From J. D. Hooker 28 January 1868
Summary
Wollaston’s situation hopeless; he must go to Boulogne or Jersey to live. A friend will keep his collection and books together.
JDH’s opinion of Wollaston’s Coleoptera Hesperidum [1867].
Cannot read Duke of Argyll.
CD’s view of Asa Gray as foreign member of Royal Society; compares him to Candolle.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 28 Jan 1868 |
Classmark: | DAR 102: 189–190 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5807 |
From J. D. Hooker 21 February 1866
Summary
Had Busks and Lyells to dinner.
Examines and criticises evidence for CD’s hypothesis that the glacial period was not one of universal cold. Physicists deny its possibility.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 21 Feb 1866 |
Classmark: | DAR 102: 59, 62–4 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5013 |
To [Robert Chambers?] 13 April [1861]
Summary
Since his previous letter, has unexpectedly arranged to go to London next Tuesday.
Hopes to call on recipient.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Robert Chambers |
Date: | 13 Apr [1861] |
Classmark: | John Wilson (dealer) (item 25007) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3117F |
To William Sharpey 9 April [1857]
Summary
Recommendations of books of general interest [for the Royal Society library]. These include [Louis] Agassiz’s works, [William] McGillivray’s [History of] British birds, and David Low’s [On the domesticated animals of the British Islands].
Comments on current candidates for the Royal Society.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | William Sharpey |
Date: | 9 Apr [1857] |
Classmark: | DAR 249: 128 (photocopy) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2073F |
From Alfred Newton 13 March 1874
Summary
Wishes CD could publish Origin with footnotes.
Increases in bird populations: starlings are increasing, but AN cannot give reason; mistletoe-thrush increasing but not ousting song-thrush. Doubts trustworthiness of [George?] Edwards, CD’s authority in Origin on this matter [see Origin, 6th ed., p. 59].
AN opposed to bird protection legislation to prohibit egging. Argues egging does not decrease number of birds.
Author: | Alfred Newton |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 13 Mar 1874 |
Classmark: | DAR 172: 50 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-9358 |
To John Phillips 18 January [1856]
Summary
Discusses chapter [6] on cleavage and foliation in South America. Notes especially cleavage where two series cross and cleavage as basis of foliation in metamorphosed rock. Notes foliation in rocks that have been liquefied by heat. Mentions case described in his "Geology of the Falkland Islands" [Collected papers 1: 203–12]. Discusses relationship of cleavage to beds. Speculations on association between grauwacke and clay-slates.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | John Phillips |
Date: | 18 Jan [1856] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.122) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1822 |
To A. R. Wallace 5 June 1876
Summary
Response to ARW’s "grand and memorable work" [Geographical distribution (1876)]. Most interesting part to CD is ARW’s "protest against sinking imaginary continents".
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Alfred Russel Wallace |
Date: | 5 June 1876 |
Classmark: | The British Library (Add MS 46434) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10531 |
From J. D. Dana 27 April 1857
Summary
In reply to CD’s query [see 2072], JDD describes what little is known about the crustacea of the Antarctic and southern lands.
Knows of no species of the cold temperate south identical with those of the cold temperate north.
Author: | James Dwight Dana |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 27 Apr 1857 |
Classmark: | DAR 162: 39 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2083 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … 1856 describing these and other specimens was destroyed, along with his and Dana’s type specimens and other valuable manuscripts, in the great Chicago fire of 1871 ( DSB ). In 1907, the Smithsonian Institute published what materials remained. See letter to J. D. Dana, 5 April [1857] , and letter from Charles Lyell [ …
From J. D. Hooker [7 March 1870]
Summary
Does not give much for botanical results of Round Island, but the zoology is wonderful.
Lyell’s new book [The student’s elements of geology (1870)]. Urges Lyell to make it Elementary principles.
Grove is disgusted with CD for being disquieted by William Thomson: "Take another dose of Huxley’s penultimate address to Geol. Soc." [Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 25 (1869): 28–53].
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [7 Mar 1870] |
Classmark: | DAR 103: 42–5 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-6646 |
From Charles Lyell [after 3 October 1860]
Summary
CD would have carried the public more if he had explained adaptations by multiple causes, some unknown and some well known, i.e., natural selection.
Discusses Hooker’s views of extinction on St Helena.
Work on antiquity of man suspended.
Stopped by 11th edition of Principles of geology [1872].
Author: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [after 3 Oct 1860] |
Classmark: | DAR 205.9: 397 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2937 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … 1856. [Hooker] 1856, p. 156 n. Joseph Dalton Hooker there described Alphonse de Candolle’s view that the extinction of plant species was sometimes delayed by the longevity of buried seeds. Hooker commented that the native species of Saint Helena that were rendered extinct many years ago had shown no signs of reappearing through the recent germination of long-buried seeds. See also letter to Charles Lyell, …
To James Dwight Dana 21 December [1856]
Summary
Thanks for sending paper on geological development (Dana 1856). Discusses infertility of species. Discusses first part of Asa Gray’s paper (A. Gray 1856–7). Thanks for note on the Cave Rat. Discusses a new species of fossil cirripede, in the genus Chthamalus. Explains his interest in pigeon breeding.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | James Dwight Dana |
Date: | 21 Dec [1856] |
Classmark: | Catherine Barnes (dealer) (2003) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2020F |
Matches: 1 hit
To J. D. Hooker 14 [November 1857]
Summary
Rule that species vary most in larger genera seems universal.
Response to Gardeners’ Chronicle note on "Bees and kidney beans" [Collected papers 1: 275–7].
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 14 [Nov 1857] |
Classmark: | DAR 114: 215 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2170 |
To Charles Lyell 1 September [1860]
Summary
Discusses at length CL’s criticisms of natural selection.
