From J. D. Hooker 9 August 1866
Summary
More on continental extension vs transport [or migration] hypothesis. New questions raised. On Madeira, why were insects and plants changed so much, birds hardly at all?
Erratic boulders of the Azores.
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 9 Aug 1866 |
| Classmark: | DAR 102: 94–7 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5186 |
From J. D. Hooker 12 November 1858
Summary
Busy with introductory essay to [The botany of the Antarctic voyage, pt III] Flora Tasmaniae [printed separately as On the flora of Australia (1859)].
Now explains greater abundance of European species in Tasmania than in Fuegia by CD’s "refrigeration" hypothesis.
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 12 Nov 1858 |
| Classmark: | DAR 100: 123–4 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2358 |
From J. D. Hooker 18 January 1877
Summary
JDH discusses his and others’ experiments on survival of seeds. Impressed with resistance of some seeds and rapid decomposition of others. He wonders about "vitality" in the abstract.
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 18 Jan 1877 |
| Classmark: | DAR 104: 74–6 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10802 |
From J. D. Hooker [27] June 1857
Summary
Embryology of plants of low systematic order. Comparative development begins only with first post-cotyledonary leaves.
Curt letter to JDH from George Henslow.
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | [27] June 1857 |
| Classmark: | DAR 100: 115 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2114 |
From J. D. Hooker [24 May 1863]
Summary
Flora of Cameroons shakes JDH’s faith in ability to explain past or present migrations. Sees need for a major novel explanation such as natural selection, glacial cold, or continental connections.
Lyell in a bad way about feud with Falconer.
JDH’s opinion of Wallace, Bates, J. E. Gray, Owen, Asa Gray, Lubbock, and Bentham.
Bentham’s Linnean Society address [see 4118].
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | [24 May 1863] |
| Classmark: | DAR 101: 143–6 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4169 |
Matches: 2 hits
- … J. D. Hooker, 4 August 1856 , Correspondence vol. 9, letter to J. D. Hooker, 28 [ …
- … 1856 (see Wade ed. 1983, pp. 2, 171–83). Wallace 1853 . The reference is to Alfred Russel Wallace and Henry Walter Bates , both of whom had published books on their travels to Amazonian South America ( Wallace 1853 and Bates 1863 ); CD considered Wallace’s book to be inferior to Bates’s as a work of natural history (see letter …
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 |
From J. D. Hooker [24 July 1862]
Summary
Wife’s health improved by trip.
Heer’s collections convince JDH that Miocene vegetation was Himalayan, not American, as Heer supposed.
Zurich promises to be a good natural history school.
Review of Natural History Review in Parthenon [1 (1862): 373–5].
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | [24 July 1862] |
| Classmark: | DAR 70: 171, DAR 101: 48–9 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3665 |
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 |
Matches: 2 hits
- … See Correspondence vol. 6, letter from Charles Lyell, 1– 2 May 1856 and n. 7. John …
- … letter from J. D. Hooker, [25 January 1868] . Alfred Newton . Hooker refers to Katherine Emily McMurdo , daughter of William Montagu Scott McMurdo . William McMurdo was a brother of Archibald McMurdo , first lieutenant on HMS Terror during the expedition to the Antarctic between 1839 and 1843. (Robert McMurdo, personal communication. ) Wollaston had been among the guests at a weekend party at Down in 1856 …
From J. D. Hooker 7 May 1856
Summary
Non-endemic Ascension Island plants brought by man, not wind-transported.
Bentham has found intermediates between oxlip and cowslip in Herefordshire.
JDH finds quantity of albumen in seeds is not variable within a species.
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 7 May 1856 |
| Classmark: | DAR 100: 94–5 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1869 |
From J. D. Hooker 7 December 1856
Summary
Has done New Zealand flora calculations. Results support CD’s theory of necessity of crossing. Trees tend to have separate sexes.
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 7 Dec 1856 |
| Classmark: | DAR 100: 113–14 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2014 |
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 J. D. Hooker 24 December 1865
Summary
Oliver says H. E. Baillon found stamens on female flowers of Coelebogyne, but JDH and many botanists have never found any stamens.
Lyell wants to propose JDH for Copley Medal.
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 24 Dec 1865 |
| Classmark: | DAR 102: 51–2 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4955 |
Matches: 3 hits
- … n. 7. See letter from J. D. Hooker, [23] December 1865 and n. 5. In his 1856 paper on …
- … 1856 , p. 327, and n. 7, below). Robert Brown had collected specimens of Coelebogyne ilicifolia at Keppel Bay, on the east coast of Australia, in 1802 ( J. Smith 1839 , p. 509). Joseph Decaisne . See letter …
- … 1856 , pp. 327–33). In a subsequent paper on polyembryony in C. ilicifolia , Braun commented that, as no contrary evidence had yet been provided, the prevailing view that the plant was parthenogenetic must stand (see Braun 1859 , p. 117). CD had suggested this procedure in his letter …
From J. D. Hooker [9 March 1859]
Summary
Outlines the basic categories of phanerogams.
Places Gymnospermae in the dicotyledons.
