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From Wilhelm Breitenbach1   9 September 1881

Sehr geehrter Herr Darwin!

Meinen besten Dank für Ihren freundlichen Brief und sodann ganz besonders für die Übersendung Ihres neuen Buches “On the power of movement in plants”, welches ich mit von Seite zu Seite steigendem Interesse lese.2 Ich habe es augenblicklich etwa zur Hälfte gelesen und muss bekennen, dass ich mich ungemein befriedigt fühle.

Wenn ich im Laufe dieses Sommers eine grössere Excursion in unsere Provinz mache, werde ich mich selbstverständlich nach Melastomaceen umsehen und Ihnen Samen senden.3 Ich beabsichtige, die Flora unser Provinz zu bearbeiten. Könnten Sie mir vielleicht sagen, ob ich die Pflanzen in Kew bestimmt bekommen kann, und an wen muss ich mich wenden, wenn dies geschehen kann? Martius’ “Flora brasiliensis” besitze ich nicht, und in der Bibliothek hier ist sie gleichfalls nicht zu haben.4

Im December werde ich einen Ausflug an unsere Meeresküste machen, namentlich um Polypen, Medusen und andere niedere Seethiere für mich und für Prof. Haeckel in Jena zu sammeln.5

Meine Hymenopteren und Dipteren werden, soweit wie möglich, von Herrn Dr. Schmiedeknecht in Deutschland bestimmt. Lepidopteren und Orthopteren weiss ich noch nicht unterzubringen.6 Herr Prof. Dr. H. v. Ihring, der auch in unserer Provinz ist, beschäftigt sich augenblicklich eifrig mit physiologischen Experimenten an Schlangen, namentlich mit der Prüfung auf ihre Giftigkeit. Er hat schon einige interessante Entdeckungen gemacht, über die der an den “Zoologischen Anzeiger” von Carus berichtet hat.7 Eine kleine Abhandlung über Stabheuschrecken (Phasmiden und Verwandte) werde ich in kurzer Zeit an die “Stettiner Entomologische Zeitung” einsenden.8 Das Untersuchungs- und Beobachtungs- Material ist in der That so reichlich und mannigfaltig, dass ich oft nicht weiss, wo ich zuerst anfangen soll.

Von Neujahr ab verliere ich nun leider ziemlich viele Zeit, da ich von dieser Zeit ab die Redaction einer hiesigen deutschen Zeitung übernehmen werde. Durch Correspondenz mit drei nord-amerikanischen Zeitungen aus Milwaukee wird mir ebenfalls viel Zeit genommen.9 Leider aber ist daran nichts zu ändern; denn meine Mittel erlauben mir nicht, ohne ein derartiges Amt ausschliesslich meinen Studien zu leben.

Da in der unmittelbaren Umgebung unserer Stadt eine grosse Menge dimorpher und trimorpher Pflanzen wächst, die ich aber meistens noch nicht genau kenne, so werde ich wol auch einmal Befruchtungsversuche an denselben anstellen. Im Auftrag der Meteorologischen Institutes in Leipzig bin ich eben dabei den Versuch zu machen, einige meteorologische Stationen in unserer Provinz ins Leben zu rufen.10 Auf der am lten October stattfindenden Deutsch-Brasilianischen Austellung sind einige sehr werthvolle Sammlungen, namentlich von Insecten, Fischen, Schlangen und Säugethier- Schädeln. Namentlich die letztere würde wegen ihrer Vollständigkeit eine Zierde jedes europäischen Museums sein. Es sollen die Schädel sämmtlicher Säugethiere der Provinz in derselben vorhanden sein. Ich werde s. Z. im Zoologischen Anzeiger Näheres darüber mittheilen.11

Ihrem Herrn Sohn Francis gefällt es in Strasburg hoffentlich sehr gut.12 Bitte grüssen Sie ihn von mir.

Mit bestem Gruss verbleibe ich Ihr | hochachtungsvoll ergebenster | Dr. Wilhelm Breitenbach

Porto Alegre. 9. Sept. 1881. | Rio Grande do Sul. | Brazil.

