From Andrew Smith [November? 1862]
Summary
AS has been seriously ill with rheumatic fever.
Is studying the natives of South Africa to see whether he can trace any connection between them and the populations of North Africa.
Author: | Andrew Smith |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [Nov? 1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 177: 184 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3362 |
From W. E. Darwin [2 November 1862]
Summary
Counted seeds by tens. Sends some.
Author: | William Erasmus Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [2 Nov 1862] |
Classmark: | Cornford Family Papers (DAR 275: 10) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3362F |
To W. E. Darwin 4 [November 1862]
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | William Erasmus Darwin |
Date: | 4 [Nov 1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 210.6: 105 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3682 |
From J. D. Hooker 2 November 1862
Summary
Stupefied by CD’s five forms of Lythrum.
Asa Gray busy with Cypripedium. JDH offers some to CD if he wants to challenge Gray.
J. W. Dawson’s review of JDH’s paper on Arctic plants.
Louis Lucien Bonaparte’s views on Basque and Finnish language [Langue basque et langues finnoises (1862)] suggest to JDH that Basques are Finns left behind after the glacial period, like the Arctic plants!
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 2 Nov 1862 |
Classmark: | DAR 101: 66–7, 70 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3792 |
To J. D. Hooker 3 November [1862]
Summary
Requests reference to Jules Planchon’s monograph on Linum [Lond. J. Bot. 6 (1847): 588–603; 7 (1848): 165–86, 473–501, 507–28].
Sends list of seeds, including Oxalis, Boraginaceae especially Alkanna.
Asa Gray says JDH wrote reviews of Orchids in Gardeners’ Chronicle.
His experiments amuse him after dull day’s work on vegetables and fruit-trees.
Leschenaultia formosa has exterior stigma, thus eminently requiring insect aid, and thus ensuring crossing almost inevitably.
Asks whether Samuel Haughton at Dublin who made important medical discovery could be the same who reviewed Origin so hostilely [in Nat. Hist. Rev. 7 (1860): 23–32]; if so, he can sneer at and abuse CD to his heart’s content.
Asa Gray as rabid as ever [on Civil War].
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 3 Nov [1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 115: 171 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3793 |
From J. B. Jukes 3 November 1862
Summary
The statement on p. 87 of Origin that birds break the eggs with their own beaks should be revised.
Author: | Joseph Beete Jukes |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 3 Nov 1862 |
Classmark: | DAR 168: 92 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3794 |
To J. D. Hooker 4 November [1862]
Summary
Cannot see how J. W. Dawson can accuse JDH of asserting a subsidence of Arctic America. Much of evidence for subsidence during glacial period will prove false as it largely rests on ice action which is more and more viewed as subaerial.
Dawson is biased against Darwinism.
Suggests Greenland may have been repopulated after glacial period extinguished flora, by migration in sea-currents.
Max Müller’s view of origin of language is weakest part of his book [see 3752].
Would like to examine the rare Cypripedium hirsutissimum.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 4 Nov [1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 115: 168 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3795 |
To Asa Gray 6 November [1862]
Summary
Agrees Max Müller’s book [see 3752] is interesting but cannot see how it will further his "cause".
A book by J. W. Colenso [The Pentateuch and book of Joshua critically examined, pt 1 (1862)] has just appeared and will "make a noise".
Would like some observations made on Cypripedium.
Will not publish yet on Lythrum as he must make many more crosses; the mid-styled is fertile with half of its own stamens.
Would like to try a few experiments on tendrils.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Asa Gray |
Date: | 6 Nov [1862] |
Classmark: | Gray Herbarium of Harvard University (78) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3796 |
From J. D. Hooker 7 November 1862
Summary
JDH admits he wrote Gardeners’ Chronicle and Natural History Review articles on orchids [Gard. Chron. (1862): 789–90, 863, 910; Nat. Hist. Rev. n.s. 2 (1862): 371–6].
JDH’s objections to CD’s idea of how Greenland was repopulated. Temperate Greenland has as Arctic a flora as Arctic Greenland – a fact of astounding force. Why should certain Scandinavian species be absent? Migration by sea-currents can no more account for the present distribution in Greenland than can special creation.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 7 Nov 1862 |
Classmark: | DAR 101: 68–9, 73–4 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3797 |
To Gardeners’ Chronicle [before 8 November 1862]
Summary
Asks whether T. A. Knight’s tall blue and white marrow peas were raised by Knight himself.
Also asks whether anyone who has saved seed peas grown close to other kinds observed that the succeeding crop came up "untrue" or crossed? CD would expect that such crossing would occasionally happen.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Gardeners’ Chronicle |
Date: | [before 8 Nov 1862] |
Classmark: | Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, 8 November 1862, p. 1052 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3798 |
From Asa Gray 10 November 1862
Author: | Asa Gray |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 10 Nov 1862 |
Classmark: | DAR 165: 122 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3799 |
From John Scott 11 November 1862
Summary
CD is mistaken in considering Acropera unisexual, with only male flowers [Orchids, pp. 203–10]. JS has successfully fertilised two A. loddigesii flowers. One is ripening. Dissection of the other shows the pollen accomplishes fertilisation without contacting any stigmatic surface. Abortive ovules found in flowers that did not become fertilised when pollinated. JS suggests Acropera has both unisexual male and hermaphrodite flowers.