Evaluates the variable utility of embryological characters in plant classification.
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | [9 Mar 1859] |
| Classmark: | DAR 100: 152–3 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2428 |
From J. D. Hooker 1 January 1865
Summary
Forwards H. T. Stainton letter for reply.
Finds many Cucurbita have tendrils with sticking ends.
The "potentiality of so many organs in plants to play so many parts is one of the most wonderful of your discoveries . . . one day it will itself play a prodigious part in the interpretation of both morphological and physiological facts".
Is disgusted with Sabine’s address [see 4708] because of its mutilation of what JDH wrote.
THH’s slashing leader in Reader ["Science and ""Church policy"" ", 4 (1864): 821] – as usual he destroys all in his path.
Encloses letter from G. H. K. Thwaites with a message for CD [see encl].
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 1 Jan 1865 |
| Classmark: | DAR 102: 1–3; Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Directors’ Correspondence 162: 224 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4734 |
From J. D. Hooker 2 December 1864
Summary
Recounts row at the Royal Society over exclusion of mention of Origin from Sabine’s address awarding Copley Medal to CD.
Encloses two letters to JDH from James Hector in New Zealand.
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 2 Dec 1864 |
| Classmark: | DAR 101: 260–1; Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (Directors’ correspondence 174: 429–31 & 433–4) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4692 |
From J. D. Hooker [12 December 1866]
Summary
Plants arrived.
Delightful dinner at Lyell’s.
Will be interested in seeds passed through a fowl.
Wedgwood medallions were bought by a Miss W. [Sophy Wedgwood] of Leith Hill.
Lubbock’s account of a new centipede at Linnean Society gave rise to lively discussion by Busk and Huxley.
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | [12 Dec 1866] |
| Classmark: | DAR 102: 118–19 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5302 |
From J. D. Hooker [24 July 1866]
Summary
Working on "Insular floras" lecture for BAAS Nottingham meeting [see 5135].
Puzzled at distribution of Madeiran and Canaries plants and insects.
Supports Forbes’s Atlantis hypothesis [see 956], which he has reread and to which he will allude.
Wollaston disappointing on Madeiran insects.
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | [24 July 1866] |
| Classmark: | DAR 205.2 (letters): 239 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5165 |
From J. D. Hooker 2 May 1865
Summary
On FitzRoy’s suicide.
The Lyell–Ramsay disagreement [on formation of lakes?].
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 2 May 1865 |
| Classmark: | DAR 102: 20–1 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4826 |
From J. D. Hooker 7 October 1878
Summary
Botanical evidence is against F. B. White’s origin of St Helena fauna. JDH holds flora is S. African. Since plants must arrive before insects, if fauna is Palearctic then flora survived glacial period. Flora not Miocene since old and relic orders are absent. Suggests S. African west coastal mountains as insects’ origin.
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 7 Oct 1878 |
| Classmark: | DAR 104: 118–20 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-11718 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … 1856): t. 4946. The Miocene is a geological epoch, the earliest of the Neogene period. The family of cycads, formerly Cycadeae, is now known as the Cycadaceae. Conifers, formerly classed as Coniferae, are now in the class Pinopsida. Ascension and Tristan da Cunha are islands in the South Atlantic Ocean. Ascension is 800 miles north-west of St Helena; Tristan da Cunha is over 1500 miles south. See letter …
From J. D. Hooker 2 July 1860
Summary
JDH reports on the debate on the Origin at Oxford [BAAS] meeting.
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 2 July 1860 |
| Classmark: | DAR 100: 141–2 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2852 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … 1856. Human physiology, statical and dynamical; or, the conditions and course of the life of man. London. Draper, John William. 1860. On the intellectual development of Europe, considered with reference to the views of Mr Darwin and others, that the progression of organisms is determined by law. Report of the 30th meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science held at Oxford , Transactions of the sections, pp. 115–16. LL : The life and letters …
Darwin in letters, 1856-1857: the 'Big Book'
Summary
In May 1856, Darwin began writing up his 'species sketch’ in earnest. During this period, his working life was completely dominated by the preparation of his 'Big Book', which was to be called Natural selection. Using letters are the main…
Matches: 1 hits
- … On 14 May 1856, Charles Darwin recorded in his journal that he ‘Began by Lyell’s advice writing …
Darwin and Fatherhood
Summary
Charles Darwin married Emma Wedgwood in 1839 and over the next seventeen years the couple had ten children. It is often assumed that Darwin was an exceptional Victorian father. But how extraordinary was he? The Correspondence Project allows an unusually…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Charles Darwin married Emma Wedgwood in 1839 and over the next seventeen years the couple had ten …
Dramatisation script
Summary
Re: Design – Adaptation of the Correspondence of Charles Darwin, Asa Gray and others… by Craig Baxter – as performed 25 March 2007
Matches: 1 hits
- … Re: Design – performance version – 25 March 2007 – 1 Re: Design – Adaptation of the …
Origin
Summary
Darwin’s most famous work, Origin, had an inauspicious beginning. It grew out of his wish to establish priority for the species theory he had spent over twenty years researching. Darwin never intended to write Origin, and had resisted suggestions in 1856…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin’s most famous work, Origin, had an inauspicious beginning. It grew out of his wish to …
Six things Darwin never said – and one he did
Summary
Spot the fakes! Darwin is often quoted – and as often misquoted. Here are some sayings regularly attributed to Darwin that never flowed from his pen.
