To Ray Society [before 4 November 1864]
Summary
"Read a letter from Mr Darwin suggesting the Translation of Gaertner’s work [Bastarderzeugung im Pflanzenreich (1849)]."
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Ray Society |
| Date: | [before 4 Nov 1864] |
| Classmark: | Natural History Museum, Library and Archives (General Library MSS RAY A: vol. 2, p. 102r: Minute 1118, 4th November 1864) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4654 |
From E. A. Darwin 1 December 1864
Summary
Discusses the affairs of the late Edward Evans for whom CD and EAD are trustees.
Has got CD’s [Copley] Medal, "it is rather ugly to look at, & too light to turn into candlesticks".
| Author: | Erasmus Alvey Darwin |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 1 Dec 1864 |
| Classmark: | DAR 105: B31–2 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4690 |
From J. D. Hooker 16 September 1864
Summary
Rejoices that CD is beginning "the book of books", Variation.
Suggests that changes in colour of pollen, stigma, and corolla, as Scott reports in his Primula paper, may be related to changes in the insects required for pollination.
Supports Gärtner translation by Ray Society.
Comments on recent addresses by Lyell [Rep. BAAS 34 (1864): lx–lxxv], Bentham [Proc. Linn. Soc. Lond. 8 (1864): ix–xxiii], and Murchison [Rep. BAAS 34 (1864): 130–6].
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 16 Sept 1864 |
| Classmark: | DAR 101: 243–5 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4614 |
To J. D. Hooker 23 September [1864]
Summary
Pleased with news of BAAS meeting
and Scott’s possible position as Thomas Anderson’s curator.
Suggests Wallace is due for a Royal Medal.
Agrees with JDH’s criticism of Lyell’s address [see 4614].
Bentham’s Linnean Society address treats continuity of life in a vague non-natural sense.
Rereading his old MS [Natural selection] CD is impressed with work he had already done.
Writing Variation much harder than Climbing plants.
Encloses request to JDH to propose, or suggest on his behalf, that the Ray Society publish a translation of C. F. von Gärtner’s Versuche und Beobachtungen über die Bastarderzeugung im Pflanzenreich (1849).
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 23 Sept [1864] |
| Classmark: | DAR 96: 14; DAR 115: 250a–c |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4621 |
Matches: 3 hits
- … the importance of Gärtner 1849 for CD’s work on hybridisation, see the letter to J. D. …
- … letter to Ray Society, [before 4 November 1964] . CD refers to Versuche und Beobachtungen über die Bastarderzeugung im Pflanzenreich (Experiments and observations on the production of hybrids in the plant kingdom: Gärtner 1849 ). …
- … letters, farewell; but do not write soon again Ever yours | C. Darwin Do you object to my putting this sentence from old note from you? “Annual plants sometimes become perennial under a different climate, as I hear from D r . Hooker is the case with the stock & migniotte in Tasmania”. (say yes or no) I know the case is nothing wonderful, & I want only just thus to allude to it— [Draft] Down My dear Hooker Would you propose or suggest for me to the Council of the Ray Society, the translation of Gärtners great work “ Versuche & Beobachtungen ueber die Bastarderzeugung 1849” …
From E. A. Darwin [15? April 1864]
Summary
Sir Henry Holland wants to see [Erasmus Darwin] Zoonomia.
Snow [F. J. Wedgwood] has gone, hoping to meet Fanny who is in a state of anxiety.
| Author: | Erasmus Alvey Darwin |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | [15? Apr 1864] |
| Classmark: | DAR 105: B19–20 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4482 |
To J. D. Hooker 13 September [1864]
Summary
Pleased that Bentham is cautious about Naudin’s view of reversion. CD can show experimentally that crossing of races and species tends to bring back ancient characters.
Suggests Gärtner’s Bastarderzeugung [1849] be translated
and that Oliver review Scott’s Primula paper [J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 8 (1865): 78–126] for a future issue of Natural History Review.
Is working on Variation.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 13 Sept [1864] |
| Classmark: | DAR 115: 249a–b |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4612 |
Matches: 3 hits
- … memorandum on Gärtner 1849 is in DAR 116 (see Correspondence vol. 5, letter to M. J. …
- … letter from John Scott, 7 January [1864] and n. 11. For the significance of distant reversion in shaping CD’s views on heredity, see Olby 1985 , pp. 51–4. Gärtner 1849 …
- … 1849 in the Darwin Library–CUL (see Marginalia 1: 256–98). See also Correspondence vol. 11, Appendix V, for CD’s views on the importance and reliability of Gärtner’s work. The Ray Society was established in 1844 with the object of publishing important works of natural history that were unlikely to prove commercially profitable ( Curle 1954 , p. 2). Scott 1864a . See also letter …
To Edward Sabine 5 November [1864]
Summary
Thanks ES in connection with award [of Copley Medal].
