To Asa Gray 24 March [1880]1
Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.
March 24th
My dear Gray
I thank you much for the 2 seeds of Megarrhiza: I hope that they may germinate for I shd. very much like to see a longitudinal section & the proportion of the parts, when the (apparent) root is only or of inch out of the seed-coats.2
You must not suppose that what is obvious to you is so to me; for as the confluent petioles of the Cots. of the Delphinium are not tubular at first, I was astonished to see the young leaves coming out of a hole or slit at their base.3
Very many thanks for all your information about the Megarrhiza, the germination of which has interested me greatly.—4
I was much amused by your little article on the Philadelphia lawyer. You are a first-rate hand in touching up a fool.—5 The lawyer is a cool man in trying to make me out a rogue; but this seems the fashion & according to Mr S. Butler in the Athenæum I am a rogue of the deepest dye, because I forgot to state that Dr Krause had altered his article on Erasmus Darwin before sending it to England for translation.6
Ever yours sincerely | Ch. Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Butler, Samuel. 1879. Evolution, old and new: or, the theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck, as compared with that of Mr. Charles Darwin. London: Hardwicke and Bogue.
Erasmus Darwin. By Ernst Krause. Translated from the German by W. S. Dallas, with a preliminary notice by Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1879.
Krause, Ernst. 1879a. Erasmus Darwin, der Großvater und Vorkämpfer Charles Darwin’s: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Descendenz-Theorie. Kosmos 4 (1878–9): 397–424.
O’Neill, T. Warren. 1880. The refutation of Darwinism; and the converse theory of development; based exclusively upon Darwin’s facts, and comprising qualitative and quantitative analyses of the phenomena of variation; of reversion; of correlation; of crossing; of close-interbreeding; of the reproduction of lost members; of the repair of injuries; of the reintegration of tissue; and of sexual and asexual generation. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co.
Summary
Thanks for Megarrhiza seeds and information. Has been greatly interested by Megarrhiza germination.
Samuel Butler has attacked CD over Erasmus Darwin.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-12545
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Asa Gray
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- Archives of the Gray Herbarium, Harvard University (130)
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 12545,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-12545.xml