Matches: 1 hits
- … Spot the fakes! Darwin is often quoted – and as often misquoted. Here are some sayings regularly …
Dates of composition of Darwin's manuscript on species
Summary
Many of the dates of letters in 1856 and 1857 were based on or confirmed by reference to Darwin’s manuscript on species (DAR 8--15.1, inclusive; transcribed and published as Natural selection). This manuscript, begun in May 1856, was nearly completed by…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Many of the dates of letters in 1856 and 1857 were based on or confirmed by reference to Darwin’s …
Women’s scientific participation
Summary
Observers | Fieldwork | Experimentation | Editors and critics | Assistants Darwin’s correspondence helps bring to light a community of women who participated, often actively and routinely, in the nineteenth-century scientific community. Here is a…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Observers | Fieldwork | Experimentation | Editors and critics | Assistants …
Descent
Summary
There are more than five hundred letters associated with the research and writing of Darwin’s book, Descent of man and selection in relation to sex (Descent). They trace not only the tortuous route to eventual publication, but the development of Darwin’s…
Matches: 1 hits
- … ‘ Our ancestor was an animal which breathed water, had a swim-bladder, a great swimming …
Species and varieties
Summary
On the origin of species by means of natural selection …so begins the title of Darwin’s most famous book, and the reader would rightly assume that such a thing as ‘species’ must therefore exist and be subject to description. But the title continues, …or…
Matches: 1 hits
- … On the origin of species by means of natural selection …so begins the title of Darwin’s most …
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: 1 hits
- … In April 1838, Darwin began recording the titles of books he had read and the books he wished to …
Darwin in letters, 1882: Nothing too great or too small
Summary
In 1882, Darwin reached his 74th year Earthworms had been published the previous October, and for the first time in decades he was not working on another book. He remained active in botanical research, however. Building on his recent studies in plant…
Matches: 1 hits
- … In 1882, Darwin reached his 74th year Earthworms had been published the previous October, and …
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: 1 hits
- … Darwin began ‘sorting notes for Species Theory’ on 9 September 1854, the very day he concluded his …
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
- … Friendship | Mentors | Class | Gender In its broadest sense, a scientific …
Thomas Henry Huxley
Summary
Dubbed “Darwin’s bulldog” for his combative role in controversies over evolution, Huxley was a leading Victorian zoologist, science popularizer, and education reformer. He was born in Ealing, a small village west of London, in 1825. With only two years of…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Dubbed “Darwin’s bulldog” for his combative role in controversies over evolution, Huxley was a …
Darwin in letters, 1863: Quarrels at home, honours abroad
Summary
At the start of 1863, Charles Darwin was actively working on the manuscript of The variation of animals and plants under domestication, anticipating with excitement the construction of a hothouse to accommodate his increasingly varied botanical experiments…
Matches: 1 hits
- … At the start of 1863, Charles Darwin was actively working on the manuscript of The variation of …
Darwin in letters, 1872: Job done?
Summary
'My career’, Darwin wrote towards the end of 1872, 'is so nearly closed. . . What little more I can do, shall be chiefly new work’, and the tenor of his correspondence throughout the year is one of wistful reminiscence, coupled with a keen eye…
Matches: 1 hits
- … ‘My career’, Darwin wrote towards the end of 1872, ‘is so nearly closed. . . What little more I …
4.16 Joseph Simms, physiognomy
Summary
< Back to Introduction In September 1874, the American doctor Joseph Simms, then on a three-year lecture tour of Britain, sent Darwin a copy of his book, Nature’s Revelations of Character; Or, Physiognomy Illustrated. He was seeking a public…
Matches: 1 hits
- … < Back to Introduction In September 1874, the American doctor Joseph Simms, then on a …
Language: key letters
Summary
How and why language evolved bears on larger questions about the evolution of the human species, and the relationship between man and animals. Darwin presented his views on the development of human speech from animal sounds in The Descent of Man (1871),…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The origin of language was investigated in a wide range of disciplines in the nineteenth century. …
Hermann Müller
Summary
Hermann (Heinrich Ludwig Hermann) Müller, was born in Mühlberg near Erfurt in 1829. He was the younger brother of Fritz Müller (1822–97). Following the completion of his secondary education at Erfurt in 1848, he studied natural sciences at Halle and Berlin…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Hermann (Heinrich Ludwig Hermann) Müller, was born in Mühlberg near Erfurt in 1829. He was the …
Darwin in letters, 1858-1859: Origin
Summary
The years 1858 and 1859 were, without doubt, the most momentous of Darwin’s life. From a quiet rural existence filled with steady work on his ‘big book’ on species, he was jolted into action by the arrival of an unexpected letter from Alfred Russel Wallace…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The years 1858 and 1859 were, without doubt, the most momentous of Darwin’s life. From a quiet …