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Edward Sabine |
| Date: | 5 Nov [1864] |
| Classmark: | Glenbow Archives, Calgary (M 4843, file 17) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4660 |
Matches: 2 hits
- … 1849–50). In 1863, the Copley Medal had been awarded to Adam Sedgwick for his researches in geology (see Royal Society, Council minutes, 5 November 1863, and Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 13 (1864): 31–5). No letter …
- … Letter from Edward Sabine, 3 November 1864 . CD may refer to an informal policy of the Royal Society of London to award the Copley Medal to practitioners of the natural and physical sciences in alternate years. The policy seems to have been followed with few exceptions after a controversy over the distribution of the Royal Medals in 1849 …
From J. D. Hooker [28 September 1864]
Summary
Sends Nepenthes laevis.
Wallace for the Royal Medal is a good thought.
W. H. Harvey is at Kew and JDH has asked him about desert climbers.
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | [28 Sept 1864] |
| Classmark: | DAR 157.2: 110 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4623 |
From John Scott 7 January [1864]
Summary
Has finished correcting Primula paper [see 4332].
Has presented paper on monoecious spikes of maize [Edinburgh New Philos. J. 2d ser. 19 (1864): 213–20].
| Author: | John Scott |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 7 Jan [1864] |
| Classmark: | DAR 177: 98, 99 f.3; Edinburgh Courant, 19 December 1863, p. 8. |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4382 |
Matches: 2 hits
- … Gärtner 1844 and 1849) with Scott (see Correspondence vol. 10, letters to John Scott , …
- … letter to John Scott, 7 November [1863] ). He had briefly compared the two genera, though not particular species of Primula , in ‘Dimorphic condition in Primula ’ , p. 91 ( Collected papers 2: 59), referring to Karl Friedrich von Gärtner’s measurements of fertility and sterility when crossing several distinct species of Verbascum (see Gärtner 1849 ); …
To John Scott 20 May [1864]
Summary
Corrects his former account of cowslips.
The delay in the publication of JS’s Primula paper.
Delights in JS’s experimentation on Verbascum which confirms [C. F.] Gärtner’s statements.
Should be pleased if JS would accept offer of help.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | John Scott |
| Date: | 20 May [1864] |
| Classmark: | Transactions of the Hawick Archæological Society (1908): 67 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4504G |
Matches: 2 hits
- … letter from John Scott, 16 May [1864] and n. 9. CD refers to Karl Friedrich von Gärtner’s experiments on Verbascum ( Gärtner 1844 , pp. 137–8, and Gärtner 1849 , …
- … 1849 in the Darwin Library–CUL (see Marginalia 1: 248–98). These experiments were of interest to CD because he believed that they demonstrated that sterility was not a universal and infallible criterion of species. CD cited Scott’s experiments with Verbascum in Variation 2: 106–7. When Scott published his experiments, he incorporated a digest of Gärtner’s results supplied by CD ( Scott 1867 , p. 164). Scott had formulated a hypothesis relating degrees of sterility in Verbascum crosses to affinities in colour (see letter …
To J. D. Hooker 22 [May 1864]
Summary
CD’s pleasure at JDH’s willingness to help Scott find a position in India.
Naudin underrates contamination of his experiments by insects. Thus CD doubts Naudin’s results on rapidity and universality of reversion in hybrids.
Wallace’s paper on man [see 4494] reflects his genius, although CD does not fully agree with it.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 22 [May 1864] |
| Classmark: | DAR 115: 236 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4506 |
Matches: 2 hits
- … 1849 , p. 553, and referred to Gärtner’s crosses of Dianthus armeria and D. deltoides , which remained uniform to the tenth generation. In his letter …
- … letter to C. V. Naudin, 7 February 1863 . For CD’s concerns about the universality of hybrid reversion, see n. 8, below. See also J. Harvey 1997b . CD refers to the work of Karl Friedrich von Gärtner and Joseph Gottlieb Kölreuter in Gärtner 1849 …
From J. D. Hooker [2 April 1864]
Summary
JDH explains why he cannot take Scott on at Kew.
John Tyndall cannot answer CD’s questions on glaciers. Edward Frankland’s ignorance. In JDH’s opinion, heaviness of winter snowfall is the greatest element in size of glaciers and this is a function of low mean temperature. Discusses descent of glaciers.
