From J. D. Hooker [21 December 1862]
Summary
"Throttled off" Welwitschia paper at Linnean Society [Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 24 (1863): 1–48].
Has read Tocqueville’s Democracy in America [1835–40] – disagrees with it. Tocqueville says democracy in America is a success. Democracy has persisted because there has been no cause for its overthrow (i.e., no struggle for existence, too much mobility).
Sends J. W. Dawson’s unsatisfactory letter.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [21 Dec 1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 101: 80–2 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3856 |
To J. D. Hooker [21 December 1862]
Summary
Thanks for Begonia and Oxalis.
Keeps obstinate about crossing and could argue till doomsday, but will not bother JDH.
Sees that JDH has finished Welwitschia.
Thinks Huxley’s Working Men’s Lectures excellent.
Has finished Linum paper [Collected papers 2: 93–105],
and abstract of Bates’s paper for Natural History Review,
and has begun to arrange concluding chapters [for Variation]. Is paralysed on how to begin.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | [21 Dec 1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 115: 174 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3871 |
To John Scott 11 December [1862]
Summary
Criticises style of JS’s fern paper [Edinburgh New Philos. J. 2d ser. 16 (1862): 209–27].
JS’s remark on "the two sexes counteracting variability in the product of the one" is new to CD.
Does the female [fern?] plant always produce female by parthenogenesis?
They seem to work on same subjects; CD has much material on Drosera.
Does not understand JS’s objections to natural selection.
Offers to suggest experiments.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | John Scott |
Date: | 11 Dec [1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 93: B37, B49–52 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3853 |
From J. D. Hooker [14 December 1862]
Summary
On Asa Gray’s letter; has written why he avoids alluding to the war.
Has read Max Müller [see 3752] – last part unphilosophical.
On CD’s pigeon example, long-beaked and short-beaked pigeons must be either sterile or not inter se. There is "no such thing as Equality – hence no such thing as chance and Nat. Sel. is the sword of Damocles hanging over your head if you make a slip in your premisses."
Has read note on Lythrum sent several weeks ago. Its consequences are of most prolific order to CD’s doctrine.
Kew has no wild gooseberries.
JDH praises the Saturday Review reply [14 (1862): 589] to the Duke of Argyll’s bitter review of Orchids ["The supernatural", Edinburgh Rev. 116 (1862): 378–97].
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [14 Dec 1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 101: 83–4 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3846 |
To G. H. K. Thwaites 29 December [1862]
Summary
Asks for any authentic cases of "sports", which CD calls "bud-variations". Flowers introduced from warmer temperate regions are said to be particularly apt to sport in this way.
CD now has proof that Cinchona is dimorphic and that some dimorphic plants are absolutely sterile with their own-form pollen.
Asks GHKT to examine or send pollen specimens of two Ceylon genera.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | George Henry Kendrick Thwaites |
Date: | 29 Dec [1862] |
Classmark: | Cleveland Health Sciences Library (Robert M. Stecher collection) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3880 |
Matches: 1 hit
From Asa Gray 29 December 1862
Summary
Encloses maize seeds.
Has heard of a butterfly with pollinia of Platanthera stuck to it.
Comments on AG’s notes ["Dimorphism in the genitalia of flowers", Am. J. Sci. 2d ser. 34 (1862): 149–50].
"Precocious fertilisation".
Author: | Asa Gray |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 29 Dec 1862 |
Classmark: | DAR 109: 85, DAR 165: 126 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3882 |
To Pickard & Stoneman 1 December [1862]
Summary
Asks for information about cases for stove-plants. [Answers recorded in another hand.]
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Unidentified |
Date: | 1 Dec [1862] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.283) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3839 |
letter | (7) |
Darwin, C. R. | (4) |
Hooker, J. D. | (2) |
Gray, Asa | (1) |
Darwin, C. R. | (3) |
Hooker, J. D. | (1) |
Scott, John | (1) |
Thwaites, G. H. K. | (1) |
Unidentified | (1) |
Darwin, C. R. | (7) |
Gray, Asa | (1) |
Hooker, J. D. | (3) |
Scott, John | (1) |
Thwaites, G. H. K. | (1) |
Unidentified | (1) |