From Hermann Müller 6 December 1876
Summary
Thanks for Cross and self-fertilisation.
Fritz Müller has been appointed "Naturalista Viajante" of the Rio de Janeiro Museum, which will help his income greatly.
| Author: | Heinrich Ludwig Hermann (Hermann) Müller |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 6 Dec 1876 |
| Classmark: | DAR 171: 308 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10702 |
From James Geikie 20 November 1876
Summary
Glaciation in the British Isles.
S. B. J. Skertchley’s researches on Palaeolithic man in England [Nature 14 (1876): 448–9].
| Author: | James Murdoch (James) Geikie |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 20 Nov 1876 |
| Classmark: | DAR 165: 29 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10460 |
From Francis Galton 16 February 1876
Summary
Sends packets of seeds of peas of different sizes [i.e., weights] for CD’s experiments; identifies size of the seeds that produced them. FG is experimenting "in the same direction" and is curious how his results will compare with CD’s.
| Author: | Francis Galton |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 16 Feb 1876 |
| Classmark: | DAR 76: B3–B11 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10395 |
From Wilhelm Breitenbach 11 September 1876
Summary
His research on Orchis maculata.
Discusses effect of disuse of anthers in Salvia officinalis.
Pleased CD can use his observations on Primula elatior.
| Author: | Wilhelm Breitenbach |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 11 Sept 1876 |
| Classmark: | DAR 160: 292 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10595 |
From T. H. Huxley 3 April 1876
Summary
A Dr Sarazin offers services as translator.
Will read CD’s letter about Robert Swinhoe to Royal Society Council and see what can be done for him.
| Author: | Thomas Henry Huxley |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 3 Apr 1876 |
| Classmark: | DAR 166: 345 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10438 |
From Mary Treat 3 April 1876
Summary
Encloses Pinguicula specimens.
Believes she has found a new species of water-lily.
| Author: | Mary Lua Adelia (Mary) Davis; Mary Lua Adelia (Mary) Treat |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 3 Apr 1876 |
| Classmark: | DAR 178: 178 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10439 |
From Ernst Haeckel 30 December 1876
Summary
Describes new journal, Kosmos, to be edited by Ernst Krause. Asks CD to lend his name to journal.
Has sent Anthropogenie, 3d ed.
Will send his study [Biologische Studien, pt 2: Studien zur Gastraea-theorie (1877)] in January.
Thanks CD for hospitality at Down.
| Author: | Ernst Philipp August (Ernst) Haeckel |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 30 Dec 1876 |
| Classmark: | DAR 166: 69 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10738 |
Matches: 2 hits
- … 1877; for more on the founding of the journal and its relation to other popular science journals at this time, see Daum 1998 , pp. 359–69. Under the pseudonym Carus Sterne, Krause had published Werden und Vergehen: eine Entwicklungsgeschichte des Naturganzen in gemeinverständlicher Fassung (Genesis and decline: a history of the whole of nature …
- … Nature , 4 November 1869, p. 1; for more on the setting up of the journal and its editorial policy, see Roos 1981 and Baldwin 2015 , pp. 21–47). The co-editors of Kosmos were Gustav Jäger and Otto Caspari . CD’s and Haeckel’s names appeared in the full title of the journal (see n. 4, above). CD’s copy of the third edition of Anthropogenie: oder, Entwickelungsgeschichte des Menschen (Anthropogeny, or the developmental history of humans; Haeckel 1877 ) …
From Asa Gray 22 December 1876
Summary
Discusses some dimorphic plants.
Sends specimens of Rhamnus but his few specimens of Leucosmia are very poor.
| Author: | Asa Gray |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 22 Dec 1876 |
| Classmark: | DAR 110: B36–7, B74–5 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10731 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … 1877 in the American Journal of Science and Arts 3d ser. 13: 125–41; Benjamin Silliman Jr was one of the proprietors and editors of the journal. Francis Darwin probably sent an offprint of F. Darwin 1876d . CD had been correcting the proof-sheets for Orchids 2d ed. , and intended to send them to Gray so that Gray could write a notice of it; see letter to Asa Gray, 27 November 1876 . Gray did not review these works in Nature . …
| letter | (8) |
| Breitenbach, Wilhelm | (1) |
| Davis, Mary | (1) |
| Galton, Francis | (1) |
| Geikie, James | (1) |
| Gray, Asa | (1) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (8) |
| Breitenbach, Wilhelm | (1) |
| Davis, Mary | (1) |
| Galton, Francis | (1) |
| Geikie, James | (1) |
Darwin in letters, 1877: Flowers and honours
Summary
Ever since the publication of Expression, Darwin’s research had centred firmly on botany. The year 1877 was no exception. The spring and early summer were spent completing Forms of flowers, his fifth book on a botanical topic. He then turned to the…
Matches: 1 hits
- … no little discovery of mine ever gave me so much pleasure as the making out the …
Photograph album of German and Austrian scientists
Summary
The album was sent to Darwin to mark his birthday on 12 February 1877 by the civil servant Emil Rade, and contained 165 portraits of German and Austrian scientists. The work was lavishly produced and bound in blue velvet with metal embossing. Its ornate…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The album was sent to Darwin to mark his birthday on 12 February 1877 by the civil servant Emil …
Cross and self fertilisation
Summary
The effects of cross and self fertilisation in the vegetable kingdom, published on 10 November 1876, was the result of a decade-long project to provide evidence for Darwin’s belief that ‘‘Nature thus tells us, in the most emphatic manner, that she abhors…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The effects of cross and self fertilisation in the vegetable kingdom , published on 10 November …
Suggested reading
Summary
Contemporary writing Anon., The English matron: A practical manual for young wives, (London, 1846). Anon., The English gentlewoman: A practical manual for young ladies on their entrance to society, (Third edition, London, 1846). Becker, L. E.…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Contemporary writing Anon., The English matron : A practical manual for …
