DCP-LETT-1652
Summary
Cancelled: same as 1672.
Author: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 23 Apr 1855 |
Classmark: | DAR 146: 474 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1652 |
To W. E. Darwin [25 April 1855]
Summary
The new pigeon house is nearly complete.
CD is busy trying all sorts of experiments on salting seeds.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | William Erasmus Darwin |
Date: | [25 Apr 1855] |
Classmark: | DAR 210.6: 6 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1660 |
To J. D. Hooker 7 April [1855]
Summary
CD has begun seed-salting experiments. Wants JDH to write which seeds he expects to be easily killed [in salt water].
CD’s idea that coal-plants lived in salt water like mangroves made JDH savage.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 7 Apr [1855] |
Classmark: | DAR 114: 127 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1661 |
To M. J. Berkeley 7 April [1855]
Summary
Asks for a pea variety for an experiment.
Discusses C. F. v. Gärtner’s results [in Bastarderzeugung im Pflanzenreich (1849)]. Criticises Gärtner’s belief that hybrids are always less fertile than their parents.
Asks about MJB’s experiments.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Miles Joseph Berkeley |
Date: | 7 Apr [1855] |
Classmark: | Shropshire Archives (SA 6001/134/41) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1662 |
From C. J. F. Bunbury 10 April 1855
Summary
Responds to CD’s questions about mountain vegetation of the Cape of Good Hope. The distribution of some plants provides problems for both migration and special creation hypotheses.
Author: | Charles James Fox Bunbury, 8th baronet |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 10 Apr 1855 |
Classmark: | DAR 205.4: 95 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1664 |
To M. J. Berkeley 11 April [1855]
Summary
Thanks MJB for peas.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Miles Joseph Berkeley |
Date: | 11 Apr [1855] |
Classmark: | Shropshire Archives (SA 6001/134/42) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1665 |
To Gardeners’ Chronicle 11 April [1855]
Summary
CD describes his experiments on the effects on germination of the immersion of seeds in sea-water. Hopes to throw light on the distribution of plants. Asks readers of Gardeners’ Chronicle to inform him whether such experiments have already been tried and what class or species of seeds they suppose would be particularly liable to be killed by sea-water.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Gardeners’ Chronicle |
Date: | 11 Apr [1855] |
Classmark: | Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, no. 15, 14 April 1855, p. 242 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1666 |
To J. D. Hooker 13 April [1855]
Summary
Pea self-fertilisation: has forty-five varieties growing side by side.
Describes seed-salting experiments: e.g., immersion in tank filled with snow. Reports some successful germinations.
Made list of naturalised plants from Asa Gray’s Manual [of Botany] to calculate the proportions of the great families.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 13 Apr [1855] |
Classmark: | DAR 114: 128 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1667 |
To T. H. Huxley 18 April [1855]
Summary
Thomas Bell thinks John Lindley superior for Royal Society Medal. CD agrees, but demurs at Medal going to same branch of science two years in succession.
Perplexed about Albany Hancock’s qualifications compared with J. O. Westwood’s.
Death of H. De la Beche.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Thomas Henry Huxley |
Date: | 18 Apr [1855] |
Classmark: | Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine Archives (Huxley 5: 31) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1668 |
To J. D. Hooker 19 April [1855]
Summary
Rejects JDH’s suggestion that seed-salting experiments be conducted on huge scale. Only wishes to demonstrate possibility of sea transport, not establishment of any particular insular flora. More seed results.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 19 Apr [1855] |
Classmark: | DAR 114: 129 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1669 |
From Edward Blyth 21 April 1855
Summary
Indigenous domestic animals of the New World.
Relationship of Newfoundland and Esquimo dogs to the wolf. Dogs like the Esquimo occur in Tibet and Siberia. Indian pariah dogs and jackals occasionally interbreed.
Describes domestic cats of India; reports cases of their interbreeding with wild cats. Wild cats are tamed for hunting.
Races of silkworm in India are crossed [see 1690].
Domesticated plants, fish, and birds of India.
Comments on local races and species of crows; it is impossible to trace a line of demarcation between races and species.
Variation in the ability of hybrids to propagate.
Indian cattle breeds; differences between Bos indicus and Bos taurus.
Is not satisfied that aboriginally wild species of horse and ass exist.
Believes all fancy breeds of pigeon originated in the East. Wild ancestors of pigeons, ducks, geese, and fowls. Interbreeding of wild species of pheasant.
[CD’s notes are an abstract of this letter.]
Author: | Edward Blyth |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 21 Apr 1855 |
Classmark: | DAR 98: A57–A68 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1670 |
To J. D. Hooker 24 April [1855]
Summary
More on seed-salting. JDH’s admission that he expected seeds to die in a week gives CD "a nice little triumph".
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 24 Apr [1855] |
Classmark: | DAR 114: 130 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1671 |
From Charles Lyell 23 April 1855
Summary
CL would like to put Joachim Barrande on the Royal Society’s foreign list. Of French geologists and palaeontologists, he is the man who has made the greatest sacrifices and produced the greatest results.
Author: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 23 Apr 1855 |
Classmark: | Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine Archives (Huxley 6: 7) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1672 |
To John Lubbock 24 April [1855]
Summary
Praise for JL’s interesting paper ["On the freshwater entomostraca of South America", Trans. Entomol. Soc. Lond. n.s. 3 (1854–6): 232–46].
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | John Lubbock, 4th baronet and 1st Baron Avebury |
Date: | 24 Apr [1855] |
Classmark: | DAR 263: 11 (EH 88206460) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1673 |
To Asa Gray 25 April [1855]
Summary
Is collecting facts on variation; questions AG on the alpine flora of the U. S.
Sends a list of plants from AG’s Manual of botany [1848] and asks him to append the ranges of the species.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Asa Gray |
Date: | 25 Apr [1855] |
Classmark: | Archives of the Gray Herbarium, Harvard University (1) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1674 |
To W. D. Fox 26 April [1855]
Summary
Explains more clearly what he is looking for in his work on poultry: relative variation at different ages, the effect of disuse on different parts, breeding between wild and domestic, and degree of fertility of "mongrels of very diverse races".
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | William Darwin Fox |
Date: | 26 Apr [1855] |
Classmark: | Christ’s College Library, Cambridge (MS 53 Fox 89) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1675 |
To Leonard Horner 27 April [1855]
Summary
Regrets that he has not published his information on superficial beds except in abbreviated form, on p. 143 of Volcanic islands.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Leonard Horner |
Date: | 27 Apr [1855] |
Classmark: | Kinnordy MS (private collection) (Sold at Sotheby’s (dealers), 9 July 2018, lot 373) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1676 |
letter | (17) |
Darwin, C. R. | (13) |
Lyell, Charles | (2) |
Blyth, Edward | (1) |
Bunbury, C. J. F. | (1) |
Darwin, C. R. | (4) |
Hooker, J. D. | (4) |
Berkeley, M. J. | (2) |
Darwin, W. E. | (1) |
Fox, W. D. | (1) |
Darwin, C. R. | |
Hooker, J. D. | (4) |
Berkeley, M. J. | (2) |
Lyell, Charles | (2) |
Blyth, Edward | (1) |
Bunbury, C. J. F. | (1) |
Darwin, W. E. | (1) |
Fox, W. D. | (1) |
Gardeners’ Chronicle | (1) |
Gray, Asa | (1) |
Horner, Leonard | (1) |
Huxley, T. H. | (1) |
Lubbock, John | (1) |