Wilkinson about Utricularia and sundew.

H. M. Wilkinson has examined bladders of Utricularia; doubts that they absorb or digest insects.

H. M. Wilkinson describes dragonfly trapped by sundew [Drosera].

Author:  William Erasmus Darwin
Addressee:  Charles Robert Darwin
Date:  [19? July 1874]
Classmark:  Cornford Family Papers (DAR 275: 53); DAR 58.1: 135–6
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-9554

Matches: 2 hits

  • … London: John Murray. 1875. Pratt, Anne. [1854. ] The flowering plants and ferns of Great …
  • … plants and ferns of Great Britain ( Pratt [1854] , 4: 215–16). The round-leaved or common …

From J. M. Grandclément   [May 1874]

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Summary

He was chagrined to read in Descent CD’s statement that smallpox vaccine has saved thousands of lives. He has found no scientific reason to believe in the prophylactic effect of the vaccine. In epidemic of 1870–1, smallpox killed more vaccinated persons than were killed by cholera, against which there is no vaccine, in 1853–4. Cites the difficulties in arriving at a conclusive proof of vaccine’s effectiveness.

Author:  Joseph Marie Grandclément
Addressee:  Charles Robert Darwin
Date:  [May 1874]
Classmark:  DAR 165: 87
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-9436

Matches: 2 hits

  • … aucune vaccine , n’en a tués en 1853 et 1854. On objecte que le plus grand nombre des …
  • … which no vaccine is employed, in 1853 and 1854. It will be objected that the greatest …

From J. D. Hooker   [29 August 1874]

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Summary

Lady Dorothy Nevill is CD’s best chance for Dionaea.

Reports on Belfast meeting of BAAS. Lubbock’s lecture went off admirably. Huxley’s was the magnum opus.

Encloses letter from Mrs Barber on protective coloration of animals.

Author:  Joseph Dalton Hooker
Addressee:  Charles Robert Darwin
Date:  [29 Aug 1874]
Classmark:  DAR 103: 219–20
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-9610

Matches: 1 hit

  • … grasshoppers. See also J.  D.  Hooker 1854 , 1: 37. CD’s annotation is a note for his …

From Alfred Newton   15 March 1874

Summary

Thanks CD for his opinion on egging. Despite the intensity of the practice sufficient eggs always remain to carry on the breed.

Author:  Alfred Newton
Addressee:  Charles Robert Darwin
Date:  15 Mar 1874
Classmark:  DAR 172: 51
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-9364

Matches: 1 hit

  • … Transactions of the Entomological Society of London n.s. 3 (1854–6), Proceedings , p. 76. …

From John Downing   29 January 1874

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Summary

On proportion of sexes in births of cattle; variations in families. Encloses a letter from J. G. Grove on proportions of sexes in animals.

The limitation of inbreeding.

Author:  John Downing
Addressee:  Charles Robert Darwin
Date:  29 Jan 1874
Classmark:  DAR 90: 79–84
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-9259

Matches: 1 hit

  • … different estates. Thomas Barnes had argued in 1854 that the inexperienced breeder should …

From T. L. Brunton   [29] October [1874]

Summary

Forwards a photograph he thought had been lost. Has noticed that the two sides of the face are often asymmetric in portrait busts and statues.

Author:  Thomas Lauder Brunton, 1st baronet
Addressee:  Charles Robert Darwin
Date:  [29] Oct [1874]
Classmark:  DAR 160: 341
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-9701

Matches: 1 hit

  • … Common, Sydenham Hill, south London, in 1854, after the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park in …

From Henry Cecil   9 April 1874

Summary

Has just read Journal of researches and has been charmed out of his anti-Darwinian prejudice.

Author:  Henry Cecil
Addressee:  Charles Robert Darwin
Date:  9 Apr 1874
Classmark:  DAR 161: 128
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-9399

Matches: 1 hit

  • … to myself at Cintra in Portugal (July 1854). We had ascended the Penna to the summit of …
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Darwin in letters, 1851-1855: Death of a daughter

Summary

The letters from these years reveal the main preoccupations of Darwin’s life with a new intensity. The period opens with a family tragedy in the death of Darwin’s oldest and favourite daughter, Anne, and it shows how, weary and mourning his dead child,…

Matches: 5 hits

  • … cirripedes and culminated in  Living Cirripedia  (1854) and  Fossil Cirripedia  (1854), again …
  • … series of letters pertaining to the Royal Society. In April 1854, when his cirripede study was …
  • … indicated by his comment in a letter to Hooker on 29 [May 1854] : ‘Very far from disagreeing with …
  • … Back to species theory In September 1854, as soon as the final proofs of the last barnacle …
  • … do as I wish it Throughout the correspondence of 1854 and 1855, the overwhelming …

