To J. D. Hooker 1 August [1857]
Summary
Important issue at stake with new flora calculations: evidence that species are only strongly marked varieties. Planning large-scale survey.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 1 Aug [1857] |
| Classmark: | DAR 114: 206, 207 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2130 |
Matches: 3 hits
- … Correspondence vol. 5, letter to J. D. Hooker, 27 [June 1854] , and letter from J. D. …
- … 1857–8. Wollaston 1854 . Koch 1843–4 . Ledebour 1842–53 (see letter to J. D. Hooker, 22 …
- … 1854] . The proper dosage of chloroform had recently been the subject of discussion in various medical journals following an increase in the number of deaths resulting from its use. See letters …
From William Henry Harvey 3 January 1857
Summary
Sexes of algae.
| Author: | William Henry Harvey |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 3 Jan 1857 |
| Classmark: | DAR 166: 115 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2035 |
To Asa Gray 18 June [1857]
Summary
Thanks for AG’s remarks on disjoined species. CD’s notions are based on belief that disjoined species have suffered much extinction, which is the common cause of small genera and disjoined ranges.
Discusses out-crossing in plants.
Has failed to meet with a detailed account of regular and normal impregnation in the bud. Podostemon, Subularia, and underwater Leguminosae are the strongest cases against him.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Asa Gray |
| Date: | 18 June [1857] |
| Classmark: | Archives of the Gray Herbarium, Harvard University (9a) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2109 |
To J. D. Hooker 20 October [1857]
Summary
Returns some of the systematics books borrowed from JDH. Will now take on A. P. and Alphonse de Candolle [Prodromus].
Arrangements for a visit.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 20 Oct [1857] |
| Classmark: | DAR 114: 212, 222c |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2156 |
To J. D. Hooker [after 20 January 1857]
Summary
CD finds Alphonse de Candolle very useful, though JDH has low opinion.
CD argues for accidental introductions explaining some odd distributions, e.g., New Zealand vs Australian plants.
CD’s method.
Diverging affinities in isolated genera.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | [after 20 Jan 1857] |
| Classmark: | DAR 114: 190 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2033 |
To C. S. Bate 29 November [1857]
Summary
Asking for specific information about reproduction in barnacles.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Charles Spence Bate |
| Date: | 29 Nov [1857] |
| Classmark: | Bonhams (dealers) (22 October 2014) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2175F |
To A. R. Wallace 22 December 1857
Summary
Comments on agreement of their respective views on distribution.
Reference to differences on subsidence.
Reports on progress of his work and praises ARW’s investigations.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Alfred Russel Wallace |
| Date: | 22 Dec 1857 |
| Classmark: | The British Library (Add MS 46434) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2192 |
To Asa Gray 29 November [1857]
Summary
Thanks AG for his criticisms of CD’s views; finds it difficult to avoid using the term "natural selection" as an agent.
Discusses crossing in Fumaria and barnacles.
Has received a naturally crossed kidney bean in which the seed-coat has been affected by the pollen of the fertilising plant.
Finds the rule of large genera having most varieties holds good and regards it as most important for his "principle of divergence".
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Asa Gray |
| Date: | 29 Nov [1857] |
| Classmark: | Archives of the Gray Herbarium, Harvard University (18) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2176 |
From Richard Bishop to Charles Spence Bate 3 December 1857
Summary
Gives observations to be forwarded to CD of impregnation in Balanus.
| Author: | Richard Bishop |
| Addressee: | Charles Spence Bate |
| Date: | 3 Dec 1857 |
| Classmark: | DAR 160: 189 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2179 |
Matches: 1 hit
To J. D. Hooker 4 December [1857]
Summary
Inquiries on effect of dry heat on temperate plants for glacial chapter.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 4 Dec [1857] |
| Classmark: | DAR 114: 216 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2180 |
Matches: 1 hit
To T. H. Huxley [before 12 November 1857]
Summary
Glad THH has taken up aphid question versus Owen ["On the agamic reproduction and morphology of Aphis", Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 22 (1858): 193–236].
Fertilisation and inheritance discussed. Speculates that fertilisation may be a mixture rather than a fusion. Can understand in no other way why crossed forms tend to go back to ancestral forms.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Thomas Henry Huxley |
| Date: | [before 12 Nov 1857] |
| Classmark: | Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine Archives (Huxley 5: 58) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2166 |
From Frederick Smith 10 November 1857
Summary
Sends drawings of two forms of workers of Cryptocerus discocephalus in response to CD’s request for examples of insects whose workers show disparity of form.
| Author: | Frederick Smith |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 10 Nov 1857 |
| Classmark: | DAR 11.2: 65a |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2167 |
CD memorandum July 1857
Summary
Memorandum about £250 investment in Patent Siliceous Stone Company, owned by David Thomas Ansted and Frederick Ransome.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | unknown |
| Date: | July 1857 |
| Classmark: | DAR 210.10: 23 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2115F |
Matches: 1 hit
- … 1854 and to Ansted in 1855. CD by this memorandum recorded his intention to write off his investment in the company, and to reduce to 2 per cent the rate of interest on his loans to Ansted and Ransome, originally set at 3 1 2 per cent. Both men made interest payments at this rate between 1857 and 1861, but there is no evidence that any of the principal was ever repaid. See CD’s Investment book (Down House MS), p. 59; and Correspondence vol. 5, letter …
From T. V. Wollaston [12 April 1857]
Summary
Lists groups of insects absent from the Madeiran fauna.
| Author: | Thomas Vernon Wollaston |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | [12 Apr 1857] |
| Classmark: | DAR 181: 139 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2076 |
From Richard Hill 10 January 1857
Summary
Will attend to any subject in Jamaica about which CD wants information.
