To George Rolleston 5 September [1861]
Summary
GR’s letter is a gold-mine.
Pleased to have Pierre Gratiolet’s comment on the embryology of greatly modified organs
and GR’s valuable cases of analogous variation.
Doubts craniologists, but recounts his father’s opinion that the shape of CD’s head was altered when he returned from the Beagle.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | George Rolleston |
| Date: | 5 Sept [1861] |
| Classmark: | Royal College of Physicians of London (ALS/D12) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3245 |
To J. D. Hooker 18 [December 1861]
Summary
Lindley suggests Gongora may be female Acropera.
CD’s orchid book nearly ready for press.
Discovers trimorphism in Lythrum is in H. Lecoq [Études sur la géographie botanique de l’Europe (1854–8)].
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 18 [Dec 1861] |
| Classmark: | DAR 115: 137 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3346 |
To Williams & Norgate 16 February [1861]
Summary
Wishing to purchase a copy of Ferguson’s illustrated series of rare and prize poultry, including comprehensive essays upon all classes of domestic fowl (Ferguson 1854).
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Williams & Norgate |
| Date: | 16 Feb [1861] |
| Classmark: | RR Auction (dealers) (14 June 2018, Lot 30) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3062F |
To W. B. Tegetmeier 1 March [1861]
Summary
Thanks for skulls
and information about Ferguson.
Is working on rabbits’ skeletons.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | William Bernhard Tegetmeier |
| Date: | 1 Mar [1861] |
| Classmark: | Archives of the New York Botanical Garden (Charles Finney Cox Collection) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3075 |
Matches: 3 hits
- … of a manual on poultry ( Ferguson 1854 ). See letter to W. B. Tegetmeier, 25 February [ …
- … letter to W. B. Tegetmeier, 25 February [1861] , n. 6. Tegetmeier was to be one of the judges of fowls and pigeons at the Preston poultry show, to be held on 6 and 7 March 1861 ( Cottage Gardener 25 (1861): 357). Delamer 1854 , …
- … 1854 as one of his sources and reproducing an illustration of the half- lop rabbit taken from this work ( Variation 1: 107–8). When CD was studying the formation of bees’ cells in 1858, Tegetmeier had recommended providing the bees with coloured wax to investigate their manner of cell construction. See Correspondence vol. 7, letter …
To W. B. Tegetmeier 25 February [1861]
Summary
Would like to borrow WBT’s collection of fowls’ skulls.
Asks for WBT’s opinion of G. Ferguson, the author of a poultry book [Ferguson’s illustrated book of domestic poultry].
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | William Bernhard Tegetmeier |
| Date: | 25 Feb [1861] |
| Classmark: | Archives of the New York Botanical Garden (Charles Finney Cox Collection) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3070 |
Matches: 4 hits
- … 1854 , p. 186. Tegetmeier apparently did investigate this point further. See letter to …
- … Ferguson 1854 ). The work had been recommended to CD by William A. Wooler (see letter …
- … letters from Edward Hewitt , 18 December 1857 and 22 December 1857 . A note written on the inside back cover of CD’s copy of Ferguson 1854 …
- … 1854 in the Darwin Library–CUL. CD had long been interested in collecting authenticated instances of successful crosses between pheasants and common fowl (see Natural selection , pp. 434–5). Tegetmeier had previously put CD in touch with a breeder who had made such crosses. See Correspondence vol. 6, letter …
To W. B. Tegetmeier 8 May [1861]
Summary
Thanks WBT for information on pigeons and poultry.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | William Bernhard Tegetmeier |
| Date: | 8 May [1861] |
| Classmark: | Archives of the New York Botanical Garden (Charles Finney Cox Collection) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4830 |
Matches: 2 hits
- … 1854 , a copy of which CD had apparently acquired in March 1861 (see this volume, Supplement, letter …
- … 1854 , Shanghai fowl have fourteen tail feathers ( ibid , p. 15), and the Malay hen has ten ( ibid. , p. 186). CD commented in Variation 1: 248 that Ferguson could not be generally trusted. See also Correspondence vol. 9, letter …
To J. D. Hooker [9 December 1861]
Summary
Henri Lecoq’s miserable book on plant geography [Étude sur la géographie botanique de l’Europe (1854–8)].
H. W. Bates’s pleasure at meeting JDH.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | [9 Dec 1861] |
| Classmark: | DAR 115: 136, 129c |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3341 |
To J. D. Hooker 1 December [1861]
Summary
Rudimentary ovules of Acropera.
