To Gardeners’ Chronicle [before 12 November 1857]
Summary
Asks writer of an article on weeds why he supposes "there is too much reason to believe that foreign seed of an indigenous species is often more prolific than that grown at home?" The point is of interest to CD "in regard to the great battle of life which is perpetually going on all around us". Cites analogous observations by Asa Gray and J. D. Hooker. Does writer know "of any other analogous cases of a weed introduced from another land beating out … a weed previously common in any particular field or farm?"
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Gardeners’ Chronicle |
Date: | [before 12 Nov 1857] |
Classmark: | Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, 14 November 1857, p. 779 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2169 |
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 |
To Asa Gray 20 July [1857]
Summary
Believes species have arisen, like domestic varieties, with much extinction, and that there are no such things as independently created species. Explains why he believes species of the same genus generally have a common or continuous area; they are actual lineal descendants.
Discusses fertilisation in the bud and the insect pollination of papilionaceous flowers. His theory explains why, despite the risk of injury, cross-fertilisation is usual in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, even in hermaphrodites.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Asa Gray |
Date: | 20 July [1857] |
Classmark: | Archives of the Gray Herbarium, Harvard University (9b) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2125 |
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 W. D. Fox 8 February [1857]
Summary
Birth of his sixth son [C. W. Darwin]. It is dreadful "to think of all the sendings to school and the professions afterwards".
CD is not well but has not the courage for water-cure again; trying mineral acids.
Working hard on the book [Natural selection]; is overwhelmed with riches in facts and interested in way facts fall into groups.
To his surprise [Helix pomatia] has withstood 14 days in salt water.
Pigeons’ skins come in from all parts of the world.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | William Darwin Fox |
Date: | 8 Feb [1857] |
Classmark: | Christ’s College Library, Cambridge (MS 53 Fox 110) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2049 |
Matches: 2 hits
- … J. D. Hooker, 3 February [1850]). Fox had twelve children in all, five by his first marriage and seven by his second. Of these, four were boys. An allusion to the advanced stage of Ellen Sophia Fox’s pregnancy. Edith Darwin Fox was born on 13 February 1857 ( …
- … J. D. Hooker, 10 December [1856] , and letter from T. V. Wollaston, [11 or 18 December 1856] . On 22 January, after one of the Helices provided by Thomas Vernon Wollaston had survived the effects of immersion in salt water, CD began a new experiment with Helix pomatia and H. aspersa . In his Experimental book, p. 16 (DAR 157a), CD recorded on 5 February 1857 …
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 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … J. D. Hooker, 21 [May 1856] ). Harvey had recently returned from a three-year visit to Ceylon and Australia, during which he had made extensive collections of Algae and other botanical and marine invertebrate specimens ( Memoir of W. H. Harvey … with selections from his journal and correspondence (London, 1869), pp. 244–312). Neither CD nor Hooker attended the Dublin meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 26 August – 2 September 1857. …
To W. E. Darwin 21 [July 1857]
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | William Erasmus Darwin |
Date: | 21 [July 1857] |
Classmark: | DAR 210.6: 16 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2097 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … J. D. Hooker, [12 September 1847] ). Of the Gainsborough portraits at Dulwich, the most famous was the double portrait of Elizabeth Ann and Maria Linley . Knole House, near Sevenoaks, Kent. Robert Bickersteth Mayor was William’s housemaster at Rugby School. Frederick Temple , who had obtained a double first class in mathematics and classics at Oxford and was a fellow of Balliol College, became headmaster of Rugby School on 12 November 1857. …
letter | (67) |
Hooker, J. D. | (31) |
Darwin, C. R. | (10) |
Gray, Asa | (6) |
Darwin, W. E. | (2) |
Fox, W. D. | (2) |
Darwin, C. R. | (66) |
Hooker, J. D. | (36) |
Gray, Asa | (8) |
Darwin, W. E. | (2) |
Fox, W. D. | (2) |