To Charles Lyell 12 April [1861]
Summary
Discusses progress of CL’s work [on Antiquity of man (1863)].
CD had not thought of subsidence in connection with "roads" of Glen Roy.
Discusses habits of ants.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
| Date: | 12 Apr [1861] |
| Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.244) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3117 |
To Charles Lyell 4 October [1867]
Summary
Replies to CL’s further comments [on Variation].
Discusses direct action of the environment as a cause of variation.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
| Date: | 4 Oct [1867] |
| Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.334) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5640 |
To Charles Lyell 6 June [1860]
Summary
Mentions Etty’s illness.
A "coarsely contemptuous" review of Origin by Samuel Haughton ["On the form of the cells made by various wasps and by the honey bee; with an appendix on the origin of species", Proc. Nat. Hist. Soc. Dublin 3 (1860): 128–40].
Comments on reception of Malthus’ ideas.
Says William Hopkins does not understand him.
Discusses problem of term "natural selection".
J. A. Lowell’s review of Origin [Christian Examiner (1860): 449–64].
Relationship between instinct and structure.
Discusses blindness of cave animals.
The fallacy of Andrew Murray and others; the slight importance of climate.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
| Date: | 6 June [1860] |
| Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.215) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2822 |
To Charles Lyell 15 April [1860]
Summary
Has resolved not to correct Owen’s misrepresentations in his review of Origin.
Discusses at length the theological implications of natural selection.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
| Date: | 15 Apr [1860] |
| Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.208) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2761 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … inflated crop, sailing about in search of food. What admiration this would have excited,— …
To Charles Lyell [5 and 7 October 1842]
Summary
Discusses growth of various species of coral. Explains significance of dead reefs.
Describes meeting of the Council of the Geological Society; the controversy involving Edward Charlesworth.
Mentions conversations with William Lonsdale about Lonsdale’s work on corals and the financial support for his work.
Murchison’s views on glaciation in Wales.
Agassiz’s observations at Glen Roy.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
| Date: | 5 and 7 Oct 1842 |
| Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.28) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-649 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … growth, are present. Corals—require food,—why should not an increase of small crustaceæ in …
From Charles Lyell 8 September 1860
Summary
Believes CD’s argument against special creation based on absence of terrestrial mammals on islands isolated before Pliocene era is very strong. However, the absence means Cetacea and bats have not modified towards terrestrial existence. There is similar lack of development of bats and rodents in Australia. Constancy among land shells of Madeira over long period shows that the majority of their species are immutable: a minority of "metamorphic" species maintains the overall number of true species while extinction removes many. Emphasis on the role of extinction discomfits CD’s opponents since the power of generation of new species ought to keep pace. Mentions Ammonite deposits with reference to CD’s comments on their apparent sudden extinction [Origin, pp. 321–2]. Perhaps absence of transmutation on slowly subsiding atolls indicates the slow rate of selective change.
| Author: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 8 Sept 1860 |
| Classmark: | The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell collection Coll-203/A3/6: 179–86) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2908A |
Matches: 1 hit
- … dolphins & other cetacea, when pressed hard for food w d go up the rivers or if amphibious …
From Charles Lyell 4 October 1859
Summary
Response to Origin. Praise for summary of chapter 10 and chapter 11.
The dissimilarity of African and American species is ‘necessary result of “Creation” adapting new species to the pre-existing ones. Granting this unknown & if you please miraculous power acting’.
C. T. Gaudin writes of Oswald Heer’s finding many species common between Miocene floras of Iceland and Switzerland. Interesting for CD’s migration theory.