High opinion of Bates.
Orchid anatomy.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 1 Dec [1861] |
| Classmark: | DAR 115: 135 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3337 |
From Daniel Oliver [before 3 November 1861]
Summary
List of references on orchid structure and fertilisation.
| Author: | Daniel Oliver |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | [before Nov 1861] |
| Classmark: | DAR 104: 225–6 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3039 |
To Williams & Norgate 4 March [1861]
Summary
CD is obliged for the securing of [Ferguson’s illustrated book of domestic poultry]. Since he has already been given a copy, may he return this one?
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Williams & Norgate |
| Date: | 4 Mar [1861] |
| Classmark: | Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz (Slg. Autogr.: Darwin, Charles Robert, Bl. 1-2 ) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3082F |
Matches: 2 hits
- … 1854 ( Ferguson’s illustrated series of rare and prize poultry ); there is an annotated copy in the Darwin Library–CUL (see Marginalia 1: 227–9). The acquaintance may have been William Alexander Wooler ; see letter …
- … letter to W. B. Tegetmeier, 25 February [1861] ( Correspondence vol. 9); also, according to his journal, CD was working on chapter 7 of Variation , ‘Fowls’ (1: 225–75), from mid-March 1861 (see Correspondence vol. 9, Appendix II). Ferguson 1854 ( …
To J. D. Hooker 24 September [1861]
Summary
CD’s orchid paper is to become orchid book [Orchids].
Primula paper is done [Collected papers 2: 45–63].
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 24 Sept [1861] |
| Classmark: | DAR 115: 113 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3263 |
Matches: 2 hits
- … 1854, CD had asked them to make some inquiries for him in India (see Correspondence vol. 6, letter …
- … 1854 and 1858, by order of the court of directors of the Honourable East India Company , by the Schlagintweit brothers, Hermann Rudolph Alfred, Adolph, and Robert. The reviewer was highly critical of the calibre of the scientific results of the Schlagintweits, whose appointment he said was ‘one of the most gigantic jobs that ever disgraced the annals of science’, and he accused the Royal Society of London of complicity in agreeing to the appointment of the Schlagintweits over more qualified English officers in India ( Athenæum , 17 August 1861, p. 215). Responding to the criticism of their part in the affair, Roderick Impey Murchison and Edward Sabine of the Royal Society sent letters …
From J. D. Hooker [30 December 1861 or 6 January 1862]
Summary
Glad CD has given up on Acropera ovules.
Doubts phanerogams less different in extreme forms [than Crustacea].
No systematic parallelism between plants and animals.
Offers list of Arctic plants with their colours. Asks CD whether it is useful to add colour to [descriptions of] plants.
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | [30 Dec] 1861 or [6 Jan] 1862 |
| Classmark: | DAR 101: 3–4 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3375 |
To J. D. Hooker 28 [December 1861]
Summary
Gongora cannot be female of Acropera; it may itself be a male.
Hopes Daniel Oliver will "sink Atlantis" in his Royal Institution lecture.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 28 [Dec 1861] |
| Classmark: | DAR 115: 139 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3352 |
To J. D. Hooker 15 January [1861]
Summary
CD’s opinion of minor critics and commentators on Origin.
H. C. Watson’s notion of genera converging is dismissed.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 15 Jan [1861] |
| Classmark: | DAR 115.2: 85 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3047 |
To J. D. Hooker 25 November [1861]
Summary
Acropera species may be males of other orchids.
Homologies of ducts in orchids.
Went to British Museum to see Bates’s mimetic butterflies.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 25 Nov [1861] |
| Classmark: | DAR 115: 134 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3329 |
From Albert Charles Lewis Gotthilf Günther to S. P. Woodward 14 June 1861
Summary
Discusses transport of fish to Lake Constance by flooding.
| Author: | Albrecht Carl Ludwig Gotthilf (Albert) Günther |
| Addressee: | Samuel Pickworth Woodward |
| Date: | 14 June 1861 |
| Classmark: | DAR 205.2: 235 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3605 |
To H. W. Bates 3 December [1861]
Summary
Thanks HWB for references.
Praises his paper ["Contributions to an insect fauna of the Amazon valley", read before Linnean Society, 21 Nov 1861, Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 23 (1862) : 495–566] which solves "one of the most perplexing problems which could be given to solve".
Discusses the difficulties of writing and expresses disappointment at Wallace’s book [Travels on the Amazon (1861)].