Footnotes

1
For a translation of this letter, see Appendix I.
2
See letter to Wilhelm Breitenbach, 20 [June] 1881. CD evidently sent Breitenbach a copy of Movement in plants after Breitenbach expressed an interest in reading the book in his letter (see letter from Wilhelm Breitenbach, [before 20 June 1881]).
3
See letter to Wilhelm Breitenbach, 20 [June] 1881 and nn. 3 and 4. CD was interested in species that had two different types of pollen.
4
Several volumes of Karl Friedrich Philipp von Martius’s Flora brasiliensis (Martius ed. 1840–1906) had been published by this time. Breitenbach had already mentioned his lack of access to reference material in his letter of [before 20 June 1881].
5
Medusae are the sexual forms of individuals of the phylum Cnidaria; polyps are individual members of colonial cnidarians such as hydrozoans. Ernst Haeckel had published a monograph on medusae (Haeckel 1879–81) and was working on describing the medusae of the Challenger expedition (Haeckel 1882).
6
Hymenoptera are bees, wasps, and ants; Diptera are true flies, mosquitoes and gnats. Otto Schmiedeknecht specialised in Hymenoptera. Lepidoptera are butterflies and moths; Orthoptera are grasshoppers, locusts, and crickets.
7
Hermann von Ihering, in a letter published in the Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 18 June 1881, pp. 209–10, discussed his research on snakebites and antivenoms. His paper, ‘Über den Giftapparat der Korallenschlange’ (On the venom apparatus of the coral snake; Ihering 1881) appeared in Zoologischer Anzeiger, 1 August 1881. Julius Victor Carus was the editor of Zoologischer Anzeiger.
8
No paper by Breitenbach on insects in the family Phasmidae (a synonym of Phasmatidae, walking sticks) was published in the Stettin Entomologische Zeitung.
9
For newspapers Breitenbach might have edited in Porto Alegro, see Brandenburger 1926 and Roche 1959, pp. 497–9, 673–4. Milwaukee had the largest German population of any American city and a number of German-language newspapers. For more on newspaper publishing there, see the Encyclopedia of Milwaukee, emke.uwm.edu/entry/german-language-media/ (accessed 12 May 2020).
10
The Meteorologische Bureau für Wetterprognosen im Königreich Sachsen (Meteorological Bureau for Weather Forecasts in the Kingdom of Saxony) was set up in 1878 in Leipzig by Carl Christian Bruhns. In December 1863, Bruhns had set up a network of meteorological stations throughout Saxony and was a promoter of the movement to set up the International Meteorological Organisation (Leipziger Institut für Meteorologie, https://meteo.physgeo.uni-leipzig.de/de/orga/limhist-fr.html (accessed 10 August 2020)).
11
No report by Breitenbach appeared in Zoologischer Anzeiger, but his paper ‘Eine ethnologische Sammlung aus der süd-brasilianischen Provinz Rio Grande do Sul’ (An ethnological collection from the south Brazilian province of Rio Grande do Sul; Breitenbach 1882) appeared in the July 1882 issue of Kosmos.
12
Francis Darwin had been working in the laboratory of Anton de Bary in Straßburg (Strasbourg) from 10 May 1881 until 1 August 1881 (letter to W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, 10 May 1881; Emma Darwin’s diary (DAR 242)).

Bibliography

Brandenburger, Clemens. 1926. Die Presse in Brasilien. Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv 23: 479–82.

Breitenbach, Wilhelm. 1882a. Eine ethnologische Sammlung aus der süd-brasilianischen Provinz Rio Grande do Sul. Kosmos 11: 280–7.

Haeckel, Ernst. 1879–81. Monographie der Medusen. Vol. 1: Das System der Medusen, part 1 System der Craspedoten, part 2 System der Acraspeden, Atlas; vol. 2: Die Tiefsee-Medusen der Challenger-Reise und der Organismus der Medusen, Atlas. Jena: Gustav Fischer.

Haeckel, Ernst. 1882. Report on the deep-sea medusæ dredged by H.M.S. Challenger, during the years 1873–1876. Report on the scientific results of the voyage of H.M.S. Challenger during the years 1873–76. Zoology. Vol. 4, part 2. London: HMSO.

Ihering, Hermann von. 1881. Über den Giftapparat der Korallenschlange. Zoologischer Anzeiger 4: 409–12.

