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Featured in Commentary
Featured in Commentary
31 Items
Darwin’s earthquakes
Summary
Darwin experienced his first earthquake in 1834, but it was a few months later that he was really confronted with their power. Travelling north along the coast of Chile, Darwin and Robert FitzRoy, captain of HMS Beagle, were confronted with a series of…
Matches: 10 hits
- … in only one little earthquake having happened Darwin to his sister Catherine, 8 November …
- … with their power. Travelling north along the coast of Chile, Darwin and Robert FitzRoy, captain of …
- … section of the west coast was shaken by an earthquake. Darwin was in Valdivia where the damage was …
- … wreaked in the towns and villages that made an impression; Darwin and FitzRoy also noticed the small …
- … of the land at Concepción had risen in altitude. Darwin, pondering a possible connection between …
- … to conceive a grand geological theory. Travelling inland, Darwin concluded that all these separate …
- … shock waves from a single subterranean event. Darwin had explored the Cordilleras from the …
- … violent natural events, fossilised trees and other evidence, Darwin was attempting to visualise the …
- … and these are amongst the most visually striking objects of Darwin’s surviving papers from the …
- … South America and crossing back half way round the world, Darwin started to apply this theory on a …
Darwin in letters, 1821-1836: Childhood to the Beagle voyage
Summary
Darwin's first known letters were written when he was twelve. They continue through school-days at Shrewsbury, two years as a medical student at Edinburgh University, the undergraduate years at Cambridge, and the of the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle.…
Matches: 20 hits
- … Darwin's first known letters were written when he was twelve. They continue …
- … in Correspondence vol. 13, Supplement), no letters by Darwin are known before October 1825, but …
- … home in Shrewsbury, and of the role his family played in Darwin’s early life; those from Sarah and …
- … of the 1820s and 1830s. The letters from William Darwin Fox, Frederick William Hope, and …
- … organisations and publications. The letters written to Darwin during the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle …
- … Science. Early years In the earliest letters Darwin was already keenly interested in …
- … Cambridge University Library, indicate that Robert Waring Darwin gave his own copy to his son in …
- … When himself a medical student at Edinburgh University, Darwin devoted much of his time to natural …
- … beetles. Fox also introduced him to John Stevens Henslow and Darwin was a regular presence at the …
- … the professor of botany. And it was Henslow who, encouraging Darwin to broaden his scientific …
- … willing responses of those asked for help here, as later in Darwin’s life, are indicative of the …
- … arose because of Henslow’s recognition of the abilities Darwin had displayed during his years at …
- … reasonably answered. During the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle Darwin’s letters convey the excitement …
- … life of scientific enquiry. Coupled with this commitment was Darwin’s growing recognition of his …
- … in 1839. London scientific society When Darwin returned to England in October 1836 it …
- … following years that testify to the wealth and quality of Darwin’s collections and observations. But …
- … passed by systematists on some of his specimens that Darwin became a committed transmutationist a …
- … on organising his notes on the birds he had collected. Then, Darwin wrote of the Galápagos mocking …
- … the stability of species awaited further consideration. As Darwin was able properly to consider the …
- … conviction that species were mutable. By the spring of 1837 Darwin was a transmutationist and had …
Darwin on marriage
Summary
On 11 November 1838 Darwin wrote in his journal ‘The day of days!’. He had proposed to his cousin, Emma Wedgwood, and been accepted; they were married on 29 January 1839. Darwin appears to have written these two notes weighing up the pros and cons of…
Matches: 3 hits
- … On 11 November 1838 Darwin wrote in his journal ‘The day of days!’. He had proposed to his …
- … and been accepted; they were married on 29 January 1839. Darwin appears to have written these two …
- … his engagement. The original manuscripts are in the Darwin Archive in Cambridge University Library. …
The writing of "Origin"
Summary
From a quiet rural existence at Down in Kent, filled with steady work on his ‘big book’ on the transmutation of species, Darwin was jolted into action in 1858 by the arrival of an unexpected letter (no longer extant) from Alfred Russel Wallace outlining a…
Matches: 24 hits
- … 25 [November 1859] ) The year 1858 opened with Darwin hard at work preparing his ‘big …
