To Asa Gray 5 September [1857]
Summary
Encloses an abstract of his ideas on natural selection and the principle of divergence; the "means by which nature makes her species".
Discusses varieties and close species in large and small genera, finding some data from AG in conflict with his expectations.
Has been observing the action of bees in fertilising kidney beans and Lobelia.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Asa Gray |
Date: | 5 Sept [1857] |
Classmark: | Archives of the Gray Herbarium, Harvard University (48) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2136 |
To J. D. Hooker 6 September [1857]
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 6 Sept [1857] |
Classmark: | DAR 114: 209 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2137 |
To Secretary, Academia Caesarea Leopoldino-Carolina Naturae Curiosorum 8 September [1857]
Summary
CD acknowledges honour of his election to the Academy.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Academia Caesarea Leopoldino-Carolina Naturae Curiosorum |
Date: | 8 Sept [1857] |
Classmark: | Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz (Slg. Darmstaedter Lc 1859: Darwin, Charles, Bl. 200–202 ) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2138 |
To J. D. Hooker 11 September [1857]
Summary
Representative species may complicate tabulation of varieties.
Questions for Mr Anderson about horse colouring in Norway.
Has been writing an "audacious little discussion" to show that "organic beings are not perfect, only perfect enough to struggle with their competitors".
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 11 Sept [1857] |
Classmark: | DAR 114: 211; DAR 115: 73a |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2140 |
To T. H. Huxley 15 September [1857]
Summary
Thanks for three last lectures and the account of cirripedes.
Difficulty of classifying the higher groups.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Thomas Henry Huxley |
Date: | 15 Sept [1857] |
Classmark: | Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine Archives (Huxley 5: 137) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2141 |
To William Walmisley Baxter 23 September [1857–9?]
Summary
The returned gloves are similar to some he has already, and he would prefer a pair with stiffer bristles.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | William Walmisley Baxter |
Date: | 23 Sept [1857-9] |
Classmark: | Lyon & Turnbull, Edinburgh (dealers) (4 February 2009) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2142F |
To T. H. Huxley 26 September [1857]
Summary
Agassiz’s superficiality and wretched reasoning powers. But he stirred up Europe on glaciers. Lyell has been working on their effects – testing work of others.
CD believes "Natural Systems" ought to be simply genealogical. "Time will come when we shall have true genealogical trees of each great kingdom of nature."
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Thomas Henry Huxley |
Date: | 26 Sept [1857] |
Classmark: | Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine Archives (Huxley 5: 54) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2143 |
To W. B. Tegetmeier 29 September [1857]
Summary
Will collect no more pigeons. Is awaiting Burmese fowls’ skins coming via Berlin.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | William Bernhard Tegetmeier |
Date: | 29 Sept [1857] |
Classmark: | Archives of the New York Botanical Garden (Charles Finney Cox Collection) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2146 |
To W. E. Darwin 29 [October 1857]
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | William Erasmus Darwin |
Date: | 29 [Oct 1857] |
Classmark: | DAR 210.6: 19 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2147 |
To J. D. Hooker 30 September [1857]
Summary
C. F. Ledebour [Flora rossica (1842–53)] particularly useful for variety tabulation. Results generally favourable.
Additions to Down House.
Last two chapters of MS took six months to write.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 30 Sept [1857] |
Classmark: | DAR 114: 210 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2148 |
To John Lubbock [22 November 1857]
Summary
Huxley and William Sharpey praise JL’s paper [? on Daphnia, Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. 147 (1857): 79–100] at Philosophical Club.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | John Lubbock, 4th baronet and 1st Baron Avebury |
Date: | [22 Nov 1857] |
Classmark: | DAR 263: 22 (EH 88206471) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2149 |
To T. H. Huxley 3 October [1857]
Summary
Thinks naturalists look for something further than Cuvier’s view of classification. Poses a theoretical problem on the classification of the races of man to prove that a genealogical system is best.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Thomas Henry Huxley |
Date: | 3 Oct [1857] |
Classmark: | Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine Archives (Huxley 5: 139) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2150 |
To James Buckman 4 October [1857]
Summary
Asks JB to obtain information about pigeons.
Inquires where his article has been published ["On the discovery of Cnicus tuberosus at Avebury, Wilts.", Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 2d ser. 20 (1857): 337–9].
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | James Buckman |
Date: | 4 Oct [1857] |
Classmark: | Dorset County Museum (tipped into Origin 1st ed.) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2151 |
To J. S. Henslow 14 October [1857]
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | John Stevens Henslow |
Date: | 14 Oct [1857] |
Classmark: | DAR 93: A119 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2153 |
To J. S. Henslow 18 October [1857]
Summary
Sends details on Myosotis sports. Feels sure he could make any flower in some degree monstrous in four or five generations.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | John Stevens Henslow |
Date: | 18 Oct [1857] |
Classmark: | DAR 93: A45–6 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2154 |
To Gardeners’ Chronicle 18 October [1857]
Summary
Describes his experiments with kidney beans to test the agency of bees in their fertilisation. His results suggest they are essential.
Asks what George Swayne could mean by the advantage of artificial fertilisation of early beans [Trans. Hortic. Soc. Lond. 5 (1824): 208–13].
Has observed that hive-bees, which normally suck nectar from the flower of the kidney bean, will use holes cut through the calyx by humble-bees, though the holes cannot be seen from the mouth of the flower. Suggests hive-bees see humble-bees at work and understand what they are doing and "rationally" take advantage of the shorter path to the nectar. [See also 2359.]
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Gardeners’ Chronicle |
Date: | 18 Oct [1857] |
Classmark: | Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, 24 October 1857, p. 725 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2155 |
To J. D. Hooker 20 October [1857]
Summary
Returns some of the systematics books borrowed from JDH. Will now take on A. P. and Alphonse de Candolle [Prodromus].
Arrangements for a visit.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 20 Oct [1857] |
Classmark: | DAR 114: 212, 222c |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2156 |
To J. D. Hooker [23 October 1857]
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | [23 Oct 1857] |
Classmark: | DAR 114: 214 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2157 |
To W. D. Fox 30 October [1857]
Summary
Has come to think his brains were not made for thinking – he immediately feels better when at Moor Park.
News of his family.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | William Darwin Fox |
Date: | 30 Oct [1857] |
Classmark: | Christ’s College Library, Cambridge (MS 53 Fox 104) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2161 |
To T. C. Eyton 2 November [1857]
Summary
Has TCE observed whether hybrids of Chinese and common forms [of geese] were wilder, or less tame, than both parents?
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Thomas Campbell Eyton |
Date: | 2 Nov [1857] |
Classmark: | Cadbury Research Library: Special Collections, University of Birmingham (EYT/1/42) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2164 |
letter | (132) |
Hooker, J. D. | (31) |
Tegetmeier, W. B. | (12) |
Huxley, T. H. | (10) |
Darwin, W. E. | (8) |
Gray, Asa | (7) |
Darwin, C. R. | (132) |
Hooker, J. D. | (31) |
Tegetmeier, W. B. | (12) |
Huxley, T. H. | (10) |
Darwin, W. E. | (8) |