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 |
To J. D. Hooker 24 [November 1862]
Summary
Sends Asa Gray letter: "nearly as mad as ever in our English eyes".
Bates’s paper is admirable. The act of segregation of varieties into species was never so plainly brought forth.
CD is a little sorry that his present work is leading him to believe rather more in the direct action of physical conditions. Regrets it because it lessens the glory of natural selection and is so confoundedly doubtful.
JDH laid too much stress on importance of crossing with respect to origin of species; but certainly it is important in keeping forms stable.
If only Owen could be excluded from Council of Royal Society Falconer would be good to put in. CD must come down to London to see what he can do.
Falconer’s article in Journal of the Geological Society [18 (1862): 348–69] shows him coming round on permanence of species, but he does not like natural selection.
Sends Lythrum salicaria diagram.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 24 [Nov 1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 115: 173, 279b; Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (Hooker letters 2: 46 JDH/2/1/2) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3822 |
Matches: 4 hits
- … 1862] , and letter to J. D. Hooker, [10–]12 November [1862] ). The opening sentence ( …
- … also ibid. , letter to J. D. Hooker, [10–]12 November [1862] . CD sent similar diagrams …
- … 15 and] 20 November [1862] and nn. 10 and 12. Richard Owen was elected to the council of …
- … 10, letter to J. D. Hooker, 6 October [1862] , and letter to Asa Gray, 16 October [1862] ). However, he also began to suspect additional differences in the pollen of the mid-styled form, and after making almost 100 crosses in 1862, he was determined to make more in 1863 (see ibid. , letter to J. D. Hooker, 27 [October 1862] and nn. 11 and 12, …
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 |
To J. D. Hooker [21 December 1862]
Summary
Thanks for Begonia and Oxalis.
Keeps obstinate about crossing and could argue till doomsday, but will not bother JDH.
Sees that JDH has finished Welwitschia.
Thinks Huxley’s Working Men’s Lectures excellent.
Has finished Linum paper [Collected papers 2: 93–105],
and abstract of Bates’s paper for Natural History Review,
and has begun to arrange concluding chapters [for Variation]. Is paralysed on how to begin.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | [21 Dec 1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 115: 174 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3871 |
To J. D. Hooker [18 September 1862]
Summary
Thanks for JDH’s letter [3725].
Has become interested in experimenting on Drosera.
Observations on the ovaria of Cruciferae.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | [18 Sept 1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 115: 160 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3729 |
To J. D. Hooker 14 March [1862]
Summary
Thinks JDH is a bit hard on Asa Gray.
Bates’s letter is that of a true thinker. Asks to see JDH’s to Bates. Point raised in it is most difficult. "There is one clear line of distinction; – when many parts of structure as in woodpecker show distinct adaptation to external bodies, it is preposterous to attribute them to effect of climate etc. – but when a single point, alone, as a hooked seed, it is conceivable that it may thus have arisen." His study of orchids shows nearly all parts of the flower co-adapted for fertilisation by insects and therefore the result of natural selection. Mormodes ignea "is a prodigy of adaptation".
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 14 Mar [1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 115: 150 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3472 |
To J. D. Hooker 30 May [1862]
Summary
Has received Melastoma and Vanilla.
Has seen again the two sets of plants of Heterocentron raised from two lots of pollen from same flower – a marvellous difference in stature.
"But oh Lord what will become of my book on variation: I am involved in a multiplicity of experiments."
Observations on Viola.
CD’s fancied dimorphism of Oxalis is all a confounded mistake; only great variability in length of pistils.
Found Henslow’s life [L. Jenyns, Memoir of the Rev. J. S. Henslow (1862)] interesting but fears the public will think it dull.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 30 May [1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 115: 152 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3575 |
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 J. D. Hooker 26 September [1862]
Summary
Encloses MS on observations and experiments on Drosera. JDH’s opinion will help him decide whether to pursue subject in some future year.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 26 Sept [1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 60.2: 88, DAR 115: 163 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3738 |
To J. D. Hooker [after 26] November [1862]
Summary
Discusses differences between Asa Gray’s view and his own on crossing. A common effect is the obliteration of incipient varieties. There is heavy evidence against new characters arising from crossing wild forms, "only intermediate races are then produced". Innate vital forces are somehow led to act differently as a result of direct effect of physical conditions. Astonished by JDH’s statement that every difference might have occurred without selection. CD agrees, but JDH’s manner of putting it astonished him. CD says, "think of each of a thousand seeds bringing forth its plant, and then each a thousand … I cannot even grapple with idea". Responds to JDH’s and Lyell’s feeling that he made too much of a deus ex machina out of natural selection. [Letter actually dated 20 Nov but is certainly after 3831.] [wrong field?]
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | [after 26] Nov [1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 115: 172 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3834 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … 12 [December 1862] . Charles Lyell . See letter from J. D. Hooker, 26 November 1862 and nn. 8 and 9. The reference has not been traced, but see Correspondence vol. 9, letter to Charles Lyell, 21 August [1861] . CD had resumed work on Variation in the spring, after several months spent writing Orchids (see ‘Journal’ ( Correspondence vol. 10, …
letter | (10) |
Darwin, C. R. | (10) |
Darwin, C. R. | (10) |
Hooker, J. D. | (10) |