Crithagra brasiliensis and canary refused to pair.
A collection of Jamaican land Mollusca will be presented to the British Museum.
Hurricanes are a considerable influence on diffusion of birds and insects.
| Author: | Richard Hill |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 10 Jan 1857 |
| Classmark: | DAR 205.2: 237 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2038 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … 1854 he presented a large collection of land and freshwater shells of Jamaica to the British Museum ( British Museum (Natural History) 1904–6 , 2: 707). Hill 1855. This paper is in the Darwin Pamphlet Collection–CUL. This paper has not been located in the Darwin archive, but another one on the fishes of Jamaica, published in the Transactions of the Jamaica Society of Arts 2 (1855): 115–16, is in the Darwin Pamphlet Collection–CUL. In Variation 1: 294 nn. 43 and 44, CD referred to information on the guinea-fowl of Jamaica that Hill provided in a subsequent letter, …
| letter | (15) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (10) |
| Bishop, Richard | (1) |
| Harvey, W. H. | (1) |
| Hill, Richard | (1) |
| Smith, Frederick (a) | (1) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (14) |
| Hooker, J. D. | (4) |
| Bate, C. S. | (2) |
| Gray, Asa | (2) |
| Bishop, Richard | (1) |
Darwin in letters, 1851-1855: Death of a daughter
Summary
The letters from these years reveal the main preoccupations of Darwin’s life with a new intensity. The period opens with a family tragedy in the death of Darwin’s oldest and favourite daughter, Anne, and it shows how, weary and mourning his dead child,…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The letters from these years reveal the main preoccupations of Darwin’s life with a new intensity. …
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 …
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 the Church
Summary
The story of Charles Darwin’s involvement with the church is one that is told far too rarely. It shows another side of the man who is more often remembered for his personal struggles with faith, or for his role in large-scale controversies over the…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The story of Charles Darwin’s involvement with the church is one that is told far too rarely. It …
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 …
Darwin in letters, 1847-1850: Microscopes and barnacles
Summary
Darwin's study of barnacles, begun in 1844, took him eight years to complete. The correspondence reveals how his interest in a species found during the Beagle voyage developed into an investigation of the comparative anatomy of other cirripedes and…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Species theory In November 1845, Charles Darwin wrote to his friend and confidant Joseph …
Darwin’s study of the Cirripedia
Summary
Darwin’s work on barnacles, conducted between 1846 and 1854, has long posed problems for historians. Coming between his transmutation notebooks and the Origin of species, it has frequently been interpreted as a digression from Darwin’s species work. Yet…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin’s work on barnacles, conducted between 1846 and 1854, has long posed problems for …
3.2 Maull and Polyblank photo 1
Summary
< Back to Introduction The rise of professional photographic studios in the mid nineteenth century was a key factor in the shaping of Darwinian iconography, but Darwin’s relationship with these firms was from the start a cautious and sometimes a…
Matches: 1 hits
- … < Back to Introduction The rise of professional photographic studios in the mid …
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 …
Before Origin: the ‘big book’
Summary
Darwin began ‘sorting notes for Species Theory’ on 9 September 1854, the very day he concluded his eight-year study of barnacles (Darwin's Journal). He had long considered the question of species. In 1842, he outlined a theory of transmutation in a…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin began ‘sorting notes for Species Theory’ on 9 September 1854, the very day he concluded his …
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 …
Editorial policy and practice
Summary
Full texts are added to this site four years after the letter is published in the print edition of the Correspondence. Transcriptions are made from the original or a facsimile where these are available. Where they are not, texts are taken from the best…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Full texts are added to this site four years after the letter is published in the print edition of …
Joseph Simms
Summary
The American doctor and author of works on physiognomy Joseph Simms wrote to Darwin on 14 September 1874, while he was staying in London. He enclosed a copy of his book Nature’s revelations of character (Simms 1873). He hoped it might 'prove…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The American doctor and author of works on physiognomy Joseph Simms wrote to Darwin on 14 …
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 …
Barnacles
Summary
Sources|Discussion Questions|Experiment Darwin and barnacles Darwin’s interest in Cirripedia, a class of marine arthropods, was first piqued by the discovery of an odd burrowing barnacle, which he later named “Mr. Arthrobalanus," while he was…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Sources | Discussion Questions | Experiment Darwin and barnacles …
Charles Darwin’s letters: a selection 1825-1859
Summary
The letters in this volume span the years from 1825, when Darwin was a student at the University of Edinburgh, to the end of 1859, when the Origin of Species was published. The early letters portray Darwin as a lively sixteen-year-old medical student. Two…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The letters in this volume span the years from 1825, when Darwin was a student at the University …
3.3 Maull and Polyblank photo 2
Summary
< Back to Introduction Despite the difficulties that arose in relation to Maull and Polyblank’s first photograph of Darwin, another one was produced, this time showing him in three-quarter view. It was evidently not taken at the same session as the…
Matches: 1 hits
- … < Back to Introduction Despite the difficulties that arose in relation to Maull and …
Science, Work and Manliness
Summary
Discussion Questions|Letters In 1859, popular didactic writer William Landels published the first edition of what proved to be one of his best-selling works, How Men Are Made. "It is by work, work, work" he told his middle class audience, …
Matches: 1 hits
- … Discussion Questions | Letters In 1859, popular didactic writer William Landels …
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 …
Thomas Henry Huxley
Summary
Dubbed “Darwin’s bulldog” for his combative role in controversies over evolution, Huxley was a leading Victorian zoologist, science popularizer, and education reformer. He was born in Ealing, a small village west of London, in 1825. With only two years of…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Dubbed “Darwin’s bulldog” for his combative role in controversies over evolution, Huxley was a …