Darwin and Down

Summary

Charles and Emma Darwin, with their first two children, settled at Down House in the village of Down (later ‘Downe’) in Kent, as a young family in 1842.   The house came with eighteen acres of land, and a fifteen acre meadow.  The village combined the…

Matches: 1 hits

  • … [24 July 1842] To P. G. King,  21 February 1854 : ‘I live in the country about 16 miles …

Scientific Practice

Summary

Specialism|Experiment|Microscopes|Collecting|Theory Letter writing is often seen as a part of scientific communication, rather than as integral to knowledge making. This section shows how correspondence could help to shape the practice of science, from…

Matches: 3 hits

  • … Letter 1587 — Darwin, C. R. to Huxley, T. H., 2 Sept [1854] Darwin mentions that the second …
  • … of creation in [ Br. & Foreign Med.-Chir. Rev. 13 (1854)], but notes that he himself is …
  • … Letter 1592 — Darwin, C. R. to Huxley, T. H., 13 Sept [1854] Letter 1635 — Darwin, …

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: 23 hits

  • … [Wellesley 1832] Sir. W. Nott’s Life [W. Nott 1854].— [DAR *119: 15v.] From …
  • … de la Boheme [Barrande 1852–1911] must be deeply studied 1854 The Zoologist by E. Newman [ …
  • … [Pepys 1825] (Read).— Sir W. Notts life [W. Nott 1854] read [DAR *128: 177] …
  • … r . Nott & Gliddon: Trübner & Co [J. C. Nott and Gliddon 1854] (read) A Lecture by …
  • … not published but reported fully in Literary Gazette Sept 30 1854 91 Agricult. Journal …
  • … d’un Naturaliste A. de Quatrefages [Quatrefages de Bréau 1854]. (light reading) (??) read …
  • … Domestic animals. 94 Lloyd Scandinavian Adventures 1854 [L. Lloyd 1854]. praised in …
  • … sur les Migration des Vegetaux 4 to  Pamphlet [Godron 1854] (read) Journal of Asiatic Soc. …
  • … specially of central platform of France 8 fr. [Lecoq 1854–8] Read Journal de la Soc. Imp. d …
  • … Sir J. Lubbock. member Ferguson on Poultry [Ferguson 1854], recommended by M r  Brent, but …
  • … D r . Badham “Ancient & Modern Tattle” on Fish [Badham 1854]. M r  Tegetmeier says very …
  • … (read) From Nott & Gliddon [J. C. Nott and Gliddon 1854] Roselini Monumenta [ …
  • … Carboniferous strata, translated in Bull. General [Heer 1854].— Hooker has it.— Very important …
  • … I ought to read Murchinson’s Siluria [Murchison 1854]— I  must  read it. & buy it.— …
  • … W. R. Wilde in Dublin University Magazine early month of 1854 on food of Irish. ( Pig ) [Wilde] …
  • … translated into French by Gaudin—with additions [Heer 1854]. Archives du Museum [ Archives …
  • … Himmalaya [T. Thomson 1852] [DAR 128: 7] 1854 Jan 11 th . Pulsky Red, …
  • … 1848]. March 7 th . Hooker’s Himmalaya [Hooker 1854].— —— 23 Stansbury. Exploration …
  • … July 3 d . Sir B. B. Psychological Essays [Brodie] 1854] —— Duval Histoire du Pommier, …
  • … Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire [I. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire 1854–62] Tome I [DAR 128: 9] …
  • … Williams Missionary in T. del Fuego [Hamilton 1854] March 28 th . Sir G. Stephens Lectures …
  • … Richardson 1784] (poor) [DAR 128: 10] 1854.  Microscopical Journal [ …
  • … 1855. Wollastons Insecta Maderensia [Wollaston 1854] —— Johnston Physical Atlas [A. K. …

Darwin and the Church

Summary

The story of Charles Darwin’s involvement with the church is one that is told far too rarely. It shows another side of the man who is more often remembered for his personal struggles with faith, or for his role in large-scale controversies over the…

Matches: 2 hits

  • … Lubbock, the principal landowner in Down, in a letter of 1854 in which he said, From all I have seen …
  • … [of the Poor Fund]’ (letter to J. W. Lubbock, 28 March [1854] ). Despite their differences, they …

