To John Denny 9 July 1872
Summary
Has read JD’s articles in the Gardeners’ Chronicle [(1872): 872, 904–5].
Questions him on the fertility of certain varieties of Pelargonium which are fertile with some varieties but infertile with others.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | John Denny |
| Date: | 9 July 1872 |
| Classmark: | University of Otago Library, Special Collections (DeB MS 55) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-8403 |
Matches: 5 hits
- … Friedrich von Gärtner’s experiments on crossing Verbascum , see Correspondence vol. 9, …
- … by throwing light on whether the parental influence was the same when crossing varieties …
- … as when crossing species, despite the difficulty of distinguishing between species and …
- … Denny concluded that his experiments on crossing pelargoniums showed that the male parent …
- … other varieties, and affinities by the crossing of supposed distinct species as when the …
To H. E. Litchfield 10 February 1872
Summary
On the "doubtful & obscure" subject of marriage of cousins, CD believes, that judging from the analogy of animals, no direct evil would follow from their marriage. He would, however, expect the offspring of unrelated parents to be somewhat superior in size and vigour. The injury from the increase of any bad tendency common to the family seems to CD more to be feared than mere consanguinity; "the good effects of crossing distinct families I look at as great & undoubted".
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Henrietta Emma Darwin; Henrietta Emma Litchfield |
| Date: | 10 Feb 1872 |
| Classmark: | The John Rylands Library, The University of Manchester |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-8207 |
From John Denny 20 July 1872
Summary
Thanks CD for his offer to communicate the results of his experiments with Pelargonium to the Linnean Society. Prefers to continue experimenting for at least another season before doing so.
| Author: | John Denny |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 20 July 1872 |
| Classmark: | DAR 162: 160 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-8421 |
To John Denny 14 July [1872]
Summary
Discusses JD’s crossing experiments with Pelargonium; notes that his conclusions on male prepotence oppose those of Gärtner. Suggests that his observations on differences in fertility of certain varieties of Pelargonium crossed with certain other varieties be communicated to the Linnean Society.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | John Denny |
| Date: | 14 July [1872] |
| Classmark: | DAR 96: 114–15 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-8410 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … Discusses JD’s crossing experiments with Pelargonium ; notes that his conclusions on male …
To August Weismann 5 April 1872
Summary
Comments on AW’s work [Einfluss der Isolierung (1872)].
Discusses formation of local races.
Conchologist should investigate whether species of same genus vary during successive geological periods.
Comments on Franz Hilgendorf ["Über Planorbis multiformis", Monatsber. K. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. Berlin (1866): 474–504].
Believes sexual selection will be judged a powerful agency.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Leopold Friedrich August (August) Weismann |
| Date: | 5 Apr 1872 |
| Classmark: | DAR 148: 343 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-8275 |
From W. B. Tegetmeier 13 May 1872
Summary
Has found the skull of the horned cock.
With regard to CD’s suggestion about the possibility of producing a pigeon breed with differently coloured sexes, WBT reports the results of crossing blue and silver dragons; the silver offspring are almost always hens.
Would like the latest edition of the Origin.
Encloses notes on volume one [of Descent].
Encloses a photograph showing the bleaching effect of the sun’s rays on dun feathers in pigeons.
| Author: | William Bernhard Tegetmeier |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 13 May 1872 |
| Classmark: | DAR 88: 175–6, DAR 90: 101, DAR 178: 83, DAR 193: 22 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-8322 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … coloured sexes, WBT reports the results of crossing blue and silver dragons; the silver …
From William Cooper 21 September 1872
Summary
Requests financial support for horticultural researches, which, he promises, will enormously increase yields.
| Author: | William Cooper |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 21 Sept 1872 |
| Classmark: | DAR 161: 223 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-8530 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … recently corresponded with Denny about crossing experiments with Pelargonium (see letter …
To R. F. Cooke [after 11 October 1872]
Summary
Discusses printing of Expression.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Robert Francis Cooke; John Murray |
| Date: | [after 11 Oct 1872] |
| Classmark: | DAR 143: 284 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-8537 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … Plates, except so as to avoid the folds crossing the faces: There are printed instructions …
From Arthur Russell 15 April 1872
Summary
Has acquired some French frogs, Rana esculenta, which have mated with R. temporaria, but the spawn has not developed.
