To J. D. Hooker [1 April 1864]
Summary
Proposes to support John Scott in research on relative fertility and self-incompatibility of plants. CD would pay him for a year or two but wants JDH to give him research facilities at Kew.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | [1 Apr 1864] |
| Classmark: | DAR 115: 226a–b |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4444 |
To J. D. Hooker 8 October [1864]
Summary
Huxley has answered Kölliker in Natural History Review [(1864): 566–80].
CD is correcting two of Scott’s papers; is convinced primrose and cowslip are two good species.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 8 Oct [1864] |
| Classmark: | DAR 115: 251 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4630 |
To J. D. Hooker 13 September [1864]
Summary
Pleased that Bentham is cautious about Naudin’s view of reversion. CD can show experimentally that crossing of races and species tends to bring back ancient characters.
Suggests Gärtner’s Bastarderzeugung [1849] be translated
and that Oliver review Scott’s Primula paper [J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 8 (1865): 78–126] for a future issue of Natural History Review.
Is working on Variation.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 13 Sept [1864] |
| Classmark: | DAR 115: 249a–b |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4612 |
To J. D. Hooker 10 June [1864]
Summary
CD has proved common oxlip to be a hybrid of cowslip and primrose.
Reviewing literature on climbing plants, CD finds he has much new material.
W. H. Harvey claims evidence of saltation in a dandelion.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 10 June [1864] |
| Classmark: | DAR 115: 238a–c |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4525 |
To J. D. Hooker 10 December [1864]
Summary
Has found incipient stages of adhesive discs in Hanburia tendrils.
Huxley was probably right to have challenged Sabine, but the poor old man is sick.
CD remembers the old Disraeli novel [Tancred (1847)] that sneers at transmutation.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 10 Dec [1864] |
| Classmark: | DAR 115: 256 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4712 |
Matches: 2 hits
- … 1867 and J. D. Hooker 1881 ). The reference is to the German journal Botanische Zeitung . Daniel Oliver often provided CD with references to German and French articles (see, for example, letter …
- … 1867 is in the Darwin Library–Down. An English translation of Hofmeister’s 1851 book, Vergleichende Untersuchungen der Keimung, Entfaltung und Fruchtbildung höherer Kryptogamen … und der Samenbildung der Coniferen (On the germination, development, and fructification of the higher Cryptogamia and on the fructification of the Coniferae), was published in 1862, with substantial revisions and additions, by the Ray Society ( Hofmeister 1862 ). Hooker had a long-running interest in the geographical distribution of plants (see, for example, J. D. Hooker 1853 , and Correspondence vol. 6, letter …
Darwin in letters, 1867: A civilised dispute
Summary
Charles Darwin’s major achievement in 1867 was the completion of his large work, The variation of animals and plants under domestication (Variation). The importance of Darwin’s network of correspondents becomes vividly apparent in his work on expression in…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Charles Darwin’s major achievement in 1867 was the completion of his large work, The …
Darwin’s queries on expression
Summary
When Darwin resumed systematic research on emotions around 1866, he began to collect observations more widely and composed a list of queries on human expression. A number of handwritten copies were sent out in 1867 (see, for example, letter to Fritz Muller…
Matches: 1 hits
- … When Darwin resumed systematic research on emotions around 1866, he began to collect observations …
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 …
A fly on the flower: From Hermann Müller, 23 October 1867
Summary
In March 1867, Hermann Müller, a young teacher of natural sciences at a provincial Realschule (a type of secondary school that emphasised the natural sciences) in Lippstadt in the Prussian province of Westphalia, sent Darwin two papers on the mosses of…
Matches: 1 hits
- … In March 1867, Hermann Müller , a young teacher of natural sciences at a provincial Realschule …
Women’s scientific participation
Summary
Observers | Fieldwork | Experimentation | Editors and critics | Assistants Darwin’s correspondence helps bring to light a community of women who participated, often actively and routinely, in the nineteenth-century scientific community. Here is a…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Observers | Fieldwork | Experimentation | Editors and critics | Assistants …
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. …
John Lubbock
Summary
John Lubbock was eight years old when the Darwins moved into the neighbouring property of Down House, Down, Kent; the total of one hundred and seventy surviving letters he went on to exchange with Darwin is a large number considering that the two men lived…
Matches: 1 hits
- … John Lubbock was eight years old when the Darwins moved into the neighbouring property of Down …
Women as a scientific audience
Summary
Target audience? | Female readership | Reading Variation Darwin's letters, in particular those exchanged with his editors and publisher, reveal a lot about his intended audience. Regardless of whether or not women were deliberately targeted as a…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Target audience? | Female readership | Reading Variation Darwin's …
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 …
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 …
Referencing women’s work
Summary
Darwin's correspondence shows that women made significant contributions to Darwin's work, but whether and how they were acknowledged in print involved complex considerations of social standing, professional standing, and personal preference.…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin's correspondence shows that women made significant contributions to Darwin's work, but …
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 …
Edward Lumb
Summary
Edward Lumb was born in Yorkshire. According to the memoirs of his daughter Anne, Lady Macdonell, he travelled to Buenos Aires aged sixteen with his merchant uncle, Charles Poynton, and after some fortunate enterprises set up in business there. In 1833…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Edward Lumb was born in Yorkshire. According to the memoirs of his daughter Anne, Lady Macdonell, …
A tale of two bees
Summary
Darwinian evolution theory fundamentally changed the way we understand the environment and even led to the coining of the word 'ecology'. Darwin was fascinated by bees: he devised experiments to study the comb-building technique of honey bees and…
Matches: 1 hits
- … In the unseasonably warm weather of March 2012, one of the Darwin Correspondence Project editors …
Controversy
Summary
The best-known controversies over Darwinian theory took place in public or in printed reviews. Many of these were highly polemical, presenting an over-simplified picture of the disputes. Letters, however, show that the responses to Darwin were extremely…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Disagreement & Respect | Conduct of Debate | Darwin & Wallace The best-known …
Religion
Summary
Design|Personal Belief|Beauty|The Church Perhaps the most notorious realm of controversy over evolution in Darwin's day was religion. The same can be said of the evolution controversy today; however the nature of the disputes and the manner in…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Design | Personal Belief | Beauty | The Church Perhaps the most notorious …
Sexual selection
Summary
Although natural selection could explain the differences between species, Darwin realised that (other than in the reproductive organs themselves) it could not explain the often marked differences between the males and females of the same species. So what…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Although natural selection could explain the differences between species, Darwin realised that …
Darwin in letters, 1882: Nothing too great or too small
Summary
In 1882, Darwin reached his 74th year Earthworms had been published the previous October, and for the first time in decades he was not working on another book. He remained active in botanical research, however. Building on his recent studies in plant…
Matches: 1 hits
- … In 1882, Darwin reached his 74th year Earthworms had been published the previous October, and …
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 …
Race, Civilization, and Progress
Summary
Darwin's first reflections on human progress were prompted by his experiences in the slave-owning colony of Brazil, and by his encounters with the Yahgan peoples of Tierra del Fuego. Harsh conditions, privation, poor climate, bondage and servitude,…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Letters | Selected Readings Darwin's first reflections on human progress were …