Martius, Karl Friedrich Philipp von, ed. 1840–1906. Flora Brasiliensis, enumeratio plantarum in Brasilia hactenus detectarum quas suis aliorumque botanicorum studiis descriptas et methodo naturali digestas partim icone illustratas. 15 vols. Leipzig: R. Oldenbourg.

Movement in plants: The power of movement in plants. By Charles Darwin. Assisted by Francis Darwin. London: John Murray. 1880.

Roche, Jean. 1959. La colonisation allemande et le Rio Grande do Sul. Paris: Institut des hautes études de l’Amérique Latine.

Translation

From Wilhelm Breitenbach1   9 September 1881

Very esteemed Mr Darwin!

My best thanks for your kind letter and then my special thanks for sending me your latest book “On the power of movement in plants”, which I am reading with growing interest from page to page.2 At the moment I have read about half of it and must admit to feeling trememdously satisfied.

When I go on a larger excursion in our province sometime this summer, I will of course look around for Melastomaceae and send you seeds.3 I intend to work on the Flora of our province. Could you perhaps tell me whether it would be possible to have the plants identified at Kew, and who would I approach if this were possible? I do not possess Martius’ “Flora brasiliensis”, and in the library here it also is not available.4

In December I will go on a trip to the coast, namely to collect polyps, Medusae and other lower marine animals for myself and for Prof. Haeckel in Jena.5

My Hymenoptera and Diptera will be identified, as far as possible, by Dr. Schmiedeknecht in Germany. I do not know yet what to do about the Lepidoptera and Orthoptera.6 Prof. Dr. H. v. Ihring, who also is in our province, currently is very busy with physiological experiments on snakes, viz. with assessing their toxicity. He has already made a number of interesting discoveries about which he reported in Carus’s “Zoologischer Anzeiger”.7 Soon I shall send a brief paper on stick insects (Phasmidae and related forms) to the “Stettiner Entomologische Zeitung”.8 The material for observation and investigation is indeed so abundant and diverse, that I often do not know where to start first.

From the New Year, I will unfortunately lose rather a lot of time as I am taking over as editor of a local German newspaper. Correspondence with three North-American newspapers in Milwaukee also takes up a lot of my time.9 Unfortunately however nothing can be done about it, for my means do not allow me to live exclusively for the pursuit of my studies without such duties.

Since dimorphic and trimorphic plants, which I do not know yet precisely, grow in great quantities in the immediate vicinity of our town, I may well do fertilisation experiments with them sometimes. At the request of the Meteorological Institute in Leipzig I am currently attempting to establish a few meteorological stations in our province.10 At the German-Brazilian exhibition opening on 1st. October there are several very valuable collections, namely those of insects, fish, snakes and mammal skulls. The latter in particular, due to its completeness, would be a credit to any European museum. It is supposed to contain skulls of all the mammals of the province. I will report the details in the Zoologischer Anzeiger.11

Hopefully your son Francis likes it in Strasburg.12 Please send him my regards.

With the best wishes I remain | respectfully devoted | Dr. Wilhelm Breitenbach

Porto Alegre. 9. Sept. 1881. | Rio Grande do Sul. | Brazil.