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Henry Walter Bates |
| Date: | 3 Dec [1861] |
| Classmark: | Cleveland Health Sciences Library (Robert M. Stecher collection) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3338 |
From William A. Wooler 4 February 1861
Summary
Discusses the colouring of the young of various breeds of rabbit.
Observations on results of various poultry crosses and on a character which is linked to sex.
| Author: | William Alexander Wooler |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 4 Feb 1861 |
| Classmark: | DAR 181: 156 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3058 |
To J. D. Hooker 17 [July 1861]
Summary
Orchids from Kew.
JDH’s income problems.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 17 [July 1861] |
| Classmark: | DAR 115: 106 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3210 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … 1854 (L. Huxley ed. 1918, 1: 385). He was an examiner for the Apothecaries’ Company Medal ( ibid . , 385) and also for the London University, a position he held until 1864 ( ibid . , 537). See n. 5, above. Hooker had recommended that Henrietta Emma Darwin be rubbed several times a day with cod-liver oil in an attempt to improve her appetite and promote her recovery from the after-effects of what was thought to be typhus fever (see letter …
From George Rolleston 1 September 1861
Summary
The embryology of the vertebrate nervous system may be an exception to the law of inheritance at corresponding ages.
| Author: | George Rolleston |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 1 Sept 1861 |
| Classmark: | DAR 176: 207 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3241 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … letter to Jeffries Wyman, 3 October [1860] . Rolleston refers to the South American burrowing rodent Ctenomys , whose blindness CD believed to have been caused by the ‘inflammation of the nictitating membrane’ ( Origin 3d ed. , p. 154). The reference is to CD’s rule that at whatever period of life a peculiarity first appears, it tends to appear in the offspring at a corresponding age ( Origin 3d ed. , pp. 14, 476). Samuel Thomas Soemmering . Gratiolet 1854, …
| letter | (20) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (15) |
| Günther, Albert | (1) |
| Hooker, J. D. | (1) |
| Oliver, Daniel | (1) |
| Rolleston, George | (1) |
| Wooler, W. A. | (1) |
| Hooker, J. D. | (8) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (4) |
| Tegetmeier, W. B. | (3) |
| Williams & Norgate | (2) |
| Bates, H. W. | (1) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (19) |
| Hooker, J. D. | (9) |
| Tegetmeier, W. B. | (3) |
| Rolleston, George | (2) |
| Williams & Norgate | (2) |
Darwin in letters, 1851-1855: Death of a daughter
Summary
The letters from these years reveal the main preoccupations of Darwin’s life with a new intensity. The period opens with a family tragedy in the death of Darwin’s oldest and favourite daughter, Anne, and it shows how, weary and mourning his dead child,…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The letters from these years reveal the main preoccupations of Darwin’s life with a new intensity. …
Scientific Practice
Summary
Specialism|Experiment|Microscopes|Collecting|Theory Letter writing is often seen as a part of scientific communication, rather than as integral to knowledge making. This section shows how correspondence could help to shape the practice of science, from…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Specialism | Experiment | Microscopes | Collecting | Theory Letter writing …
Darwin’s reading notebooks
Summary
In April 1838, Darwin began recording the titles of books he had read and the books he wished to read in Notebook C (Notebooks, pp. 319–28). In 1839, these lists were copied and continued in separate notebooks. The first of these reading notebooks (DAR 119…
Matches: 1 hits
- … In April 1838, Darwin began recording the titles of books he had read and the books he wished to …
Darwin and the Church
Summary
The story of Charles Darwin’s involvement with the church is one that is told far too rarely. It shows another side of the man who is more often remembered for his personal struggles with faith, or for his role in large-scale controversies over the…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The story of Charles Darwin’s involvement with the church is one that is told far too rarely. It …
Living and fossil cirripedia
Summary
Darwin published four volumes on barnacles, the crustacean sub-class Cirripedia, between 1851 and 1854, two on living species and two on fossil species. Written for a specialist audience, they are among the most challenging and least read of Darwin’s works…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin published four volumes on the crustacean sub-class Cirripedia between 1851 and 1854, two on …
Darwin in letters, 1847-1850: Microscopes and barnacles
Summary
Darwin's study of barnacles, begun in 1844, took him eight years to complete. The correspondence reveals how his interest in a species found during the Beagle voyage developed into an investigation of the comparative anatomy of other cirripedes and…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Species theory In November 1845, Charles Darwin wrote to his friend and confidant Joseph …
Darwin’s study of the Cirripedia
Summary
Darwin’s work on barnacles, conducted between 1846 and 1854, has long posed problems for historians. Coming between his transmutation notebooks and the Origin of species, it has frequently been interpreted as a digression from Darwin’s species work. Yet…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin’s work on barnacles, conducted between 1846 and 1854, has long posed problems for …