Author: | John Scott |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 11 Nov 1862 |
Classmark: | DAR 177: 77 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3800 |
To J. D. Hooker [10–]12 November [1862]
Summary
So JDH did write the Gardeners’ Chronicle review [of Orchids]! CD guessed it from the little slap at R. Brown.
Dawson’s lecture has nothing new. Absurd to assume Greenland under water during whole of glacial period. Suggests absence of certain plants in Greenland due to seeds not surviving in sea-water. Suggests an experiment on vitality in sea-water of plants that might be in Greenland. Is more willing to admit a Norway–Greenland land connection than most other cases.
Urges JDH to warn Tyndall on his glacial theory of valleys in Switzerland.
Is working on cultivated plants.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | [10–]12 Nov [1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 115: 169 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3801 |
From J. D. Hooker 12 November 1862
Summary
Samuel Haughton was the prejudiced reviewer of the Origin. JDH’s opinion of SH.
Has heard from a W. African collector that P. B. Du Chaillu’s accounts [Explorations and adventures in equatorial Africa (1861)] are all false.
R. F. Burton has impudently stolen credit for Gustav Mann’s Cameroon expedition.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 12 Nov 1862 |
Classmark: | DAR 101: 75–6 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3802 |
From Robert Swinhoe 12 November 1862
Summary
Sends CD a specimen of the domestic pigeon of China.
Discusses a race of ducks he believes are hybrids between the Muscovy and Chinese domestic duck.
Author: | Robert Swinhoe |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 12 Nov 1862 |
Classmark: | DAR 177: 326 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3803 |
From Hugh Falconer 12 November [1862]
Summary
Sends paper on affinities of Plagiaulax ["On Plagiaulax from the Purbeck beds", Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 18 (1862): 348–69].
Author: | Hugh Falconer |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 12 Nov [1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 164: 9 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3804 |
To John Scott 12 November [1862]
Summary
Discusses whether or not "male" Acropera bear fruit. JS’s interpretation of Acropera pollination is ingenious. Pollen-tubes of some cleistogamous flowers germinate in the anthers.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | John Scott |
Date: | 12 Nov [1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 93: B7–10 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3805 |
To Hugh Falconer 14 November [1862]
Summary
Comments on HF’s paper on Plagiaulax from the Purbeck beds. Paper "dreadfully severe" on Owen.
"I am worse than ever in bearing any excitement."
Glad HF attacked Australian Mastodon. Never did believe in him.
Mentions Primula paper [Collected papers 2: 45–63].
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Hugh Falconer |
Date: | 14 Nov [1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 144: 27 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3806 |
From J. D. Hooker [15 and] 20 November [1862]
Summary
Sends CD West Ireland soundings.
More detail on his review "a la Lindley" [see 3797].
Bates’s paper ["Contributions to an insect fauna of the Amazon valley", Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 23 (1862): 495–566] is capital.
Andrew Murray’s article plays into CD’s hands through sheer ignorance.
JDH is on Royal Society Council.
Has no recollection of applying natural selection to Polynesians. None but a German would dig out such a passage if it exists [see 3812].
Has caused Tyndall to modify his pseudo-geology.
Has not seen Duke of Argyll’s review [Edinburgh Rev. 116 (1862): 378–97]. [The Duke] did not understand Orchids the least little bit, nor the Origin, when JDH saw him.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 15 and 20 Nov 1862 |
Classmark: | DAR 101: 71–2, 79 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3807 |
From John Scott 15 November [1862]
Summary
Appreciates CD’s acknowledging his letter and his comments on Acropera. Will send CD the Acropera capsule which is now maturing.
Experimenting on vegetable parthenogenesis.
Structure of Acropera.
Author: | John Scott |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 15 Nov [1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 177: 78 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3808 |
Darwin, C. R. | |
Hooker, J. D. | (11) |
Gray, Asa | (6) |
Scott, John | (5) |
Bates, H. W. | (3) |
Clarke, R. T. | (2) |
Darwin, W. E. | (2) |
Falconer, Hugh | (2) |
Oliver, Daniel | (2) |
Blyth, Edward | (1) |
Büchner, Ludwig | (1) |
Crocker, C. W. | (1) |
Fitch, Adam | (1) |
Gardeners’ Chronicle | (1) |
Higgins, John | (1) |
Jamieson, T. F. | (1) |
Journal of Horticulture | (1) |
Jukes, J. B. | (1) |
King, P. G. | (1) |
Leighton, W. A. | (1) |
Mellersh, Arthur | (1) |
Rolfe, R. M. | (1) |
Smith, Andrew | (1) |
Swinhoe, Robert | (1) |