To Charles Lyell [November–December 1842]
Summary
Believes "absurd letter" hastily read at last Geological Society Council meeting was from Charlesworth’s solicitor. Suggests that it may have been sent to entrap the Council and that it should be read over carefully.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | [Nov–Dec 1842] |
Classmark: | The British Library (Surrogate RP 7381(i)) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-653 |
To Charles Lyell [September–December 1842]
Summary
Discusses relationship of subsidence to the formation of coral reefs.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | [Sept–Dec 1842] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.30) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-605 |
Matches: 4 hits
- … To Charles Lyell [September–December 1842] …
- … Robert Darwin London, Upper Gower St, 12 [Sept–Dec 1842] Charles Lyell, 1st baronet …
- … Lyell had returned from America (August 1842) and had discussed CD’s Coral reefs with him. CD’s comment that his theory did not require the subsidence of ‘great tracks of land’ but only of ‘groups of islands’, also occurs towards the end of his letter to Charles …
- … Lyell 1840 , 3: 393–4). Maclaren cited the lack of upraised coral formations of great thickness as a problem for CD’s coral theory. See CD’s letter to Charles Maclaren, [15 November–December 1842] . …
To Charles Lyell [5 and 7 October 1842]
Summary
Cancelled: same as DCP-LETT-649. Discusses growth of various species of coral. Explains significance of dead reefs.
Describes meeting of the Council of the Geological Society; the controversy involving Edward Charlesworth.
Mentions conversations with William Lonsdale about Lonsdale’s work on corals and the financial support for his work.
Murchison’s views on glaciation in Wales.
Agassiz’s observations at Glen Roy.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | 5 and 7 Oct 1842 |
Classmark: | CUL DAR 146: 149 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-645 |
To Charles Lyell [5 and 7 October 1842]
Summary
Discusses growth of various species of coral. Explains significance of dead reefs.
Describes meeting of the Council of the Geological Society; the controversy involving Edward Charlesworth.
Mentions conversations with William Lonsdale about Lonsdale’s work on corals and the financial support for his work.
Murchison’s views on glaciation in Wales.
Agassiz’s observations at Glen Roy.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | 5 and 7 Oct 1842 |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.28) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-649 |
Lyell, Charles. 1842. On the geological position of the Mastodon giganteum and associated fossil remains at Bigbone Lick, Kentucky, and other localities in the United States and Canada. Proceedings of the Geological Society of London 4: 36–9.
To Charles Lyell 25 June [1856]
Summary
Criticises at length the concept of submerged continents attaching islands to the mainland in the recent period. Notes drastic alteration of geography required, the dissimilar species on opposite shores of continents, and differences between volcanic islands and mountains of mainland areas. Admits sea-bed subsidence, but not enough to engulf continents. Denies that theory can explain island flora and fauna.
Considers Edward Forbes’s idea a check on study of dissemination of species.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | 25 June [1856] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.132) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1910 |
Matches: 2 hits
- … vol. 2, letter to Charles Lyell, [September – December 1842] ). He also commented on the …
- … 1842] ( Correspondence vol. 2). Andrew Crombie Ramsay’s researches in Wales had led both Lyell and CD to discuss with him the probable depth of deposits before erosion had taken place (see Correspondence vol. 4, letter to Charles …
To J. S. Henslow [22 January 1843]
Summary
Comments on JSH’s botanical work with his parishioners. Lyell will be pleased that he has done some fossil botanical work.
Describes a Geological Society meeting about Edward Charlesworth’s complaints.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | John Stevens Henslow |
Date: | [22 Jan 1843] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-660 |
From Charles Lyell [1 July 1856]
Summary
To cast doubt on CD’s view that volcanic action is associated with elevation of land, CL suggests that local oscillations in strata underlying volcanoes could also explain how active volcanoes have uplifted fossil deposits of marine shells. Overall he is more inclined to believe that recent volcanoes belong to areas of subsidence rather than of elevation.
Author: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [1 July 1856] |
Classmark: | The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell collection Coll-203/A3/2: 132–6) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1915A |
To Adolf von Morlot 28 November [1844]
Summary
Mentions his Plutonic view of earth history.
Cites Lyell’s opinions on loess.
CD doubts contemporaneousness of extinct great animals with ice period.
Cites applicability of Forbes’s theory of glacier structure to structure of volcanic obsidian.
CD is falling astern in the geological race for knowledge.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Adolphe Morlot (Adolph von Morlot) |
Date: | 28 Nov [1844] |
Classmark: | Burgerbibliothek Bern, Bern, Switzerland |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-794 |
Matches: 2 hits
- … Philosophical Journal 17: 110–22. Lyell, Charles. 1842. On the geological position of the …
- … Charles Lyell later communicated supplementary observations to the Society ( Proceedings of the Geological Society of London 2 (1833–8): 83–5, 221–3). Lyell described loess as a recent alluvial deposit, laid down gradually. C. Lyell 1842 . …
To A. S. Horner [4 October 1842]
Summary
Emma recovering well from birth of third child, Mary Eleanor.
Sorry to hear Leonard Horner has been ill.
Has received high praise of Coral reefs from Lyell.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Anne Susanna Lloyd; Anne Susanna Horner |
Date: | [4 Oct 1842] |
Classmark: | DAR 261.11: 1 (EH 88206053) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-648 |
To Linnean Society 23 June 1875
Summary
Gives a report on a paper by Thomas Powell on coral islands ["Notes on the nature and productions of several atolls of the Tokelan, Ellice, and Gilbert Groups, South Pacific", read 15 Apr 1875, not published].
