To Fritz Müller 11 January 1866
Down. | Bromley. | Kent. S.E.
Jan 11 1866
My dear Sir
I received your interesting letter of Nov 5. some little time ago,1 & despatched immediately a copy of my Journal of researches.2 I fear that you will think me troublesome in my offers; but have you the 2nd German Edition of the Origin? which is a translation with additions of the 3rd English Ed.3 & is I think considerably improved compared with the 1st Ed.4 I have some spare copies which are of no use to me & it wd be a pleasure to me to send you one, if it wd be of any use to you. You wd never require to re-read the book, but you might wish to refer to some passage. I am particularly obliged for your photograph, for one likes to have a picture in one’s mind of any one about whom one is interested.5 I have received & read with interest your paper on the Spunge with horny Spicula.6 Owing to ill-health & being busy when formerly well, I have for some years neglected periodical scientific literature & have lately been reading up & have thus read translations of several of your papers;7 amongst which I have been particularly glad to read & see the drawings of the Metamorphoses of Peneus. This seems to me the most interesting discovery in embryology which has been made for years.8
I am much obliged to you for telling me a little of your plans for the future; what a strange but to my taste, interesting life you will lead when you retire to your estate on the Itajahi!9 You refer in your letter to the facts which Agassiz is collecting, against our views, on the Amazons.10 Though he has done so much for science, he seems to me so wild & paradoxical in all his views that I cannot regard his opinions as of any value—11
Believe me my dear Sir | yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin
P.S. I did not at all know that your island had lately risen.12 Near Rio I cd find no such evidence;13 you ought to collect & send the paper to some Geolog. Journal—14
Footnotes
Bibliography
Columbia gazetteer of the world: The Columbia gazetteer of the world. Edited by Saul B. Cohen. 3 vols. New York: Columbia University Press. 1998.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
George, J. David and George, Jennifer J. 1979. Marine life: an illustrated encyclopedia of invertebrates in the sea. London: Harrap.
Journal of researches: Journal of researches into the geology and natural history of the various countries visited by HMS Beagle, under the command of Captain FitzRoy, RN, from 1832 to 1836. By Charles Darwin. London: Henry Colburn. 1839.
Lurie, Edward. 1960. Louis Agassiz: a life in science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Marginalia: Charles Darwin’s marginalia. Edited by Mario A. Di Gregorio with the assistance of Nicholas W. Gill. Vol. 1. New York and London: Garland Publishing. 1990.
Möller, Alfred, ed. 1915–21. Fritz Müller. Werke, Briefe und Leben. 3 vols in 5. Jena: Gustav Fischer.
Origin 3d ed.: On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. 3d edition, with additions and corrections. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1861.
Origin 4th ed.: On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. 4th edition, with additions and corrections. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1866.
Origin: On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1859.
South America: Geological observations on South America. Being the third part of the geology of the voyage of the Beagle, under the command of Capt. FitzRoy RN, during the years 1832 to 1836. By Charles Darwin. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1846.
Variation: The variation of animals and plants under domestication. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1868.
West, David A. 2003. Fritz Müller. A naturalist in Brazil. Blacksburg, Va.: Pocahontas Press.
Winsor, Mary Pickard. 1991. Reading the shape of nature. Comparative zoology at the Agassiz museum. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Summary
Has read FM’s paper on sponges ["Über Darwinella aurea", Arch. Miskrosk. Anat. 1 (1865): 344–53] with interest.
Has also read FM’s work on the metamorphoses of Peneus [Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 3d ser. 14 (1864): 104–15], an interesting and important embryological discovery.
CD regards Louis Agassiz’s opinions as valueless.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-4972
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Johann Friedrich Theodor (Fritz) Müller
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- The British Library (Loan MS 10 no 5)
- Physical description
- LS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4972,” accessed on 19 October 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4972.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 14