- … his ninth chapter, on hybridism, on 29 December 1857, Darwin began in January 1858 to prepare the …
- … appropriate. The correspondence shows that at any one time Darwin was engaged in a number of …
- … The chapter on instinct posed a number of problems for Darwin. ‘I find my chapter on Instinct very …
- … ). In addition to behaviour such as nest-building in birds, Darwin intended to discuss many other …
- … celebrated as a classic example of divine design in nature. Darwin hypothesised that the instinct of …
- … of construction as it took place in the hive. As with Darwin’s study of poultry and pigeons, many …
- … founder and president of the Apiarian Society, provided Darwin with information and specimens. His …
- … For assistance with mathematical measurements and geometry, Darwin called upon William Hallowes …
- … from the Beagle voyage; on his brother, Erasmus Alvey Darwin; and his son William. Even his …
- … of smaller genera? The inquiry was of great importance to Darwin, for such evidence would support …
- … of the statistics was still problematic. Hooker thought that Darwin was wrong to assume that …
- … were not certain. This was a question new to the experts. Darwin was delighted to hear from Asa Gray …
- … completed and his results written up. With some trepidation, Darwin sent his manuscript off to …
- … my best.—’ With much of his research completed, Darwin began in mid-June 1858 to write up the …
- … Wallace enunciated his own theory of natural selection. Darwin’s shock and dismay is evident in the …
- … Lyell, 18 [June 1858] ). As was his custom, Darwin did not supply a full date on his …
- … as having been received ‘today’. Following Francis Darwin (LL2:116–17) and relying on Charles Lyell …
- … dated the letter 18 [June 1858]. However, the accuracy of Darwin’s words has been questioned by John …
- … 58’ and ‘London Ju 3 58’. Brooks maintains that Darwin received Wallace’s letter even earlier …
- … & Oriental Company, and assuming that the letter to Darwin was posted at the same time as that …
- … Marseilles or on 20 May via Southampton. Accordingto Brooks, Darwin kept the letter for a month, …
- … the date of its arrival in England, the question of whether Darwin held the letter up for any reason …
- … in this interval are consistent with the normal tenor of Darwin’s work, and he shows no sign of …
Natural selection
Summary
How do new species arise? This was the ancient question that Charles Darwin tackled soon after returning to England from the Beagle voyage in October 1836. Darwin realised a crucial (and cruel) fact: far more individuals of each species were born than…
Matches: 18 hits
- … species arise? This was the ancient question that Charles Darwin tackled soon after returning to …
- … such as Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and the medical writer Erasmus Darwin (Charles Darwin’s grandfather), …
- … shed fresh light on the problem. In September 1838, Darwin realised a crucial (and cruel) …
- … a harsh winter, and others to survive and reproduce? Darwin’s answer was that some were better …
- … accumulate, thus leading to new species. This is what Darwin, through an analogy with …
- … as those between the Great Dane and the dachshund. Nature, Darwin realised, worked in the same way, …
- … of this would be the formation of new species.’ Death, Darwin had unexpectedly realized, was the …
- … the world had ever known. It is not surprising, then, that Darwin reached his insight while thinking …
- … reasons humans are mentioned only briefly in Origin , Darwin did publish his full thoughts in …
- … In the two decades following his insights of the late 1830s, Darwin undertook research on virtually …
- … of just how much variation there is in nature. While Darwin waited to publish his ideas, the …
- … up with a species theory remarkably similiar to the one that Darwin had been elaborating for so long …
- … young man of science Thomas Henry Huxley–recognised Darwin’s theory as the first attempt to tackle …
- … large part this was because natural selection provided (as Darwin later said) a ‘theory to work by’, …
- … laboratory and field. In part, this was because of Darwin’s own status as a man of science. …
- … unprecedented scope and power. From the beginning, Darwin was aware of the complexities of …
- … that is almost unprecedented in the history of science. As Darwin recognised from the start, …
- … Related Resources: Abstract of Darwin’s theory The writing of “Origin” …
The evolution of honeycomb
Summary
Honeycombs are natural engineering marvels, using the least possible amount of wax to provide the greatest amount of storage space, with the greatest possible structural stability. Darwin recognised that explaining the evolution of the honey-bee’s comb…
Matches: 28 hits