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | [2 Apr 1864] |
| Classmark: | DAR 101: 198–200, 203; DAR 104: 222 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4445 |
From A. R. Wallace 2 January 1864
Summary
Remarks on ARW’s review of Samuel Haughton’s paper on bees’ cells
and Origin.
Agassiz’s strength as geologist and weakness in natural history theory.
Work problems.
His butterfly collection.
Problems with book on Malay journey.
Recommends Herbert Spencer and his Social statics.
Spencer’s "masterly" nebular hypothesis.
| Author: | Alfred Russel Wallace |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 2 Jan 1864 |
| Classmark: | DAR 106: B8–11 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4378 |
From John Scott 19 March 1864
Summary
On fertilisation of Gongora.
His work on peloric Antirrhinum, Passiflora, and Verbascum, done at CD’s suggestion, is at CD’s disposal.
| Author: | John Scott |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 19 Mar 1864 |
| Classmark: | DAR 177: 102 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4432 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … 1849 , p. 202, and Orchids , pp. 121, 134). He devised this procedure when he pollinated Gongora truncata ; he had earlier pollinated G. atropurpurea and Acropera by inserting pollen masses into the stigmatic chamber, sometimes with viscous matter from other orchids (see Correspondence vol. 10, letter …
From Emma Darwin to J. D. Hooker [28 April 1864]
Summary
Emma prepares JDH for his visit to Wedgwood factory and Barlaston.
| Author: | Emma Wedgwood; Emma Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | [28 Apr 1864] |
| Classmark: | DAR 115: 232 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4473 |
From J. D. Hooker [19 September 1864]
Summary
Reports on personalities at the Bath meeting of BAAS [Sept 1864].
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | [19 Sept 1864] |
| Classmark: | DAR 101: 240–2 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4616 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … letter to J. D. Hooker, 23 September [1864] ; the intervening Monday was 19 September. Hooker was attending the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Bath that was held from 14 to 21 September 1864 ( Report of the thirty-fourth meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science , p. lix). Archibald Campbell had been Hooker’s companion on several expeditions from Darjeeling; Hooker explored and collected plants in Sikkim and Nepal in 1848 and 1849 ( …
From J. D. Hooker 30 August 1864
Summary
John Scott has sailed.
Concurs with Lyell that CD need not reply to Kölliker.
CD’s Bignonia plants cannot be told apart without flowers.
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 30 Aug 1864 |
| Classmark: | DAR 101: 236–7 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4602 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … letter to J. D. Hooker, 28 August [1864] and n. 3. Hooker refers to Charles Lyell and Principles of geology ( C. Lyell 1853 ), and to the Reader . As an alternative to CD’s theory of evolution by natural selection, Kölliker proposed a theory of parthenogenesis according to which new forms developed from the ova or germs of parent organisms without fertilisation (see Kölliker 1864c , p. 235). Richard Owen had coined the term ‘parthenogenesis’ in R. Owen 1849 . …
From Bartholomew James Sulivan 18 March [1864]
Summary
Has six months’ leave from the Admiralty because of his health; intends going to Europe for four months.
| Author: | Bartholomew James Sulivan |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 18 Mar [1864] |
| Classmark: | DAR 177: 282 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4431 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … letters from B. J. Sulivan, 4 February [1863] and 10 February [1863] and n. 3). The post was ultimately given to a more junior officer (Sulivan ed. 1896, pp. 377–8). Thomas Edward Sulivan . ‘Padeby’ was probably a nickname for Peter Benson Stewart , mate of the Beagle during the 1831 to 1836 voyage; he had since become an inspecting commander of the coastguard ( O’Byrne 1849 ). …
From Leo Lesquereux 14 December 1864
Summary
Fossil flora of the Carboniferous. Variation of forms found in coal analogous to succession of forms in peat-bogs.
