To Charles Lyell [3 March 1866]1
Down
Saturday
My dear Lyell
I returned the memorial this morning & hope it may be successful.—2
I wish I had earlier known how interested you were on mundane cool period, for perhaps I could have given you additional facts.3 I worked in some new facts in last German Edit. of Origin & they will appear in the new Eng. Edit, but this will be too late for you.4 There is one rather important consideration, as it seems to me, viz that it can be proved that individuals of the same plant, growing N. & S, or growing on mountains & plains, certainly become acclimatised & transmit different constitutional powers of withstanding cold to their seedlings; & this would come into play with the slowly advancing glacial period.—5
You must have given up already so much time to subject that I do not suppose my M.S., which I wrote some ten years ago, would be worth your reading: it is at your service & is well copied out but long, viz 47 Pages folio.— —6 Do not answer on this account.—
It is curious how, I find, facts turning up in support of same view: but the other day I read a paper on the representative closely allied Petrels of N. & S. oceans.—7
Very many thanks for your note.—8
Ever yours | C. Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Hutton, Frederick Wollaston. 1865. Notes on some of the birds inhabiting the southern ocean. [Read 3 March 1865.] Ibis n.s. 1: 276–98.
Lyell, Charles. 1867–8. Principles of geology or the modern changes of the earth and its inhabitants considered as illustrative of geology. 10th edition. 2 vols. London: John Murray.
Natural selection: Charles Darwin’s Natural selection: being the second part of his big species book written from 1856 to 1858. Edited by R. C. Stauffer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1975.
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.
Summary
Has returned memorial to Chancellor of Exchequer; thanks CL for his note.
Lengthy remarks on cool period. Did not know of CL’s interest. New facts in new German and English [4th] editions of Origin will be too late for CL’s use. CD’s ten-year-old MS on cool period is available.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-5025
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.315)
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 5025,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-5025.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 14