- … space, with the greatest possible structural stability. Darwin recognised that explaining the …
- … could have been given to it’ (Kirby 1852, 2: 246). Darwin’s copy of Brougham’s …
- … instance, if my theory explains one it may explain other.’ Darwin, and others working on …
- … if it could not explain bee cells, it was radically flawed. Darwin needed to show two things: first, …
- … ever made cylindrical cells (Brougham 1839, 1: 32). However, Darwin knew that humble bees made …
- … construct: for example, birds’ nests are usually circular. Darwin argued that if the Melipona …
- … The second point, how bees actually built the comb, involved Darwin in a great deal of …
- … on the subject for a projected book on the species question, Darwin wrote to George Robert …
- … antagonistic principles and the proximity of other cells. Darwin’s letter has not been found, but …
- … Waterhouse but William Bernhard Tegetmeier (who had helped Darwin with his work on pigeons) and …
- … R. Waterhouse, 13 February 1858 .) In April 1858, Darwin went to London to meet William …
- … than any which had yet been devised’ ( ODNB ). Possibly Darwin consulted Miller simply on geometry …
- … in how a complex pattern may arise from natural forces. Darwin made notes for their discussion in a …
- … subjects of wasp’s nests. He sent another long letter to Darwin on the subject, this time arguing …
- … Waterhouse, 17 April 1858 ). Waterhouse also told Darwin of a meeting at the Entomological …
- … which presented the same peculiarities. Darwin quickly arranged to look at Tegetmeier’s …
- … April 1858] ); however, it had been mislaid. Nevertheless, Darwin asked Tegetmeier to keep an eye …
- … cells, would not be hexagonal. At this time Darwin was much exercised by the work of François …
- … described their manner of building’ (letter to W. E. Darwin, [26 May 1858] .) To Tegetmeier, he …
- … must be very minute. ( See the letter ) Darwin was probably particularly …
- … arch, since Huber’s diagrams show this transition clearly. Darwin thought that the arch was not made …
- … the bottoms of three cells on the other side of the wall. Darwin thought that this angular structure …
- … of their proceedings?’ (Huber 1841, p. 269.) Darwin asked Tegetmeier to observe the beginning …
- … wax in the hive for the bees to work on. Using this method, Darwin ‘got some excavated hemispherical …
- … bees in hive were producing and working themselves.) Darwin tried three different experiments …
- … next to the left-hand clump of cells. Secondly, Darwin put a thin piece of vermilion wax in …
- … through into another cell. In his third experiment, Darwin covered edges of the walls of a …
- … and it is likely that the ‘knife-edged ridge’ used by Darwin was a similar arrangement. The results …
The Lyell–Lubbock dispute
Summary
In May 1865 a dispute arose between John Lubbock and Charles Lyell when Lubbock, in his book Prehistoric times, accused Lyell of plagiarism. The dispute caused great dismay among many of their mutual scientific friends, some of whom took immediate action…
Matches: 23 hits
- … of whom took immediate action to mediate a solution. Charles Darwin had close ties with both men and …
- … In the concluding paragraphs of Origin , Darwin had predicted that a ‘revolution in natural …
- … Thomas Henry Huxley, Busk, and several other supporters of Darwin in editing the Natural History …
- … aspects of the book. Throughout the first half of 1863, Darwin discussed the book in correspondence …
- … spoke out publicly about any controversial aspect. Darwin’s chief complaint about the book …
- … he thought about ‘the derivation of Species’. 8 Darwin continued to feel aggrieved about …
- … to the Athenæum . 9 In the same letter, Darwin touched on an area of public …
- … accusation, which had just appeared in the Athenæum . Darwin had not advised Falconer personally, …
- … 11 In the same review Lubbock expressed publicly what Darwin had said privately; that is, that …
- … given that ‘the whole tenor of his argument’ supported Darwin’s theory ([Lubbock] 1863b, p. 213). …
- … of all three letters to a number of friends, including Darwin. 22 Just before he …
- … who had also been sent copies of the letters, wrote to Darwin to ask what he thought of the affair ( …
- … as ‘rude & insulting’ and, in part, hardly intelligible. Darwin responded that, while he thought …
- … on the topic of the dispute has been found, but Lyell sent Darwin the corrected proofs of the …
- … ‘Textual changes made to C. Lyell 1863c’). By this time, Darwin clearly wished to avoid direct …
- … for an opinion ( letter from J. D. Hooker, 13 July 1865 ), Darwin wrote back ( letter to J. D. …
- … everything in world— Another indication of Darwin’s wish to avoid involvement is the …