| Author: | Leo Lesquereux |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 14 Dec 1864 |
| Classmark: | DAR Pamphlet Collection–CUL (bound with G256) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4715 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … 1849 , p. 113). Lesquereux refers to the third part of his article on coal formations ( Lesquereux 1859–63 ), published in the American Journal of Science and Arts 30 (1860): 367–84. Lesquereux mistakenly wrote ‘1863’ for 1860. Schimper and Koechlin- Schlumberger 1862. The bryologist Wilhelm Philipp Schimper wrote the palaeontological part of Mémoire sur le terrain de transition des Vosges , which appeared in Mémoires de la Société des Sciences Naturelles de Strasbourg 5 (1862). The letter …
| letter | (19) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (12) |
| Hooker, J. D. | (4) |
| Ray Society | (1) |
| Sabine, Edward | (1) |
| Scott, John | (1) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (18) |
| Hooker, J. D. | (9) |
| Scott, John | (3) |
| Darwin, E. A. | (2) |
| Darwin, Emma | (1) |
Darwin's health
Summary
On 28 March 1849, ten years before Origin was published, Darwin wrote to his good friend Joseph Hooker from Great Malvern in Worcestershire, where Dr James Manby Gully ran a fashionable water-cure establishment. Darwin apologised for his delayed reply to…
Matches: 1 hits
- … On 28 March 1849, ten years before Origin was published, Darwin wrote to his good friend …
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: 1 hits
- … Species theory In November 1845, Charles Darwin wrote to his friend and confidant Joseph …
1.3 Thomas Herbert Maguire, lithograph
Summary
< Back to Introduction This striking portrait of Darwin, dating from 1849, belonged to a series of about sixty lithographic portraits of naturalists and other scientists drawn by Thomas Herbert Maguire. They were successively commissioned over a…
Matches: 1 hits
- … < Back to Introduction This striking portrait of Darwin, dating from 1849, belonged …
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 …
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: 1 hits
- … Specialism | Experiment | Microscopes | Collecting | Theory Letter writing …
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 …
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 …
Darwin's notes for his physician, 1865
Summary
On 20 May 1865, Emma Darwin recorded in her diary that John Chapman, a prominent London publisher who had studied medicine in London and Paris in the early 1840s, visited Down to consult with Darwin about his ill health. In 1863 Chapman started to treat…
Matches: 1 hits
- … On 20 May 1865, Emma Darwin recorded in her diary that John Chapman, a prominent London publisher …
What is an experiment?
Summary
Darwin is not usually regarded as an experimenter, but rather as an astute observer and a grand theorist. His early career seems to confirm this. He began with detailed note-taking, collecting and cataloguing on the Beagle, and edited a descriptive zoology…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin is not usually regarded as an experimenter, but rather as an astute observer and a grand …
Barnacles
Summary
Sources|Discussion Questions|Experiment Darwin and barnacles Darwin’s interest in Cirripedia, a class of marine arthropods, was first piqued by the discovery of an odd burrowing barnacle, which he later named “Mr. Arthrobalanus," while he was…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Sources | Discussion Questions | Experiment Darwin and barnacles …
George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)
Summary
George Eliot was the pen name of celebrated Victorian novelist Mary Ann Evans (1819-1880). She was born on the outskirts of Nuneaton in Warwickshire and was educated at boarding schools from the age of five until she was 16. Her education ended when she…
Matches: 1 hits
- … George Eliot was the pen name of the celebrated Victorian novelist Mary Ann Evans (1819-1880). She …
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
- … Darwin's most famous book On the origin of species by means of natural selection (Origin) was …
'An Appeal' against animal cruelty
Summary
The four-page pamphlet transcribed below and entitled 'An Appeal', was composed jointly by Emma and Charles Darwin (see letter from Emma Darwin to W. D. Fox, [29 September 1863]). The pamphlet, which protested against the cruelty of steel vermin…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The four-page pamphlet transcribed below and entitled 'An Appeal', was composed jointly by Emma …
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 …
Darwin's illness
Summary
Was Darwin an invalid? In many photographs he looks wearied by age, wrapped in a great coat to protect him from cold. In a letter to his cousin William Fox, he wrote: "Long and continued ill health has much changed me, & I very often think with…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Was Darwin an invalid? In many photographs he looks wearied by age, wrapped in a great coat to …
Fritz Müller
Summary
Fritz Müller, a German who spent most of his life in political exile in Brazil, described Darwin as his second father, and Darwin's son, Francis, wrote that, although they never met 'the correspondence with Müller, which continued to the close of…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Francis Darwin, in Life and letters of Charles Darwin , wrote of Fritz Müller 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: 1 hits
- … Darwin published four volumes on the crustacean sub-class Cirripedia between 1851 and 1854, two on …
Bibliography of Darwin’s geological publications
Summary
This list includes papers read by Darwin to the Geological Society of London, his books on the geology of the Beagle voyage, and other publications on geological topics. Author-date citations refer to entries in the Darwin Correspondence Project’s…
Matches: 1 hits
- … This list includes papers read by Darwin to the Geological Society of London, his books on the …
Darwin and Design
Summary
At the beginning of the nineteenth century in Britain, religion and the sciences were generally thought to be in harmony. The study of God’s word in the Bible, and of his works in nature, were considered to be part of the same truth. One version of this…
Matches: 1 hits
- … At the beginning of the nineteenth century in Britain, religion and the sciences were generally …
