To Charles Lyell 21 August [1861]
Summary
Suggests change in a passage [in MS] of CL’s [Antiquity of man (1863)] dealing with adaptations for travel.
Comments on review of Origin by F. W. Hutton [Geologist (1861): 132–6, 183–8].
Emphasises importance of variability for natural selection.
Discusses possiblity of intelligent causes in variation.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | 21 Aug [1861] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.261) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3235 |
To Charles Lyell 23 [September 1860]
Summary
Hopes to get Asa Gray’s review of Origin republished.
Argues for single origin of mammals.
Encloses two phylogenetic diagrams indicating possible descent of mammals.
Comments on rodents, marsupials, and dingo in Australia,
and on a paper on the survival of stumps as a result of root grafting.
Argues that man had a single progenitor and consists of a single species.
Comments on destruction of non-white races.
Discusses introduction of rodents to islands by man.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | 23 [Sept 1860] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.227) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2925 |
To Charles Lyell [September–December 1842]
Summary
Discusses relationship of subsidence to the formation of coral reefs.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | [Sept–Dec 1842] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.30) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-605 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … putting on one side denudation) above the unknown limit, say between 3000 & 5000 feet, …
To Charles Lyell [7 March 1847]
Summary
Has received copy of CL’s Principles [7th ed.].
Comments on reading Annales des sciences naturelles.
David Milne’s and Robert Chambers’ views on Glen Roy.
Mentions sales of South America.
Describes visit to his father at Shrewsbury.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | [7 Mar 1847] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.59) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1070 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … is a manuscript list of page numbers, in an unknown hand. The list is headed, ‘Additions & …
To Charles Lyell 13 [August 1861]
Summary
Thanks CL for orchids acquired from a collector.
Discusses role of Providence in variation. Does CL honestly think it applies to variations in domestication? If not ordained there, sees no reason for it in nature either.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | 13 [Aug 1861] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.260) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3230 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … No doubt these are all caused by some unknown law, but I cannot believe they were ordained …
To Charles Lyell [19 March 1868]
Summary
The second volume of Lyell’s [Principles, 10th ed.] gives a "fair history of the progress of opinion on Species".
Pleased by allusion to Pangenesis: "an untried hypothesis is always dangerous ground".
Looks forward to chapter on domestication and on man.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | [19 Mar 1868] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.349) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-6023 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … 2, below) and by an endorsement in an unknown hand. The second volume of the tenth edition …
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 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … ago I was saying to a friend, that the unknown manner of accumulation of these deposits …
To Charles Lyell 27 [December 1859]
Summary
Mentions William Clift ["Report in regard to the fossil bones found in New Holland", Edinburgh New Philos. J. 10 (1830–1): 394–6].
Discusses relations between fossil and living types.
Discusses Hooker’s introductory essay [in Flora Tasmaniae]. Criticises Hooker’s views on flora of rising and sinking islands.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | 27 [Dec 1859] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.187) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2608 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … Pacific Ocean the floras of all best cases are unknown: the comparison ought to have been …
To Charles Lyell 24 March [1853]
Summary
Volcanic activity of Mt Kilauea as described by Dana [Am. J. Sci. 2d ser. 9 (1850): 347–64]. Discusses the mechanics of volcanic eruption. Disputes view of William Hopkins that simultaneous action by volcanoes of different heights must come from separate lava sources. Notes relationship of continental elevation to volcanic action.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | 24 Mar [1853] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.105) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1508 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … which are at work in the interior at some unknown distance below. These causes have given …
To Charles Lyell 25 October [1859]
Summary
Discusses P. S. Pallas’ theory of origin of domestic dog breeds. CD believes domestic dogs descended from more than one aboriginal wild species but ultimately "we believe all canine species have descended from one parent and the only question is whether the whole or only part of difference in our domestic breeds has arisen since man domesticated them".
Races of man offer great difficulty. The doctrine of Pallas and Agassiz that there are several species "does not help us" in the least.
Hopes Henry Holland will not review Origin.