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Linnean Society |
Date: | 23 June 1875 |
Classmark: | Linnean Society of London (SP.917) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10027 |
To Leonard Horner 29 August [1844]
Summary
Thanks Horner for his letter [about Volcanic islands].
Discusses craters of elevation with respect to the views of Leopold von Buch and Élie de Beaumont. Compares Lyell’s views to those of continental geologists. Mentions reading A. D. d’Orbigny [Voyage dans l’Amérique méridionale (1835–47)].
Encloses note from Emma to Mrs Horner, inviting the Horners to visit Down.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Leonard Horner |
Date: | 29 Aug [1844] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.38) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-771 |
To A. R. Wallace 9 April [1868]
Summary
Warns ARW of dubious character of list of European alpine genera and species in volcanoes of Hawaii. Problems of geographical distribution in oceanic islands.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Alfred Russel Wallace |
Date: | 9 Apr [1868] |
Classmark: | The British Library (Add MS 46434) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-6109 |
From T. F. Jamieson 3 September 1861
Summary
Observations from a fortnight in Lochaber. Found the entrance to Loch Treig to present the clearest evidence of intense glacial action. States, in contradiction of David Milne-Home, that there is glacial scoring in Glen Spean, as Louis Agassiz described, and moraine around the mouth of Loch Treig. There is little sign of water erosion on the rocks crossed by the lines in Glen Roy. Believes the smoothed rocks at the eastern end of Loch Laggan are due to flow from the lake and not tidal action. The lines in Glen Roy are too neat for a lake shore subject to tides. Given the glacial scoring sweeping round from Glen Spean into Glen Treig, and all the boulders, TFJ is astonished that anyone could deny that there had been glaciers there. [See 3247.]
Author: | Thomas Francis Jamieson |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 3 Sept 1861 |
Classmark: | The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell collection Coll-203/A3/7: 75–92) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3242A |
Matches: 3 hits
- … vol. 2, letter to Charles Lyell, [5 and 7 October 1842] ). See also Autobiography , p. …
- … had visited North Wales in 1842. As CD told Charles Lyell , whereas he had seen obvious …
- … Charles Lyell, 14 May 1861). See also Barrett 1973 and Rudwick 1974 . Louis Agassiz had visited Lochaber in the company of the geologist William Buckland in the summer of 1840, after attending the Glasgow meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Agassiz subsequently published a brief notice stating his belief that the parallel roads of Glen Roy had been formed by glacial lakes ( Agassiz 1840b ). Two years later, he published a more complete report on the glacial phenomena of Scotland in which several pages were devoted to a discussion of the parallel roads of Lochaber ( Agassiz 1842 ). …
From Charles Lyell 18 September 1860
Summary
It is strange that Agassiz, who is for the "sanctity of species", should favour Pallas’s view of hybrid origin of domestic dog.
CL has not meant to advocate successive creation of types but to question assumption that all mammals descended from single stock. Why should a Triassic reptile or bird not move towards mammalian form because an ancestral marsupial has appeared? Believes recent appearance of rodents and bats in Australia explains their lack of development.
Can CD supply a reference on plant extinction on St Helena?
Believes marsupials better adapted for surviving drought in Australia than higher mammals.
Will not press argument about lack of development of mammalian forms on islands, but CD should note objection.
Does CD’s belief in multiple origin of dogs affect faith in single primates in different regions?
Does time lapse between putative independently descended mammalian forms mean first form will "keep down" later incipient one? Thus Homo sapiens has prevented improvement of other anthropomorphs; bats and rodents on islands would prevent improvement of lower forms into mammalian.
Author: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 18 Sept 1860 |
Classmark: | The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell collection Coll-203/A3/6: 187–95d) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2920C |
Lyell, Charles. 1843b. On the upright fossil-trees found at different levels in the coal strata of Cumberland, Nova Scotia. [Read 26 April 1843.] Proceedings of the Geological Society of London 4 (1842–5): 176–8.
To Daniel Mackintosh 9 October 1879
Summary
Comments on DM’s ["Drift deposits of west of England", Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 35 (1879): 425–55].
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Daniel Mackintosh |
Date: | 9 Oct 1879 |
Classmark: | DAR 146: 333 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-12252 |
To W. T. Thiselton-Dyer [19 December 1875]
Summary
CD’s attempts to get support for Lankester among Fellows of the Linnean Society. He has encountered opposition to the Council.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | William Turner Thiselton-Dyer |
Date: | [19 Dec 1875] |
Classmark: | Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (Thiselton-Dyer, W.T., Letters from Charles Darwin 1873–81: 52–5) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10308 |
letter | (48) |
bibliography | (2) |
people | (2) |
Darwin, C. R. | (37) |
Lyell, Charles | (5) |
Hooker, J. D. | (3) |
Blyth, Edward | (1) |
Crotch, W. D. | (1) |
Lyell, Charles | (13) |
Darwin, C. R. | (11) |
Hooker, J. D. | (3) |
Murray, John (b) | (2) |
Athenæum | (1) |
Darwin, C. R. | (48) |
Lyell, Charles | (18) |
Hooker, J. D. | (6) |
Murray, John (b) | (2) |
Athenæum | (1) |