- … and, as mentioned above, discussed the matter in person with Darwin. Lyell wrote to Darwin, Hooker, …
- … severe an attack on Sir Charles Lyell’. 32 Darwin’s analysis of the situation was …
- … relating to the appearance of C. Lyell 1863a, see Darwin's Life in Letters, 1863 , …
- … [31 May 1865] and n. 1. 23. Letter from Emma Darwin to Henrietta Emma Darwin, [1 June …
- … Correspondence : The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. …
- … of favoured races in the struggle for life . By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1859. …
British Association meeting 1860
Summary
Several letters refer to events at the British Association for the Advancement of Science held in Oxford, 26 June – 3 July 1860. Darwin had planned to attend the meeting but in the end was unable to. The most famous incident of the meeting was the verbal…
Matches: 26 hits
- … of Science held in Oxford, 26 June – 3 July 1860. Darwin had planned to attend the meeting, having …
- … his own poor health and that of his daughter, Henrietta Emma Darwin. Indeed, Darwin spent the week …
- … the “debate” between Huxley and Wilberforce over Darwin’s theory were not well reported in the …
- … 1914, 1: 50); John William Draper (Fleming 1950); and also Darwin ( LL 2: 320–3, F. Darwin ed. …
- … debate, see Jensen 1988.) Discussions of Darwin’s theory that occurred in other sections of the …
- … most complete contemporary report of the meeting and which Darwin himself read. Only those passages …
- … of the Sexuality of Plants, with particular Reference to Mr. Darwin’s Work “”On the Origin of …
- … remarked that if we adopt in any degree the views of Mr. Darwin with respect to the origin of …
- … to fix the limits within which the doctrine proposed by Mr. Darwin may assist us in distinguishing …
- … any discussion of the general question of the truth of Mr. Darwin’s theory. He felt that a general …
- … with regard to the probabilities of the truth of Mr. Darwin’s theory. Whilst giving all praise to Mr …
- … of Europe, considered with Reference to the Views of Mr. Darwin and others, that the Progression of …
- … stated, he could not subscribe to the hypothesis of Mr. Darwin. His primordial germ had not been …
- … of the other. In the great case of the pigeons quoted by Mr. Darwin, he admitted that no sooner were …
- … in the closely-allied forms of the horse and the ass. Mr. Darwin’s conclusions were an hypothesis, …
- … of science and humanity.— Prof. HUXLEY defended Mr. Darwin’s theory from the charge of its being …
- … an undulation of light had never been arrested and measured. Darwin’s theory was an explanation of …
- … Admiral FITZROY regretted the publication of Mr. Darwin’s book, and denied Prof. Huxley’s statement, …
- … having asserted that all men of science were hostile to Mr. Darwin’s hypothesis,—whereas he himself …
- … had, as it appeared to him, completely misunderstood Mr. Darwin’s hypothesis: his Lordship intimated …
- … wholly opposed to the facts, reasonings, and results of Mr. Darwin’s work, that he could not …
- … lead careful and philosophical naturalists to favour Mr. Darwin’s views. To this assertion Dr. …
- … of varieties, and afforded the strongest countenance to Mr. Darwin’s hypothesis. As regarded his own …
- … was neither more nor less entitled to acceptance than Mr. Darwin’s: neither was, in the present …
- … fifteen years ago been privately made acquainted with Mr. Darwin’s views, he had during that period …
- … and most different Floras at home. Now, then, that Mr. Darwin had published it, he had no hesitation …
Biodiversity and its histories
Summary
The Darwin Correspondence Project was co-sponsor of Biodiversity and its Histories, which brought together scholars and researchers in ecology, politics, geography, anthropology, cultural history, and history and philosophy of science, to explore how…
Matches: 4 hits
- … The Darwin Correspondence Project was co-sponsor of Biodiversity and its …
- … of life on earth. The conference included a session on 'Darwin and evolutionary theory' …
- … Paul White (University of Cambridge): Darwin’s divergence Alistair …
- … the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CRASSH) and the Darwin Correspondence Project. …
'Like confessing a murder' audio play
Summary
This speciallycommissioned BBC Radio drama is based entirely on Charles and Emma Darwin’s own words and correspondence. Behind the controversial public persona, Darwin was an affectionate family man, fully engaged – sometimes heartbreakingly so – in the…
Matches: 3 hits
Lifecycle of a letter film
Summary
Darwin Correpondence Project staff discuss their work on the project and some of the challenges of finding, transcribing, translating and editing letters.
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin Correpondence Project staff discuss their work on the project and some …
