To J. D. Hooker 24 April [1855]
Summary
More on seed-salting. JDH’s admission that he expected seeds to die in a week gives CD "a nice little triumph".
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 24 Apr [1855] |
| Classmark: | DAR 114: 130 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1671 |
To J. D. Hooker 14 [July 1855]
Summary
CD experiments: sowing seeds in fields; "breaking" seeds’ constitution with coloured light; plant hybridisation. Compiling works on hybridism.
Respect for W. B. Carpenter.
Note on "nectar secreting" to Gardeners’ Chronicle [Collected papers 1: 258–9].
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 14 [July 1855] |
| Classmark: | DAR 114: 141 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1717 |
To W. D. Fox 27 March [1855]
Summary
Thanks WDF for his offer of assistance in collecting varieties of poultry. Describes his needs. He will raise his own pigeons.
Often doubts whether, despite all help, the problem of species will not overpower him.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | William Darwin Fox |
| Date: | 27 Mar [1855] |
| Classmark: | Christ’s College Library, Cambridge (MS 53 Fox 88) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1656 |
To Asa Gray 24 August [1855]
Summary
"Close" species in large and small genera.
Alphonse de Candolle on geographical distribution [Géographie botanique raisonnée (1855)].
Species variability.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Asa Gray |
| Date: | 24 Aug [1855] |
| Classmark: | Archives of the Gray Herbarium, Harvard University (10) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1749 |
To Francis Galton 22 February [1855]
Summary
Thanks for FG’s note and trouble in searching out pigeons.
Is obliged to FG for obtaining C. J. Andersson’s offer of information about breeds of cattle in South Africa.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Francis Galton |
| Date: | 22 Feb [1855] |
| Classmark: | National Library of South Africa, Cape Town |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1554F |
To T. H. Huxley 10 June [1855]
Summary
Asks whether THH will attend Council of Royal Society and speak for him on Joachim Barrande and J. D. Dana.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Thomas Henry Huxley |
| Date: | 10 June [1855] |
| Classmark: | Janet Huxley (private collection) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1697 |
To J. D. Hooker 13 April [1855]
Summary
Pea self-fertilisation: has forty-five varieties growing side by side.
Describes seed-salting experiments: e.g., immersion in tank filled with snow. Reports some successful germinations.
Made list of naturalised plants from Asa Gray’s Manual [of Botany] to calculate the proportions of the great families.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 13 Apr [1855] |
| Classmark: | DAR 114: 128 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1667 |
Matches: 2 hits
- … 1852 ). The collection had been displayed at the Great Exhibition and then moved to the Museum of Economic Botany at Kew. See letter …
- … 1852. They had been given to CD by Watson. The concluding volume was added to his set (now in the Darwin Library–CUL) in 1859. Only the final volume is annotated. The notes and calculations mentioned in the letter …
To Charles Lyell 8 May [1855]
Summary
Mentions his paper ["Transportal of erratic boulders", Collected papers 1: 218–27]. Discusses ice-borne rock. Reference to unpublished paper on icebergs [?"Power of icebergs to make grooves", Collected papers 1: 252–5]. Remarks on scoring by icebergs. Comments on judgment of theories by Geological Society.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
| Date: | 8 May [1855] |
| Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.113) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1679 |
To Syms Covington 28 February 1855
Summary
Pleased to hear that SC is prospering.
News of FitzRoy, Sulivan and J. L. Stokes.
The Crimean War is badly mismanaged, but Englishmen are behaving nobly.
Wishes he knew what to do with his boys.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Syms Covington |
| Date: | 28 Feb 1855 |
| Classmark: | Sydney Mail, 9 August 1884, pp. 254–5 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1637 |
To Charles Lyell 10 January [1855]
Summary
Discusses views of Daniel Sharpe on foliation and cleavage. Recalls his own previous discussion [in South America].
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
| Date: | 10 Jan [1855] |
| Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.110) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1626 |
To Gardeners’ Chronicle [before 29 December 1855]
Summary
CD requests accurate information on the extent to which the different varieties of fruit-trees produce seedlings like their parents. Do some varieties of pears and apples tend to produce truer offspring than other varieties?
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Gardeners’ Chronicle |
| Date: | [before 29 Dec 1855] |
| Classmark: | Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, no. 52, 29 December 1855, p. 854 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1803 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … 1852 ) in September 1855 ( Correspondence vol. 4, Appendix IV, 128: 14). His copy of the volume of the Mémoires de l’Academie Royal des Sciences, Belles-Lettres, et Arts de Lyon , in which the article appeared, is in the Darwin Library–CUL. On the cover, CD wrote ‘Given me by D r Lindley’. Mons 1835–6 . See letter …
To Edgar Leopold Layard 9 December 1855
Summary
Is collecting facts for Variation; would be grateful for skins of local [Cape of Good Hope] breeds of pigeons, ducks, and poultry.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Edgar Leopold Layard |
| Date: | 9 Dec 1855 |
| Classmark: | Auckland Public Library (Grey collection GL D8 (3)) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1794 |
To T. H. Huxley 8 March [1855]
Summary
Thanks THH for corroborating his observations. Discusses metamorphosis of ovaria to cement organs. Ovaries, germinal vesicles, and anatomy of cirripedes. Difficulties of classification, and observation.
THH’s article on Mollusca [Charles Knight, ed., English cyclopædia: a new dictionary of universal knowledge (1854–70) 3: 855–74].