Asks whether anyone has successfully crossed frogs and toads.
| Author: | Arthur John Edward (Arthur) Russell, Lord Arthur Russell |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 15 Apr 1872 |
| Classmark: | DAR 176: 225 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-8286 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … whether you know of any experiments in crossing frogs & toads or R. esculenta with R. …
From Richard Harte 30 August 1872
Summary
Report about six-toed cats; trait persistent for three generations.
| Author: | Richard Harte |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 30 Aug 1872 |
| Classmark: | DAR 166: 110 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-8496 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … To Charles Darwin Esq re | F.R.S. &c— Sir, Crossing a few days ago from Cork to Bristol I …
From T. H. Farrer 17 October 1872
Summary
Suggests possible experiments with Pisum and Lathyrus.
Has read the article CD spoke of; the doctrine of inherited mental and corporeal qualities is most fertile.
| Author: | Thomas Henry Farrer, 1st baronet and 1st Baron Farrer |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 17 Oct 1872 |
| Classmark: | DAR 164: 73 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-8563 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … wondered why the floral adaptations for crossing remained. CD had also considered the …
From J. F. Mackenzie 8 February 1872
Summary
An engineer in India, who has read Descent, sends observations on native racial characters.
| Author: | John Finlayson Mackenzie |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 8 Feb 1872 |
| Classmark: | DAR 171: 5 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-8202 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … of races of humans and the results of crossing in Descent 1: 240–8. In Descent 1: 206, CD …
From Francis Galton [before 28 March 1872]
Summary
On colours and breeding of rabbits.
| Author: | Francis Galton |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | [before 28 Mar 1872] |
| Classmark: | DAR 159: 114 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4730 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … of silver grey is liable ( without crossing ) to throw Himalayas whether these revert, I …
From Raphael Meldola 26 March 1872
Summary
A. G. Butler has named the specimens sent by CD with Fritz Müller’s letter.
Sends several facts relating to sexual selection, mimicry, and hybrids.
Discusses the possibility that mimicked and mimicking forms have descended from originally allied forms and have diverged in structure but not in appearance.
| Author: | Raphael Meldola |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 26 Mar 1872 |
| Classmark: | DAR 89: 89–90b |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-8252 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … domestic fowls in Variation 1: 225–75 and crossing in Variation 2: 85–99. Meldola refers …
From Frédéric Baudry 4 December 1872
Summary
Sends anecdotes relating to Expression;
criticises CD’s use of Hensleigh Wedgwood’s views on language.
Complains about J. J. Moulinié’s translation of Descent.
| Author: | Frédéric Baudry |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 4 Dec 1872 |
| Classmark: | DAR 160: 95, 95/1 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-8543 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … had supplied CD with information about crossing in cats, and had offered to send him a …
From J. T. Moggridge 6 October 1872
Summary
He will send his book [Harvesting ants and trap-door spiders (1873)]. Describes two new types of trap-door spider nests.
| Author: | John Traherne Moggridge |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 6 Oct 1872 |
| Classmark: | DAR 171: 216 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-8546 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … may frequently be seen by the road side or crossing the paths in long lines, & are very …
From A. J. Munby 9 December 1872
Summary
Gives a graphic description of a woman being terrified by mistaking him for a ghost in an old house.