CD’s and CL’s difference on "principle of improvement" and "power of adaptation" is profound. Improvement in breeds of cattle requires neither. Urges him to reread first four chapters of Origin carefully. Natural selection is not to be contrasted with "improvement": every step involves improvement in relation to the conditions of life. There is no need for a "principle" to intervene.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | 25 Oct [1859] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.174) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2510 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … of polygenesis. CD’s precise reference here is unknown. For a number of years, he had been …
To Charles Lyell 5 July [1856]
Summary
Discusses theory of submerged continental extensions. Objects that if it is applied to one island, it must be applied to all. Admits that some volcanoes may have been associated with subsidence, in contrast to his former view. Cites evidence from S. American Cordillera. Doubts that elevation associated with volcanoes is merely local, and that great ocean areas are necessarily sinking.
Says he will make his essay [on species] as complete as possible and will discuss CL’s Principles.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | 5 July [1856] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.133) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1917 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … judge. no unnecessary intervention of unknown or hypothetical agency. In L. G. Wilson ed. …
To Charles Lyell [1 August 1861]
Summary
Mentions Dutch translation [of Origin].
Discusses evolutionary origin of sexuality.
Asa Gray’s suggestion that variation was directed by a higher power and Herschel’s view of providential arrangement in nature.
Compares variation in domestic and wild species.
Asks CL for introductions for his son William in Southampton, where he has joined a bank.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | [1 Aug 1861] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.259) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3223 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … the domestic & wild conditions are due to unknown causes & are without purpose & in so far …
To Charles Lyell [14] September [1838]
Summary
Comments on an article in Edinburgh Review [by David Brewster, 67 (1838): 271–308] on Comte’s Philosophie positive.
Discusses falsity of Élie de Beaumont’s views of contemporaneous parallel lines of elevation and subsidence.
Owen’s views of relationship of reptiles to birds.
On "question of species" CD has filled notebook after notebook with facts, "which begin to group themselves clearly under sub-laws".
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | [14] Sept [1838] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.11) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-428 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … Until this discovery, mammals were unknown in Secondary strata. Henri Marie Ducrotay de …
To Charles Lyell 8 [September 1847]
Summary
Discusses David Milne’s Glen Roy paper ["On the parallel roads of Lochaber", Trans. R. Soc. Edinburgh 16 (1849): 395–418]. Rejects Milne’s theory that outlet of Glen Roy is blocked by detritus. Impressed by Milne’s discovery of an outlet at the level of the second shelf. Believes this strengthens theory that lakes were formed by glacier blocking Glen Roy. Offers arguments against glacier theory.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | 8 [Sept 1847] |
Classmark: | DAR 50: C3–C6 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1116 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … but a copy of it was also made by an unknown amanuensis, presumably for Lyell to retain. …
letter | (14) |
Darwin, C. R. | (14) |
Darwin, C. R. | (14) |
Lyell, Charles | (14) |
4.49 Alfred Bryan, caricature
Summary
< Back to Introduction Among the portrayals of Darwin reproduced in Bridgeman Images is a caricature titled Natural History Repeating Itself, from an unnamed private collection. It is initialled by ‘A.B.’, i.e. Alfred Bryan, who worked as an…
4.26 Christmas card caricature, monkeys
Summary
< Back to Introduction Sem’s Christmas card with a caricature of Darwin was not the only thing of its kind. A sale catalogue of 2009, Charles Robert Darwin . . . One Hundred and Two Items, included the front leaf of a greetings card inscribed in…
Matches: 1 hits
- … venerable monkey-ancestor. physical location unknown accession or …
4.57 silhouette cartoon
Summary
< Back to Introduction A strange double silhouette caricature found its way into the Darwin family collection in the 1930s. Darwin’s outsize caricatured head is attached to the body of a monkey with a long tail, which has a demonic appearance. He…
2.2 Thomas Woolner metal plaque
Summary
< Back to Introduction In Benedict Read’s account of the work of Thomas Woolner in Pre-Raphaelite Sculpture, there is a reference to a ‘bronze medallion of Darwin . . . catalogued in Woolner’s studio in February 1913 (lot 123), which was presumably…