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Thomas Henry Huxley |
| Date: | 8 Mar [1855] |
| Classmark: | Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine Archives (Huxley 5: 25) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1645 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … 1852 , p. 119). CD described the unusual homologies of the body of Proteolepas bivincta in Living Cirripedia (1854): 594–6. Owing largely to the differences in the development of this form from other cirripedes, CD classified Proteolepas as the sole species in its order. The paper has not been identified. T. H. Huxley 1855a , in which Huxley proposed an archetype for the Mollusca. See letter …
| letter | (13) |
| Hooker, J. D. | (3) |
| Huxley, T. H. | (2) |
| Lyell, Charles | (2) |
| Covington, Syms | (1) |
| Fox, W. D. | (1) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (13) |
| Hooker, J. D. | (3) |
| Huxley, T. H. | (2) |
| Lyell, Charles | (2) |
| Covington, Syms | (1) |
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, …
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: 1 hits
- … In April 1838, Darwin began recording the titles of books he had read and the books he wished to …
Darwin and Fatherhood
Summary
Charles Darwin married Emma Wedgwood in 1839 and over the next seventeen years the couple had ten children. It is often assumed that Darwin was an exceptional Victorian father. But how extraordinary was he? The Correspondence Project allows an unusually…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Charles Darwin married Emma Wedgwood in 1839 and over the next seventeen years the couple had ten …
Living and fossil cirripedia
Summary
Darwin published four volumes on barnacles, the crustacean sub-class Cirripedia, between 1851 and 1854, two on living species and two on fossil species. Written for a specialist audience, they are among the most challenging and least read of Darwin’s works…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin published four volumes on the crustacean sub-class Cirripedia between 1851 and 1854, two on …
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 …
'An Appeal' against animal cruelty
Summary
The four-page pamphlet transcribed below and entitled 'An Appeal', was composed jointly by Emma and Charles Darwin (see letter from Emma Darwin to W. D. Fox, [29 September 1863]). The pamphlet, which protested against the cruelty of steel vermin…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The four-page pamphlet transcribed below and entitled 'An Appeal', was composed jointly by Emma …
Darwin's health
Summary
On 28 March 1849, ten years before Origin was published, Darwin wrote to his good friend Joseph Hooker from Great Malvern in Worcestershire, where Dr James Manby Gully ran a fashionable water-cure establishment. Darwin apologised for his delayed reply to…
Matches: 1 hits
- … On 28 March 1849, ten years before Origin was published, Darwin wrote to his good friend …
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
- … < Back to Introduction It is so rare to encounter an image of Darwin in a specific …
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
- … The ‘historical sketch’ printed as a preface to the American edition ( Origin US ed., pp …
George Busk
Summary
After the Beagle voyage, Darwin’s collection of bryozoans disappears from the records until the material was sent, in 1852, for study by George Busk, one of the foremost workers on the group of his day. In 1863, on the way down to Malvern Wells, Darwin had…
Matches: 1 hits
- … After the Beagle voyage, Darwin’s collection of bryozoans disappears from the records until …
Hermann Müller
Summary
Hermann (Heinrich Ludwig Hermann) Müller, was born in Mühlberg near Erfurt in 1829. He was the younger brother of Fritz Müller (1822–97). Following the completion of his secondary education at Erfurt in 1848, he studied natural sciences at Halle and Berlin…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Hermann (Heinrich Ludwig Hermann) Müller, was born in Mühlberg near Erfurt in 1829. He was the …
Jane Gray
Summary
Jane Loring Gray, the daughter of a Boston lawyer, married the Harvard botanist Asa Gray in 1848 and evidence suggests that she took an active interest in the scientific pursuits of her husband and his friends. Although she is only known to have…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Jane Loring Gray, the daughter of a Boston lawyer, married the Harvard botanist Asa Gray in 1848 …
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
- … Darwin received letters from so many people and wrote so many fascinating letters himself, that it …
Alfred Russel Wallace
Summary
Wallace was a leading Victorian naturalist, with wide-ranging interests from biogeography and evolutionary theory to spiritualism and politics. He was born in 1823 in Usk, a small town in south-east Wales, and attended a grammar school in Hertford. At the…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Wallace was a leading Victorian naturalist, with wide-ranging interests from biogeography and …
Arthur Mellersh
Summary
Arthur Mellersh was a midshipman (promoted to mate during the voyage) serving on the Beagle at the time when Darwin was travelling around the world. One account suggests an inauspicious start to their friendship; apparently Mellersh introduced himself…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Arthur Mellersh was a midshipman (promoted to mate during the voyage) serving on the Beagle at …
Darwin’s observations on his children
Summary
Charles Darwin’s observations on the development of his children, began the research that culminated in his book The Expression of the emotions in man and animals, published in 1872, and his article ‘A biographical sketch of an infant’, published in Mind…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Charles Darwin’s observations on the development of his children,[1] began the research that …
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
- … When Charles Darwin embarked on the Beagle voyage in 1831, Syms Covington was ‘ fiddler & boy …
The evolution of honeycomb
Summary
Honeycombs are natural engineering marvels, using the least possible amount of wax to provide the greatest amount of storage space, with the greatest possible structural stability. Darwin recognised that explaining the evolution of the honey-bee’s comb…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Honey-bees construct wax combs inside their nests. The combs are made of hexagonal prisms – cells …
Darwin's bad days
Summary
Despite being a prolific worker who had many successes with his scientific theorising and experimenting, even Darwin had some bad days. These times when nothing appeared to be going right are well illustrated by the following quotations from his letters:
Matches: 1 hits
- … Despite being a prolific worker who had many successes with his scientific theorising and …
Fritz Müller
Summary
Fritz Müller, a German who spent most of his life in political exile in Brazil, described Darwin as his second father, and Darwin's son, Francis, wrote that, although they never met 'the correspondence with Müller, which continued to the close of…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Francis Darwin, in Life and letters of Charles Darwin , wrote of Fritz Müller They …