| Author: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 4 Oct 1859 |
| Classmark: | DAR 170: 81; The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Notebook 241, pp. 75–90) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3132 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … existing assemblage of enemies & to flourish on the food then at hand. The climate becomes …
| letter | (7) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (5) |
| Lyell, Charles | (2) |
| Lyell, Charles | (5) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (2) |
Alfred Russel Wallace’s essay on varieties
Summary
The original manuscript about varieties that Wallace composed on the island of Gilolo and sent to Darwin from the neighbouring island of Ternate (Brooks 1984) has not been found. It was sent to Darwin as an enclosure in a letter (itself missing), and was…
Matches: 26 hits
- … that of their infant offspring. The possibility of procuring food during the least favourable …
- … supposing them not to die either by violence or want of food. Yet at this rate how tremendous would …
- … broods are superfluous. On the average all above one become food for hawks and kites, wild cats and …
- … much less plentiful? The explanation is not difficult. The food most congenial to this species, and …
- … of the district it inhabits, and as soon as the supply of food begins to fail in one place is able …
- … shows us that the procuring a constant supply of wholesome food is almost the sole condition …
- … peculiar circumstances so strikingly combined. Either their food is more liable to failure, or they …
- … in offspring, they can never increase beyond the supply of food in the least favourable seasons. …
- … deficient in a constant and abundant supply of wholesome food. Those whose organization does not …
- … sparrow is more abundant than the redbreast, because its food is more constant and plentiful,—seeds …
- … than others, generally the contrary; but because their food never fails, the sea-shores and river …
- … The only intelligible answer is, that their supply of food is more precarious. It appears evident, …
- … one species does so, some others requiring the same kind of food must diminish in proportion. The …
- … in health and vigour—those who are best able to obtain food regularly, and avoid their numerous …
- … those which are best adapted to obtain a regular supply of food, and to defend themselves against …
- … are the least capable of counteracting the vicissitudes of food, supply, &c., must diminish in …
- … stationary, being kept down by a periodical deficiency of food, and other checks ; and, 2nd, that …
- … rendering it more difficult to procure a regular supply of food and to provide for their personal …
- … organs, would more or less affect their mode of procuring food or the range of country which they …
- … be affected in its powers of procuring a regular supply of food; and in both cases the result must …
- … follow as surely as old age, intemperance, or scarcity of food produce an increased mortality. In …
- … has to search, and often to labour, for every mouthful of food—to exercise sight, hearing, and smell …
- … exercise. The domestic animal, on the other hand, has food provided for it, is sheltered, and often …
- … strengthened by exercise, and must even slightly modify the food, the habits, and the whole economy …
- … proportioned to each other as to be best adapted to procure food and secure safety,—that in which by …
- … shorter-necked companions, and on the first scarcity of food were thereby enabled to outlive them . …
Journal of researches
Summary
Within two months of the Beagle’s arrival back in England in October 1836, Darwin, although busy with distributing his specimens among specialists for description, and more interested in working on his geological research, turned his mind to the task of…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Owen thought it ‘ as full of good original wholesome food as an egg ’; William Henry Fitton …
Darwin's notes for his physician, 1865
Summary
On 20 May 1865, Emma Darwin recorded in her diary that John Chapman, a prominent London publisher who had studied medicine in London and Paris in the early 1840s, visited Down to consult with Darwin about his ill health. In 1863 Chapman started to treat…
Wearing his knowledge lightly: From Fritz Müller, 5 April 1878
Summary
Darwin received letters from so many people and wrote so many fascinating letters himself, that it’s hard to choose from many letters that stand out, but one of this editor’s favourites, that always brings a smile, is a letter from Fritz Müller written 5…
Matches: 1 hits
- … caterpillars from eggs of butterflies and to find suitable food plants for different species. Based …
Review: The Origin of Species
Summary
- by Asa Gray THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES BY MEANS OF NATURAL SELECTION (American Journal of Science and Arts, March, 1860) This book is already exciting much attention. Two American editions are announced, through which it will become familiar to many…
Matches: 10 hits
- … tinder domestication is somehow connected with excess of food. He regards the unknown cause as …
- … of udder, stands of course in obvious relation to supply of food. Really, we no more know the …
- … Nature bright with gladness, we often see superabundance of food; we do not see, or we forget, that …
- … beasts of prey; we do not always bear in mind that, though food may be now superabundant, it is not …
- … in the world.’—(p. 68.) ‘The amount of food gives the extreme limit to which each …
- … but, in so far as climate chiefly acts in reducing food, it brings on the most severe struggle …
- … or of distinct species, which subsist on the same kind of food, Even when climate, for instance …
- … from enemies or from competitors for the same place and food; and if these enemies or competitors be …
- … ponds of fresh water. Farmers find that they can raise most food by a rotation of plants belonging …
- … that season of the year when the wolf is hardest pressed for food. I can under such circumstances …
Essay: Design versus necessity
Summary
—by Asa Gray DESIGN VERSUS NECESSITY.—DISCUSSION BETWEEN TWO READERS OF DARWIN’S TREATISE ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES, UPON ITS NATURAL THEOLOGY. (American Journal of Science and Arts, September, 1860) D.T.—Is Darwin’s theory atheistic or pantheistic…
Matches: 3 hits
Vivisection: draft petition
Summary
The Petition of Humbly Sheweth That your petitioners are persons engaged in the study of the Biological Sciences [‘& their application to medicine’ del]. That the art of preventing & curing disease is based upon a knowledge of the nature …
Matches: 1 hits
- … to kill’ del ] *the killing of [ interl ] animals for food and their employment [ above del …
Plant or animal? (Or: Don’t try this at home!)