Language: key letters
Summary
How and why language evolved bears on larger questions about the evolution of the human species, and the relationship between man and animals. Darwin presented his views on the development of human speech from animal sounds in The Descent of Man (1871),…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The origin of language was investigated in a wide range of disciplines in the nineteenth century. …
Charles Harrison Blackley
Summary
You may not have heard of Charles Harrison Blackley (1820–1900), but if you are one of the 15 million people in the UK who suffer from hay fever, you are indebted to him. For it was he who identified pollen as the cause of the allergy. Darwin was…
Matches: 1 hits
- … You may not have heard of Charles Harrison Blackley (1820–1900), but if you are one of the 15 …
German poems presented to Darwin
Summary
Experiments in deepest reverence The following poems were enclosed with a photograph album sent as a birthday gift to Charles Darwin by his German and Austrian admirers (see letter from From Emil Rade, [before 16] February 1877). The poems were…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Experiments in deepest reverence The following poems were enclosed with a …
Darwin on race and gender
Summary
Darwin’s views on race and gender are intertwined, and mingled also with those of class. In Descent of man, he tried to explain the origin of human races, and many of the differences between the sexes, with a single theory: sexual selection. Sexual…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin’s views on race and gender are intertwined, and mingled also with those of class. In …
Movement in Plants
Summary
The power of movement in plants, published on 7 November 1880, was the final large botanical work that Darwin wrote. It was the only work in which the assistance of one of his children, Francis Darwin, is mentioned on the title page. The research for this…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The power of movement in plants , published on 7 November 1880, was the final large botanical …
Darwin in public and private
Summary
Extracts from Darwin's published works, in particular Descent of man, and selected letters, explore Darwin's views on the operation of sexual selection in humans, and both his publicly and privately expressed views on its practical implications…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The following extracts and selected letters explore Darwin's views on the operation of sexual …
Dipsacus and Drosera: Frank’s favourite carnivores
Summary
In Autumn of 1875, Francis Darwin was busy researching aggregation in the tentacles of Drosera rotundifolia (F. Darwin 1876). This phenomenon occurs when coloured particles within either protoplasm or the fluid in the cell vacuole (the cell sap) cluster…
Matches: 1 hits
- … By John Schaefer, Harvard University* Charles Darwin’s enthusiasm for carnivorous …
1.14 William Richmond, oil
Summary
< Back to Introduction William Blake Richmond’s portrait of Darwin, dating from 1879, celebrated his honorary degree of LL.D (Doctor in Laws), awarded by Cambridge University in 1877. Darwin’s return to his alma mater for the presentation ceremony…
Matches: 1 hits
- … < Back to Introduction William Blake Richmond’s portrait of Darwin, dating from 1879, …
Darwin in letters, 1863: Quarrels at home, honours abroad
Summary
At the start of 1863, Charles Darwin was actively working on the manuscript of The variation of animals and plants under domestication, anticipating with excitement the construction of a hothouse to accommodate his increasingly varied botanical experiments…
Matches: 1 hits
- … At the start of 1863, Charles Darwin was actively working on the manuscript of The variation of …
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
- … Darwin is famous for showing that humans are just another animal, but, in his later years in …
Darwin as mentor
Summary
Darwin provided advice, encouragement and praise to his fellow scientific 'labourers' of both sexes. Selected letters Letter 2234 - Darwin to Unidentified, [5 March 1858] Darwin advises that Professor C. P. Smyth’s observations are not…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin provided advice, encouragement and praise to his fellow scientific 'labourers' of both …
Darwin on human evolution
Summary
'I hear that Ladies think it delightful reading, but that it does not do to talk about it, which no doubt promotes the sale.' For the first time online you can now read the full texts of nearly 800 letters Darwin wrote and received during 1871,…
Matches: 1 hits
- … I shall be well abused, for as my son Frank says: "you treat man in such a bare-faced manner." …
The origin of language
Summary
Darwin started thinking about the origin of language in the late 1830s. The subject formed part of his wide-ranging speculations about the transmutation of species. In his private notebooks, he reflected on the communicative powers of animals, their…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin started thinking about the origin of language in the late 1830s. The subject formed part of …
Forms of flowers
Summary
Darwin’s book The different forms of flowers on plants of the same species, published in 1877, investigated the structural differences in the sexual organs of flowers of the same species. It drew on and expanded five articles Darwin had published on the…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin’s book The different forms of flowers on plants of the same species , published in 1877, …
Darwin in letters, 1879: Tracing roots
Summary
Darwin spent a considerable part of 1879 in the eighteenth century. His journey back in time started when he decided to publish a biographical account of his grandfather Erasmus Darwin to accompany a translation of an essay on Erasmus’s evolutionary ideas…
Matches: 1 hits
- … There are summaries of all Darwin's letters from the year 1879 on this website. The full texts of …
Species and varieties
Summary
On the origin of species by means of natural selection …so begins the title of Darwin’s most famous book, and the reader would rightly assume that such a thing as ‘species’ must therefore exist and be subject to description. But the title continues, …or…
Matches: 1 hits
- … On the origin of species by means of natural selection …so begins the title of Darwin’s most …