| Author: | Arthur Joseph Munby |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 9 Dec 1872 |
| Classmark: | Expression 2d ed., pp. 306–7 n. 21 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-8667F |
Matches: 1 hit
- … believe, the housekeeper’s sister) appeared crossing the doorway. Surprised at seeing the …
| letter | (17) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (5) |
| Baudry, Frédéric | (1) |
| Cooper, William | (1) |
| Denny, John | (1) |
| Farrer, T. H. | (1) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (12) |
| Denny, John | (2) |
| Cooke, R. F. | (1) |
| Darwin, H. E. | (1) |
| John Murray | (1) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (17) |
| Denny, John | (3) |
| Baudry, Frédéric | (1) |
| Cooke, R. F. | (1) |
| Cooper, William | (1) |
Darwin's 1876 letters online
Summary
Birth, tragic death . . . and cardigan jackets. To mark the 211th anniversary of Darwin's birth, we have released online the transcripts and footnotes of over 460 letters written to and from him in 1876 and a supplement of 180 letters written before…
Matches: 1 hits
- … I am now getting ready a book on the advantages of crossing, which will be a sort of complement to …
Darwin in letters, 1864: Failing health
Summary
On receiving a photograph from Charles Darwin, the American botanist Asa Gray wrote on 11 July 1864: ‘the venerable beard gives the look of your having suffered, and … of having grown older’. Because of poor health, Because of poor health, Darwin…
Matches: 6 hits
- … him to carry out tasks like counting seeds of Lythrum , crossing cowslips with polyanthuses, and …
- … a full conviction of the change of species is.’ Crossing experiments In addition to …
- … Continuing from these earlier studies, in 1864 he conducted crossing experiments between different …
- … other papers of Scott’s followed, reporting the results of crossing experiments on different species …
- … years, Darwin consulted Charles William Crocker about his crossing experiments with hollyhocks, and …
- … and Friedrich Hildebrand in Germany compared results of crossing experiments with a Pulmonaria …
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: 9 hits
- … to James Moggridge to ask him to observe whether spontaneous crossing of different varieties of this …
- … I got fresh plants, & consequently took up the effect of crossing & self-fertilising plants …
- … in Florence kept varieties of sweet peas separated to avoid crossing ( From Federico Delpino, 18 …
- … native Mediterranean setting. Although he continued his crossing experiments through the early …
- … what great vigour is given to seedling plants by the crossing of their parents’ ( To Fritz Müller, …
- … & have strength to complete it) will be on the advantages of Crossing Plants, & this will …
- … Meehan had been a vocal opponent of Darwin’s views on crossing, and his paper, ‘Are insects any …
- … press observations continued for 10 years on the effects of crossing plants, & I think that …
- … inferred from observations on self fertilising plants that crossing was of little importance …
Forms of flowers
Summary
Darwin’s book The different forms of flowers on plants of the same species, published in 1877, investigated the structural differences in the sexual organs of flowers of the same species. It drew on and expanded five articles Darwin had published on the…
Matches: 5 hits
- … whether hybrid sterility was the inevitable result of crossing species. Thomas Huxley had stated …
- … stigmas ’. Darwin had hoped to publish the results of the crossing experiments immediately, but by …
- … 1863, when Lythrum was flowering, Darwin resumed his crossing experiments. He also wrote to …
- … of the various crosses. For this, he turned to his earlier crossing experiments, which included some …
- … adding this work to his book on ‘the good effects of crossing’ ( Cross and self fertilisation ), …
Orchids
Summary
Why Orchids? Darwin wrote in his Autobiography, ‘During the summer of 1839, and, I believe, during the previous summer, I was led to attend to the cross-fertilisation of flowers by the aid of insects, from having come to the conclusion in my…
Matches: 1 hits
- … conclusion in my speculations on the origin of species, that crossing played an important part in …
1877 letters now online
Summary
Flowers, bloom, a son married . . . and a suspended monkey in Cambridge at Darwin's honorary LLD ceremony. The transcripts and footnotes of over 600 letters written to and from Darwin in 1877 are now online. Read more about Darwin's life in 1877…
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: 3 hits
- … was only one of many adaptations that had evolved to promote crossing between individuals of the …
- … males and females of unisexual animals. Through extensive crossing experiments, and painstaking …
- … a number of other structures and behaviours that facilitated crossing, especially with the aid of …
Darwin in letters, 1876: In the midst of life
Summary
1876 was the year in which the Darwins became grandparents for the first time. And tragically lost their daughter-in-law, Amy, who died just days after her son's birth. All the letters from 1876 are now published in volume 24 of The Correspondence…