Matches: 1 hits
- … by the Wedgwood firm? physical location unknown accession or collection …
4.58 'Simian, savage' . . . drawings
Summary
< Back to Introduction An anonymous satire in the Darwin archive has been descriptively titled ‘Simian, savage and savant’. Darwin on the right, elegantly dressed and carrying a top hat, represents the acme of civilisation. The central, nearly naked,…
Matches: 1 hits
- … University Library originator(s) of images unknown; one of the wash drawings is signed …
2.21 Montford, relief at Christ's College
Summary
< Back to Introduction An oval bronze plaque with a relief portrait of Darwin by Horace Montford is at Christ’s College, Cambridge, the college where Darwin had been an undergraduate. It is likely to have been based on one of the many photographs of…
4.50 Cigar box lid design
Summary
< Back to Introduction A brightly coloured chromolithograph with a portrait of Darwin was intended to decorate the inside of a cigar box lid. It comes from a book of sample designs carried by a cigar salesman, and can be dated to the late 1880s or…
1.13 Louisa Nash, drawing
Summary
< Back to Introduction This sketch portrait of Darwin was drawn by Louisa A‘hmuty Nash as a memento of her friendship with the Darwin family and a token of her unbounded admiration and affection for Darwin himself. She and her husband, the lawyer…
3.9 Leonard Darwin, photo on horseback
Summary
< Back to Introduction It is so rare to encounter an image of Darwin in a specific locale that a family photograph of him riding his horse Tommy takes on a special interest. He is at the front of Down House, the door of which is open; it seems as…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Library originator of image unknown: assumed to be Leonard Darwin …
2.18 Montford, Carnegie bust
Summary
< Back to Introduction In 1901 the immensely rich steel manufacturer and business magnate Andrew Carnegie commissioned Horace Montford for two bronze busts of Darwin. The exact circumstances of the commission are unknown, but Carnegie must have been…
4.37 'Mosquito' satire
Summary
< Back to Introduction The Buenos Aires satirical journal Mosquito published this cartoon in May 1882, shortly after Darwin’s death, with the title ‘El Homenage a Darwin en el Teatro Nacional’ (The tribute to Darwin in the National Theatre). A…
4.16 Joseph Simms, physiognomy
Summary
< Back to Introduction In September 1874, the American doctor Joseph Simms, then on a three-year lecture tour of Britain, sent Darwin a copy of his book, Nature’s Revelations of Character; Or, Physiognomy Illustrated. He was seeking a public…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Library originator of image unknown engraver, after a photograph by Elliott …
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
- … prejudice in Descent of man . In a letter from an unknown correspondent on 13 June 1877 , he …
4.12 'Fun', Wedding procession
Summary
< Back to Introduction ‘The wedding procession’ appeared in Fun magazine on March 25, 1871, and contained an amusing echo of the cartoon representing Darwin as ‘A venerable orang-outang’ that had appeared in the Hornet a few days earlier. 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…
4.19 George Montbard, caricature
Summary
< Back to Introduction In this watercolour drawing by Charles Auguste Loye, who called himself George Montbard, Darwin is in a ‘Gallery of ancestors’. He is improbably pictured as a connoisseur in a sleek cut-away tail coat, training his lorgnette on…
Matches: 1 hits
- … at lower left) date of creation unknown (1870s?) computer-readable date …
4.32 Anis liqueur label
Summary
< Back to Introduction Many late-nineteenth-century cartoons played on the popular association of Darwin with theories about humans’ simian ancestry: theories that challenged traditional religious beliefs. However, it is surprising to find an…
Matches: 1 hits
- … holder Marti Dominguez originator of image unknown artist working for the Bosch family …
4.36 Sem, Chistmas card
Summary
< Back to Introduction An unattributed watercolour drawing of Darwin shows him dapperly dressed in a tail coat, but walking on all fours like an animal, his lean figure bent over in an arch and filling the space. It is inscribed ‘With Compliments of…
Matches: 1 hits
- … to Frederick Sem date of creation unknown; probably late 1870s or c.1880-1 …
4.55 Harry Furniss caricature
Summary
< Back to Introduction Harry Furniss’s caricature of Darwin is in a set of seventy-two pen and ink drawings by this artist now in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London. They were acquired in 1947-8 from Theodore Cluse, who, acting…
4.2 Augustus Earle, caricature drawing
Summary
< Back to Introduction The paucity of evidence for Darwin’s appearance and general demeanour during the years of the Beagle voyage gives this humorous drawing of shipboard life a special interest. It is convincingly attributed to Augustus Earle, an…
Matches: 1 hits
- … the watercolour, and what happened to it subsequently, are unknown. Janet Browne has suggested that …