Summary
Darwin is famous for showing that humans are just another animal, but, in his later years in particular, his real passion was something even more ambitious: to show that there are no hard-and-fast boundaries between animals and plants. In 1875 Darwin…
Matches: 1 hits
- … on the streets of London.* As a subject it had everything: food, murder, and fatal attraction. …
Darwin and barnacles
Summary
In a letter to Henslow in March 1835 Darwin remarked that he had done ‘very little’ in zoology; the ‘only two novelties’ he added, almost as an afterthought, were a new mollusc and a ‘genus in the family Balanidæ’ – a barnacle – but it was an oddity. Who,…
Matches: 1 hits
- … three pairs of cirri – frond-like limbs used for gathering food – instead of six, and, observing its …
Syms Covington
Summary
When Charles Darwin embarked on the Beagle voyage in 1831, Syms Covington was ‘fiddler & boy to Poop-cabin’. Covington kept an illustrated journal of his observations and experiences on the voyage, noting wildlife, landscapes, buildings and people and,…
Matches: 1 hits
- … wildlife, landscapes, buildings and people and, frequently, food. After teaching Covington to …
George Keen
Summary
George Keen (1794–1884) was born in England. He had arrived in Buenos Aires by 1820, making him one of the earliest settlers from Britain. In 1821 he married Mary Yates (1802/3–72), the sister of John, William and Elizabeth Yates, another family of early…
Matches: 1 hits
- … salted and dispatched to Brazil and Cuba as ‘tasajo’, food for slaves. However, this trade was in …
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: 6 hits
- … Wilde in Dublin University Magazine early month of 1854 on food of Irish. ( Pig ) [Wilde] 1854] …
- … Cage birds: their natural history, management, habits, food, diseases, treatment, breeding, and …
- … true law of population shewn to be connected with the food of the people . London. [Other eds.] …
- … situation, nature of country, population, nature of food, and way of life on the disposition and …
- … 119: 20a ——. 1852. Report on substances used as food. In Exhibition of the works of …
- … 119: 10a [Wilde, William Robert Wills]. 1854. The food of the Irish. Chapter 1: the potato. …
Abstract of Darwin’s theory
Summary
There are two extant versions of the abstract of Darwin’s theory of natural selection. One was sent to Asa Gray on 5 September 1857, enclosed with a letter of the same date (see Correspondence vol. 6, letter to Asa Gray, 5 September [1857] and enclosure).…
Benjamin Renshaw
Summary
How much like a monkey is a person? Did our ancestors really swing from trees? Are we descended from apes? By the 1870s, questions like these were on the tip of everyone’s tongue, even though Darwin himself never posed the problem of human evolution in…
Matches: 1 hits
- … is very shy, but is easily allured by the sight & smell of food; she speaks only in inarticulate …
Thomas Rivers
Summary
Rivers and Darwin exchanged around 30 letters, most in 1863 when Darwin was hard at work on the manuscript of Variation of plants and animals under domestication, the lengthy and detailed sequel to Origin of species. Rivers, an experienced plant breeder…
Matches: 1 hits
- … near a large nursery & your mind would find abundance of food”, Rivers wrote ( [3 February 1863 …
Essay: Evolutionary teleology
Summary
—by Asa Gray EVOLUTIONARY TELEOLOGY When Cuvier spoke of the ‘combination of organs in such order that they may be in consistence with the part which the animal has to play in Nature,’ his opponent, Geoffroy St.-Hilaire, rejoined, ‘I know nothing of…
Matches: 3 hits
- … grade. Granting that quite possibly the capture of flies for food by Dionaea and the sundews may …
- … species among each other for the ground they occupy, or the food they seek, will bring out and …
- … on the other, by the direct difference in the supply of food and moisture, light and heat. Here the …
British Association meeting 1860
Summary
Several letters refer to events at the British Association for the Advancement of Science held in Oxford, 26 June – 3 July 1860. Darwin had planned to attend the meeting but in the end was unable to. The most famous incident of the meeting was the verbal…
Matches: 1 hits
- … of playing with a hammer; but although he liked oysters as food, he never could teach him to break …
Darwin in Conversation exhibition
Summary
Meet Charles Darwin as you have never met him before. Come to our exhibition at Cambridge University Library, running from 9 July to 3 December 2022, and discover a fascinating series of interwoven conversations with Darwin's many hundreds of…
Matches: 1 hits
- … 9 July – 3 December 2022 Milstein Exhibition Centre, Cambridge University …
New material added to the American edition of Origin
Summary
A ‘revised and augmented’ American edition of Origin came on the market in July 1860, and was the only authorised edition available in the US until 1873. It incorporated many of the changes Darwin made to the second English edition, but still contained…
Matches: 1 hits
- … structures in accordance with external circumstances, as food, the nature of the habitat and the …
Darwin and Design
Summary
At the beginning of the nineteenth century in Britain, religion and the sciences were generally thought to be in harmony. The study of God’s word in the Bible, and of his works in nature, were considered to be part of the same truth. One version of this…
Matches: 1 hits
- … for such powers. Its main occupation was digging roots for food, and it could demolish any predator …