Comments on possible former connection between the Galapagos and South America.
Discounts survival of mammals on atolls.
Discusses reptile origin of mammals.
Discounts development of a mammal on an island and the descent of mammals from a bird.
The antiquity of islands.
Comments on bats of New Zealand. Geographical distribution of seals. Discusses Amblyrhynchus.
Glad CL will read his MS on origin of dogs [Variation 1: 15–43].
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | 1 Sept [1860] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.225) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2903 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … 1856 and 1858, CD conducted a long series of experiments on the means by which organisms could be transported across oceans to reduce the theoretical necessity for land connections. He discussed his findings at length with Hooker. See Correspondence vols. 3–6. Coral reefs , pp. 91–2. See letter from Charles Lyell, …
From J. D. Hooker 9 November 1856
Summary
JDH approves MS section on geographical distribution.
Never felt so shaky about species before.
His objections to some mechanisms of distribution that CD proposes.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 9 Nov 1856 |
Classmark: | DAR 100: 105–10 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1983 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … Charles Lyell used information on soundings given to him by James Clark Ross and Hooker after the voyage of the Erebus and Terror (1839–43) to establish the point that the movement of large segments of the earth’s crust, up and down relative to the sea, could produce great changes in climate. Hooker’s notes on CD’s manuscript on geographical distribution were probably given to CD at a later date, but they have been transcribed here for clarity. They had been received by CD by 15 November 1856 ( …
From Charles James Fox Bunbury 7 February 1856
Summary
Has heard CD is much interested in questions relating to varieties and species. Mentions a case of a seminal variety of Colletia spinosa, described by John Lindley, which appears identical with another wild species of Colletia from S. America. Hopes CD will one day "enlighten us very much" on "the laws of species". There are many different views on the limits of species; M. F. Dunal made 50 species of Solanum which George Bentham considers are all varieties of S. nigrum.
Author: | Charles James Fox Bunbury, 8th baronet |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 7 Feb 1856 |
Classmark: | DAR 160: 374, DAR 205.4: 97 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1830 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … Charles Lyell, [after 2 August 1845] , n. 5). Bunbury refers to the anonymous evolutionary work Vestiges of the natural history of creation ( [Chambers] 1844 ). CD was nearing the end of a series of experiments begun in 1855 to test the vitality of seeds after submersion in salt water. See letter to M. J. Berkeley, 29 February [1856] , …
To J. D. Hooker 8 September [1856]
Summary
Whether or not there should be movement of particles according to Tyndall’s theory of glacial action ["Observations on glaciers", Not. Proc. R. Inst. G. B. 2: 54–8, 441–3].
CD subscribes to H. C. Sorby’s view of gneiss [Edinburgh New Philos. J. 55 (1853): 137–50].
Seed-salting.
Pigeons.
Significant differences in skeletons of domesticated rabbits.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 8 Sept [1856] |
Classmark: | DAR 114: 176 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1950 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … 1856] . Sorby 1856 . Henry Clifton Sorby proposed that cleavage took place when metamorphosed stratified rock that had been foliated was subjected to contortion and pressure. Thus slaty cleavage could not, as CD had thought, be partially developed foliation. The problem of the origin of cleavage and foliation had been the subject of much of CD’s correspondence with Daniel Sharpe and Charles Lyell …
To J. D. Hooker [1 September 1864]
Summary
CD continues to have trouble reconciling the Veitch’s names for Bignonia plants and Kew names.
Lyell and Falconer called on CD in London.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | [1 Sept 1864] |
Classmark: | DAR 115: 248 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4605 |
To William Henry Sykes 20 December [1859]
Summary
Urges appointment of Edward Blyth as naturalist on an expedition to China.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | William Henry Sykes |
Date: | 20 Dec [1859] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.185) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2588 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … Charles Lyell, 29 [December 1859] . Sykes had been heavily involved with Indian natural history during his service in the East India Company, and since his return to England in 1831 he had been an influential figure in Indian affairs in general. He served as chairman of the East India Company from 1856 …
To Charles Lyell [3 March 1866]
Summary
Has returned memorial to Chancellor of Exchequer; thanks CL for his note.
Lengthy remarks on cool period. Did not know of CL’s interest. New facts in new German and English [4th] editions of Origin will be too late for CL’s use. CD’s ten-year-old MS on cool period is available.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | [3 Mar 1866] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.315) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5025 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … 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. Natural selection : Charles Darwin’s Natural selection: being the second part of his big species book written from 1856 …
To Charles Lyell [10 December 1859]
Summary
Discuss CL’s suggestions for revisions to the chapter on the geological record [Origin, ch. 9].
Henry Holland’s reaction to the book.
Comments on CL’s work on flint tools of early men.
Describes at length a conversation with Owen concerning Origin. Notes "that at bottom he goes immense way with us", but emphasises Owen’s unfriendly manner. Remarks that Owen accepted a relationship between bears and whales. "By Jove I believe he thinks a sort of Bear was the grandpapa of Whales!"
Has heard Herschel considered his book "the law of higgledy-piggledy".
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | [10 Dec 1859] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.184) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2575 |
Darwin, C. R. | (76) |
Hooker, J. D. | (13) |
Lyell, Charles | (9) |
Wollaston, T. V. | (4) |
Bunbury, C. J. F. | (3) |
Darwin, C. R. | (38) |
Hooker, J. D. | (26) |
Lyell, Charles | (24) |
Wallace, A. R. | (3) |
Dana, J. D. | (2) |
Darwin, C. R. | (114) |
Hooker, J. D. | (39) |
Lyell, Charles | (33) |
Wollaston, T. V. | (5) |
Bunbury, C. J. F. | (4) |