3.2 Maull and Polyblank photo 1
Summary
< Back to Introduction The rise of professional photographic studios in the mid nineteenth century was a key factor in the shaping of Darwinian iconography, but Darwin’s relationship with these firms was from the start a cautious and sometimes a…
Matches: 1 hits
- … < Back to Introduction The rise of professional photographic studios in the mid …
John Murray
Summary
Darwin's most famous book On the origin of species by means of natural selection (Origin) was published on 22 November 1859. The publisher was John Murray, who specialised in non-fiction, particularly politics, travel and science, and had published…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin's most famous book On the origin of species by means of natural selection (Origin) was …
Before Origin: the ‘big book’
Summary
Darwin began ‘sorting notes for Species Theory’ on 9 September 1854, the very day he concluded his eight-year study of barnacles (Darwin's Journal). He had long considered the question of species. In 1842, he outlined a theory of transmutation in a…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin began ‘sorting notes for Species Theory’ on 9 September 1854, the very day he concluded his …
Scientific Networks
Summary
Friendship|Mentors|Class|Gender In its broadest sense, a scientific network is a set of connections between people, places, and things that channel the communication of knowledge, and that substantially determine both its intellectual form and content,…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Friendship | Mentors | Class | Gender In its broadest sense, a scientific …
Editorial policy and practice
Summary
Full texts are added to this site four years after the letter is published in the print edition of the Correspondence. Transcriptions are made from the original or a facsimile where these are available. Where they are not, texts are taken from the best…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Full texts are added to this site four years after the letter is published in the print edition of …
Joseph Simms
Summary
The American doctor and author of works on physiognomy Joseph Simms wrote to Darwin on 14 September 1874, while he was staying in London. He enclosed a copy of his book Nature’s revelations of character (Simms 1873). He hoped it might 'prove…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The American doctor and author of works on physiognomy Joseph Simms wrote to Darwin on 14 …
Darwin’s observations on his children
Summary
Charles Darwin’s observations on the development of his children, began the research that culminated in his book The Expression of the emotions in man and animals, published in 1872, and his article ‘A biographical sketch of an infant’, published in Mind…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Charles Darwin’s observations on the development of his children,[1] began the research that …
Barnacles
Summary
Sources|Discussion Questions|Experiment Darwin and barnacles Darwin’s interest in Cirripedia, a class of marine arthropods, was first piqued by the discovery of an odd burrowing barnacle, which he later named “Mr. Arthrobalanus," while he was…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Sources | Discussion Questions | Experiment Darwin and barnacles …
Charles Darwin’s letters: a selection 1825-1859
Summary
The letters in this volume span the years from 1825, when Darwin was a student at the University of Edinburgh, to the end of 1859, when the Origin of Species was published. The early letters portray Darwin as a lively sixteen-year-old medical student. Two…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The letters in this volume span the years from 1825, when Darwin was a student at the University …
3.3 Maull and Polyblank photo 2
Summary
< Back to Introduction Despite the difficulties that arose in relation to Maull and Polyblank’s first photograph of Darwin, another one was produced, this time showing him in three-quarter view. It was evidently not taken at the same session as the…
Matches: 1 hits
- … < Back to Introduction Despite the difficulties that arose in relation to Maull and …
Science, Work and Manliness
Summary
Discussion Questions|Letters In 1859, popular didactic writer William Landels published the first edition of what proved to be one of his best-selling works, How Men Are Made. "It is by work, work, work" he told his middle class audience, …
Matches: 1 hits
- … Discussion Questions | Letters In 1859, popular didactic writer William Landels …
Alfred Russel Wallace
Summary
Wallace was a leading Victorian naturalist, with wide-ranging interests from biogeography and evolutionary theory to spiritualism and politics. He was born in 1823 in Usk, a small town in south-east Wales, and attended a grammar school in Hertford. At the…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Wallace was a leading Victorian naturalist, with wide-ranging interests from biogeography and …
Thomas Henry Huxley
Summary
Dubbed “Darwin’s bulldog” for his combative role in controversies over evolution, Huxley was a leading Victorian zoologist, science popularizer, and education reformer. He was born in Ealing, a small village west of London, in 1825. With only two years of…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Dubbed “Darwin’s bulldog” for his combative role in controversies over evolution, Huxley was a …
