To T. H. Huxley 1 December [1858]
Summary
Has had some misgivings about the memorial but now thinks his fears were vain and cowardly. Regrets R. I. Murchison was not told in advance. His low opinion of the Government and B. Disraeli.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Thomas Henry Huxley |
| Date: | 1 Dec [1858] |
| Classmark: | Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine Archives (Huxley 5: 250) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2376 |
To J. D. Hooker 3 December [1858]
Summary
Examining JDH’s list. CD struck by how many plants are common to Europe, S. America, and Australia.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 3 Dec [1858] |
| Classmark: | DAR 114: 256 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2377 |
To John Higgins 8 December 1858
Summary
Sends receipt for £250 6s. 2d.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | John Higgins |
| Date: | 8 Dec 1858 |
| Classmark: | Dominic Winter Auctioneers (dealers) (2 October 2019, lot 258) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2377F |
To W. E. Darwin [9 December 1858]
Summary
Approves of WED’s moving into CD’s old rooms [at Christ’s College]. Gives fatherly advice on Cambridge’s temptation to idleness. Christmas plans.
Health poor of late.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | William Erasmus Darwin |
| Date: | [9 Dec 1858] |
| Classmark: | DAR 92: A18, A25–8 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2379 |
To Walter Elliot 12 December [1858]
Summary
Thanks WE for an oriental treatise on pigeons, a paper on poultry, and specimens.
Asks about stripes on shoulders and legs of horses and donkeys.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Walter Elliot |
| Date: | 12 Dec [1858] |
| Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.162) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2380 |
From T. H. Huxley 17 December 1858
Summary
K. E. von Baer’s view of the air bladder of fishes.
| Author: | Thomas Henry Huxley |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 17 Dec 1858 |
| Classmark: | DAR 166: 289 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2381 |
From J. D. Hooker 22 December 1858
Summary
Would appreciate loan of CD’s chapter on transmigration across tropics, which may help with the difficulties of Australian distribution.
Still regards plant types as older than animal types.
The Cape of Good Hope and Australian temperate floras cannot be connected by the highlands of Abyssinia.
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 22 Dec 1858 |
| Classmark: | DAR 100: 128–30 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2382 |
To W. B. Tegetmeier 24 December [1858]
Summary
Thanks for some poultry breeds.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | William Bernhard Tegetmeier |
| Date: | 24 Dec [1858] |
| Classmark: | Archives of the New York Botanical Garden (Charles Finney Cox Collection) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2383 |
To J. D. Hooker 24 December [1858]
Summary
Wide-ranging species more "improved" than relics in small areas because they exist in large numbers and thus are subject to intense competition.
His abstract is 330 folio pages long so far.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 24 Dec [1858] |
| Classmark: | DAR 114: 257 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2384 |
From J. D. Hooker [26 December 1858]
Summary
JDH cannot abide CD’s connection of wide-ranging species and "highness". Australian flora contradicts this in many ways.
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | [26 Dec 1858] |
| Classmark: | DAR 100: 125–6 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2385 |
From Andrew Crombie Ramsay 29 December 1858
Summary
Responds to CD’s queries about the thickness of various geological formations. [See Origin, p. 284.]
| Author: | Andrew Crombie Ramsay |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 29 Dec 1858 |
| Classmark: | DAR 205.9: 398 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2387 |
To J. D. Hooker 31 December [1858]
Summary
Replies at length to JDH’s worried reaction to his comments on lowness of Australian plants. CD distinguishes between "competitive highness", i.e., which fauna would be exterminated and which survive if two faunas were placed in competition, and ordinary "highness" of classification.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 31 Dec [1858] |
| Classmark: | DAR 115: 35 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2388 |
To James Paget 19 December [1858]
Summary
Asks JP to remember him if anything occurs to him "in regard to inheritance at corresponding or rather earlier ages". Sends JP a few examples for his "Chronometry of life". CD is sure he often met with striking facts but he disregarded them. "Deviations alone would have struck me."
Effects of different climates on breeding periods.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | James Paget, 1st baronet |
| Date: | 19 Dec [1858] |
| Classmark: | Wellcome Collection (MS.5703/28) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5314 |
| letter | (13) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (9) |
| Hooker, J. D. | (2) |
| Huxley, T. H. | (1) |
| Ramsay, A. C. | (1) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (4) |
| Darwin, W. E. | (1) |
| Elliot, Walter | (1) |
| Higgins, John | (1) |
| Hooker, J. D. | (3) |
| Huxley, T. H. | (1) |
| Paget, James | (1) |
| Tegetmeier, W. B. | (1) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (13) |
| Hooker, J. D. | (5) |
| Huxley, T. H. | (2) |
| Darwin, W. E. | (1) |
| Elliot, Walter | (1) |