Living and fossil cirripedia

Summary

Darwin published four volumes on barnacles, the crustacean sub-class Cirripedia, between 1851 and 1854, two on living species and two on fossil species. Written for a specialist audience, they are among the most challenging and least read of Darwin’s works…

Matches: 5 hits

  • … on the crustacean sub-class Cirripedia between 1851 and 1854, two on living species and two on …
  • … in manuscript form to the Ray Society at the beginning of 1854 , where it took longer than the ‘ …
  • … to tell his friend Thomas Henry Huxley in early September 1854, ‘ My second volume on the …
  • … Society; the monograph itself was printed in 1854. This volume appears not to have been discussed …
  • … but he wrote to the Palaeontographical Society in February 1854 and the society confirmed that he …

Darwin in letters, 1847-1850: Microscopes and barnacles

Summary

Darwin's study of barnacles, begun in 1844, took him eight years to complete. The correspondence reveals how his interest in a species found during the Beagle voyage developed into an investigation of the comparative anatomy of other cirripedes and…

Matches: 3 hits

  • … sub-class of Crustacea,  Living Cirripedia  (1851, 1854) and  Fossil Cirripedia  (1851, 1854). …
  • … spermatozoa’ attached to the female (Living Cirripedia (1854): 23). Darwin had previously worked out …
  • … from monoecious forms (Living Cirripedia (1851): 214; (1854): 29, 528 n.) and, at another level, to …

Darwin’s study of the Cirripedia

Summary

Darwin’s work on barnacles, conducted between 1846 and 1854, has long posed problems for historians. Coming between his transmutation notebooks and the Origin of species, it has frequently been interpreted as a digression from Darwin’s species work. Yet…

Matches: 13 hits

  • … Darwin’s work on barnacles, conducted between 1846 and 1854, has long posed problems for historians. …
  • … In both volumes of Living Cirripedia (1851 and 1854), Darwin devoted an introductory section to …
  • … was best placed among the Lepadidae ( Living Cirripedia (1854): 527–8).^1^1^    Both …
  • … segments are quite aborted . . . ( Living Cirripedia (1854): 562–3)    Indeed, …
  • … be the most natural arrangement. ( Living Cirripedia (1854): 588)    The fact that the …
  • … with his figure of the mature animal ( Living Cirripedia (1854), Plate XXV).    Throughout …
  • … (1851): 37–8)    In Living Cirripedia (1854), Darwin ventured to suggest the possible …
  • … by a new and anomalous course. ( Living Cirripedia (1854): 151–2)    Crisp (1983) has …
  • … from bisexuality to unisexuality. ( Living Cirripedia (1854): 29)^16^    Darwin’s …
  • … merely varieties (Southward 1983). In Living Cirripedia (1854), Darwin clearly stated the …
  • … be found eminently variable. ( Living Cirripedia (1854): 155)    One of the first …
  • … a very direct and curious manner’ ( Living Cirripedia (1854): 529). Modern systematists place …
  • … nature was demonstrated.’ ( Living Cirripedia (1854): 555). See also Rachootin 1984, pp. 235–6.   …

3.2 Maull and Polyblank photo 1

Summary

< Back to Introduction The rise of professional photographic studios in the mid nineteenth century was a key factor in the shaping of Darwinian iconography, but Darwin’s relationship with these firms was from the start a cautious and sometimes a…

Matches: 4 hits

  • … the start a cautious and sometimes a difficult one. In 1854-5 the newly established firm of Henry …
  • … who thought that ‘it was probably taken in the year 1854, but he had never seen it’. A slot in the …
  • … Walker, dated 1912; the photograph itself is here dated 1854, and accompanied by a facsimile of …
  • … Polyblank, photographers 
 date of creation 1854 or early 1855 
 computer-readable …

People featured in the Dutch photograph album

Summary

Here is a list of people that appeared in the photograph album Darwin received for his birthday on 12 February 1877 from scientific admirers in the Netherlands. Many thanks to Hester Loeff for identifying and researching them. No. …

Matches: 6 hits

  • … Dramatist 23 Middelburg 20 june 1854 Middelburg 13 october …
  • …   Deventer 11 september 1854 Deventer 8 march 1936 Haarlem …
  • … Phil.nat.cand   Leiden 18 july 1854 Batavia 8 march 1896 …
  • … University.   Utrecht 16 april 1854 Amsterdam 4 january 1928 …
  • … Phil.nat.cand.   Utrecht 16 april 1854 Amsterdam 4 january …
  • … Phil.nat.stud   Leiden 19 august 1854 Oud-Beijerland 23 …