Footnotes

1
For a transcription of this letter in its original German, see Transcript.
2
See letter to Wilhelm Breitenbach, 20 [June] 1881. CD evidently sent Breitenbach a copy of Movement in plants after Breitenbach expressed an interest in reading the book in his letter (see letter from Wilhelm Breitenbach, [before 20 June 1881]).
3
See letter to Wilhelm Breitenbach, 20 [June] 1881 and nn. 3 and 4. CD was interested in species that had two different types of pollen.
4
Several volumes of Karl Friedrich Philipp von Martius’s Flora brasiliensis (Martius ed. 1840–1906) had been published by this time. Breitenbach had already mentioned his lack of access to reference material in his letter of [before 20 June 1881].
5
Medusae are the sexual forms of individuals of the phylum Cnidaria; polyps are individual members of colonial cnidarians such as hydrozoans. Ernst Haeckel had published a monograph on medusae (Haeckel 1879–81) and was working on describing the medusae of the Challenger expedition (Haeckel 1882).
6
Hymenoptera are bees, wasps, and ants; Diptera are true flies, mosquitoes and gnats. Otto Schmiedeknecht specialised in Hymenoptera. Lepidoptera are butterflies and moths; Orthoptera are grasshoppers, locusts, and crickets.
7
Hermann von Ihering, in a letter published in the Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 18 June 1881, pp. 209–10, discussed his research on snakebites and antivenoms. His paper, ‘Über den Giftapparat der Korallenschlange’ (On the venom apparatus of the coral snake; Ihering 1881) appeared in Zoologischer Anzeiger, 1 August 1881. Julius Victor Carus was the editor of Zoologischer Anzeiger.
8
No paper by Breitenbach on insects in the family Phasmidae (a synonym of Phasmatidae, walking sticks) was published in the Stettin Entomologische Zeitung.
9
For newspapers Breitenbach might have edited in Porto Alegro, see Brandenburger 1926 and Roche 1959, pp. 497–9, 673–4. Milwaukee had the largest German population of any American city and a number of German-language newspapers. For more on newspaper publishing there, see the Encyclopedia of Milwaukee, emke.uwm.edu/entry/german-language-media/ (accessed 12 May 2020).
10
The Meteorologische Bureau für Wetterprognosen im Königreich Sachsen (Meteorological Bureau for Weather Forecasts in the Kingdom of Saxony) was set up in 1878 in Leipzig by Carl Christian Bruhns. In December 1863, Bruhns had set up a network of meteorological stations throughout Saxony and was a promoter of the movement to set up the International Meteorological Organisation (Leipziger Institut für Meteorologie, https://meteo.physgeo.uni-leipzig.de/de/orga/limhist-fr.html (accessed 10 August 2020)).
11
No report by Breitenbach appeared in Zoologischer Anzeiger, but his paper ‘Eine ethnologische Sammlung aus der süd-brasilianischen Provinz Rio Grande do Sul’ (An ethnological collection from the south Brazilian province of Rio Grande do Sul; Breitenbach 1882) appeared in the July 1882 issue of Kosmos.
12
Francis Darwin had been working in the laboratory of Anton de Bary in Straßburg (Strasbourg) from 10 May 1881 until 1 August 1881 (letter to W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, 10 May 1881; Emma Darwin’s diary (DAR 242)).

Bibliography

Brandenburger, Clemens. 1926. Die Presse in Brasilien. Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv 23: 479–82.

Breitenbach, Wilhelm. 1882a. Eine ethnologische Sammlung aus der süd-brasilianischen Provinz Rio Grande do Sul. Kosmos 11: 280–7.

Haeckel, Ernst. 1879–81. Monographie der Medusen. Vol. 1: Das System der Medusen, part 1 System der Craspedoten, part 2 System der Acraspeden, Atlas; vol. 2: Die Tiefsee-Medusen der Challenger-Reise und der Organismus der Medusen, Atlas. Jena: Gustav Fischer.

Haeckel, Ernst. 1882. Report on the deep-sea medusæ dredged by H.M.S. Challenger, during the years 1873–1876. Report on the scientific results of the voyage of H.M.S. Challenger during the years 1873–76. Zoology. Vol. 4, part 2. London: HMSO.

Ihering, Hermann von. 1881. Über den Giftapparat der Korallenschlange. Zoologischer Anzeiger 4: 409–12.

Martius, Karl Friedrich Philipp von, ed. 1840–1906. Flora Brasiliensis, enumeratio plantarum in Brasilia hactenus detectarum quas suis aliorumque botanicorum studiis descriptas et methodo naturali digestas partim icone illustratas. 15 vols. Leipzig: R. Oldenbourg.

Movement in plants: The power of movement in plants. By Charles Darwin. Assisted by Francis Darwin. London: John Murray. 1880.

Roche, Jean. 1959. La colonisation allemande et le Rio Grande do Sul. Paris: Institut des hautes études de l’Amérique Latine.

Summary

Thanks for gift of Movement in plants.

Plans botanical research in Brazil.

Hermann von Jhering is conducting experiments on snakes.

WB obliged to work as newspaper correspondent.

Plans breeding experiments on dimorphic plants.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-13325
From
Wilhelm Breitenbach
To
Charles Robert Darwin
Sent from
Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul
Source of text
DAR 160: 295
Physical description
ALS 4pp (German)

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 13325,” accessed on 26 November 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-13325.xml

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