Matches: 4 hits
- … the text. Orchids , which concentrated on the ‘means of crossing’, was seen by Darwin as the …
- … , which provided evidence for the ‘advantages of crossing’ (letter to Asa Gray, 28 January 1876). …
- … before a disease-free variety of potato had been produced by crossing the most pest-free varieties …
- … self-fertilisation To demonstrate the advantages of crossing, Darwin presented the results …
Dates of composition of Darwin's manuscript on species
Summary
Many of the dates of letters in 1856 and 1857 were based on or confirmed by reference to Darwin’s manuscript on species (DAR 8--15.1, inclusive; transcribed and published as Natural selection). This manuscript, begun in May 1856, was nearly completed by…
Matches: 1 hits
- … On the possibility of all organic beings occasionally crossing, & on the remarkable …
Floral Dimorphism
Summary
Sources|Discussion Questions|Experiment Floral studies In 1877 Darwin published a book that included a series of smaller studies on botanical subjects. Titled The different forms of flowers on plants of the same species, it consisted primarily of…
Matches: 1 hits
- … out of the meaning of heterostyled flowers. The results of crossing such flowers in an illegitimate …
Survival of the fittest: the trouble with terminology Part II
Summary
The most forceful and persistent critic of the term ‘natural selection’ was the co-discoverer of the process itself, Alfred Russel Wallace. Wallace seized on Herbert Spencer’s term ‘survival of the fittest’, explicitly introduced as an alternative way of…
Matches: 1 hits
- … his own copy of the first edition of Origin neatly crossing through every occurrence of ‘natural …
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
- … to the action of external conditions, something to the crossing of already existing forms, and much …
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: 3 hits
- … or the Principles of Variation, Inheritance, Reversion, Crossing, Interbreeding, and Selection under …
- … on dimorphism and trimorphism and reported on a series of crossing experiments with orchids. Darwin …
- … [1867] ). Darwin was also interested in experiments crossing different species of orchids …
Darwin and Down
Summary
Charles and Emma Darwin, with their first two children, settled at Down House in the village of Down (later ‘Downe’) in Kent, as a young family in 1842. The house came with eighteen acres of land, and a fifteen acre meadow. The village combined the…
Matches: 1 hits
- … to study fertilisation (in particular the effects of crossing and of self-fertilisation); …
Darwin in letters, 1863: Quarrels at home, honours abroad
Summary
At the start of 1863, Charles Darwin was actively working on the manuscript of The variation of animals and plants under domestication, anticipating with excitement the construction of a hothouse to accommodate his increasingly varied botanical experiments…
Matches: 5 hits
- … Correspondence vol. 10, Appendix VI). In addition to crossing varieties of Primula in 1863, he …
- … the two men discussed a multitude of botanical subjects, the crossing experiments that Scott had …
- … and he continued to observe individuals of the same species crossing with one another in a variety …
- … particularly when he was working on the chapter he called ‘Crossing & Sterility’ (see …
- … discussions, completing three sections, on inheritance, crossing and sterility, and selection, by …
Darwin on childhood
Summary
On his engagement to his cousin, Emma Wedgwood, in 1838, Darwin wrote down his recollections of his early childhood. Life. Written August–– 1838 My earliest recollection, the date of which I can approximately tell, and which must have been before…
Matches: 1 hits
- … effect, on my memory.–– I remember, when going there crossing in the carriage a broad ford, & …
Darwin in letters, 1862: A multiplicity of experiments
Summary
1862 was a particularly productive year for Darwin. This was not only the case in his published output (two botanical papers and a book on the pollination mechanisms of orchids), but more particularly in the extent and breadth of the botanical experiments…
Fake Darwin: myths and misconceptions
Summary
Many myths have persisted about Darwin's life and work. Here are a few of the more pervasive ones, with full debunking below...
Matches: 1 hits
- … Many myths have persisted about Darwin's life and work. Here are a few of the more pervasive ones, …
Origin is 160; Darwin's 1875 letters now online
Summary
To mark the 160th anniversary of the publication of Origin of species, the full transcripts and footnotes of nearly 650 letters to and from Charles Darwin in 1875 are published online for the first time. You can read about Darwin's life in 1875…
Matches: 1 hits
- … fertilisation , summing up many years of experiments on crossing plants. I wd gladly …
Darwin’s earthquakes
Summary
Darwin experienced his first earthquake in 1834, but it was a few months later that he was really confronted with their power. Travelling north along the coast of Chile, Darwin and Robert FitzRoy, captain of HMS Beagle, were confronted with a series of…
Matches: 1 hits
- … he collected. Travelling on from South America and crossing back half way round the world, …