Before Origin: the ‘big book’

Summary

Darwin began ‘sorting notes for Species Theory’ on 9 September 1854, the very day he concluded his eight-year study of barnacles (Darwin's Journal). He had long considered the question of species. In 1842, he outlined a theory of transmutation in a…

Matches: 2 hits

  • … began ‘sorting notes for Species Theory’ on 9 September 1854, the very day he concluded his eight …
  • … what he came to call his ‘big book’.   In March 1854, six months before he started sorting …

People featured in the Dutch photograph album

Summary

List of people appearing in the photograph album Darwin received from scientific admirers in the Netherlands for his birthday on 12 February 1877. We are grateful to Hester Loeff for providing this list and for permission to make her research available.…

Matches: 6 hits

  • … Dramatist 23 Middelburg 20 June 1854 Middelburg 13 October …
  • …   Deventer 11 September 1854 Deventer 8 March 1936 Haarlem …
  • … Phil.nat.cand   Leiden 18 July 1854 Batavia 8 March 1896 …
  • … University.   Utrecht 16 April 1854 Amsterdam 4 January 1928 …
  • … Phil.nat.cand.   Utrecht 16 April 1854 Amsterdam 4 January …
  • … Phil.nat.stud   Leiden 19 August 1854 Oud-Beijerland 23 …

John Murray

Summary

Darwin's most famous book On the origin of species by means of natural selection (Origin) was published on 22 November 1859. The publisher was John Murray, who specialised in non-fiction, particularly politics, travel and science, and had published…

Matches: 1 hits

  • … his barnacle books ( Fossil Cirripedia  (1851 and 1854) and  Living Cirripedia  (1851 and 1854)) …

Editorial policy and practice

Summary

Full texts are added to this site four years after the letter is published in the print edition of the Correspondence. Transcriptions are made from the original or a facsimile where these are available. Where they are not, texts are taken from the best…

Matches: 1 hits

  • … used in a strict sense. Thus a letter dated ‘after 8 July 1854’ is judged to have been written very …

Joseph Simms

Summary

The American doctor and author of works on physiognomy Joseph Simms wrote to Darwin on 14 September 1874, while he was staying in London. He enclosed a copy of his book Nature’s revelations of character (Simms 1873). He hoped it might 'prove…

Matches: 1 hits

  • … in major cities of the US and Canada on physiognomy in 1854. In 1866 he sought training in anatomy …

Scientific Networks

Summary

Friendship|Mentors|Class|Gender In its broadest sense, a scientific network is a set of connections between people, places, and things that channel the communication of knowledge, and that substantially determine both its intellectual form and content,…

Matches: 1 hits

  • … Letter 1585 — Darwin, C. R. to Lubbock, John, [Sept 1854] Darwin sends Lubbock a beetle he …

Darwin’s observations on his children

Summary

Charles Darwin’s observations on the development of his children, began the research that culminated in his book The Expression of the emotions in man and animals, published in 1872, and his article ‘A biographical sketch of an infant’, published in Mind…

Matches: 5 hits

  • … of logical thought and language. On 20 May 1854, Darwin again took over the notebook and, …
  • … a bit of red glass at the garden) 47v.  May 1854. Before tea Ch. asked Lenny P. Have you …
  • … give me a kiss if you like”. 48 [74] May 20— 1854.— I saw a pile of sand lying on the lawn …
  • … I could not help it awfully”.— 49  June 1854— About 9 months ago, Lenny defined being in …
  • … Horace Lenny. When ill with Fever & recovering (Dec 1854) used constantly to ask in the …

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: 2 hits

  • … taxonomic study of the entire order. By this time, 1854, Darwin had become a family man. In …
  • … field notes exist that record the observations made between 1854 and 1861 by five of his children, …

3.3 Maull and Polyblank photo 2

Summary

< Back to Introduction Despite the difficulties that arose in relation to Maull and Polyblank’s first photograph of Darwin, another one was produced, this time showing him in three-quarter view. It was evidently not taken at the same session as the…

Matches: 1 hits

  • … Darwin (with a caption querying the date, and suggesting ‘1854?’). It was reproduced …

Asa Gray

Summary

Darwin’s longest running and most significant exchange of correspondence dealing with the subjects of design in nature and religious belief was with the Harvard botanist Asa Gray.  Gray was one of Darwin’s leading supporters in America. He was also a…

Matches: 1 hits

  • … consisting of about 300 letters written between 1854 and 1881, is now available for the first time. …
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