To Charles Lyell 17 June [1860]
Summary
Discusses relationship between natural selection and more general laws. Law of gravity is not seen as requiring design. Mentions mathematicians’ judgment of probability.
Notes gestation periods for hounds.
Etty is somewhat better.
Mentions his paper on fertilisation of orchids by insects [Collected papers 2: 32–5].
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | 17 June [1860] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.217) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2833 |
To W. B. Carpenter 17 June [1860]
Summary
Must defer WBC’s visit, owing to daughter’s illness.
Comments on response to the Origin. Has been "well pitched into", but cares little, because of support of men like WBC.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | William Benjamin Carpenter |
Date: | 17 June [1860] |
Classmark: | DAR 261.6: 6 (EH 88205923) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2834 |
To T. C. Eyton 18 June [1860]
Summary
Asks about the period of gestation in dogs.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Thomas Campbell Eyton |
Date: | 18 June [1860] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.218) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2835 |
To W. D. Fox 18 June [1860]
Summary
Has WDF ever observed musk ducks laying eggs in high places? The case bears on retention of aboriginal habits.
Also wants data on period of gestation of dog breeds. [See Variation 1: 30.]
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | William Darwin Fox |
Date: | 18 June [1860] |
Classmark: | Christ’s College Library, Cambridge (MS 53 Fox 129) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2836 |
From John Higgins 19 June 1860
Summary
Sends a plan of the Anwick Estate: will value it on Saturday next (23 June 1860).
Will purchase it for CD at the auction on 25 June if he can secure favourable terms.
Author: | John Higgins |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 19 June 1860 |
Classmark: | Lincolnshire Archives (HIG/4/2/3/14) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2836F |
From Frederick Bond [16? June 1860]
Author: | Frederick Bond |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [16? June 1860] |
Classmark: | DAR 76 (ser. 2): 168 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2837 |
From Charles Lyell 19 June 1860
Summary
Sees Huxley’s deification of matter and force as a reaction to the way Paley likened the "Unknown Cause" to the mind of man so that new causes could be introduced. If you wish to retain free will which is inconsistent with constant law, Paley’s position is better. Free will is a recently introduced cause on our planet. It cannot be fully attributed to secondary causes.
What CD says about the variation in gestation of the hound is remarkable.
The astonishing fertile rabbit–hare hybrids encourage belief in Pallas’s theory of the multiple origin of dogs.
Does the regularity of gestation in man indicate a common stock?
Hooker’s observation of absence of forms peculiar to extra-Arctic Greenland indicates that the time since the beginning of the glacial period is brief in geological terms.
Author: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 19 June 1860 |
Classmark: | The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell collection Coll-203/A3/6: 117–23) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2837A |
From John Higgins 16 June 1860
Summary
Has not received any replies from the parties.
Either he or his son will value the property after JH’s return to Alford.
Author: | John Higgins |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 16 June 1860 |
Classmark: | Lincolnshire Archives (HIG/4/2/3/7) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2837F |
To Charles Lyell 20 [June 1860]
Summary
Blyth’s effort to raise money for a Chinese expedition.
Comments on free-will in animals.
Says natural selection is not in the same category with Huxley’s "force" and "matter".
Discusses remarkable variation in period of gestation in dogs and ducks.
Discusses Arctic flora.
Has been working on orchids; they beat woodpeckers in adaptation.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | 20 [June 1860] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.219) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2838 |
To H. T. Stainton 20 June [1860]
Summary
Has had a very satisfactory answer from Mr Parfitt. Asks HTS to insert query in Entomologist’s Weekly Intelligencer and also to answer it himself. ["Do the Tineina and other small moths suck flowers?", Collected papers 2: 35–6.]
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Henry Tibbats Stainton |
Date: | 20 June [1860] |
Classmark: | Natural History Museum, Library and Archives (General Special Collections MSS DAR 18) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2839 |
To John Higgins 21 June [1860]
Summary
Places affair [land purchase] entirely in JH’s hands. Son [William?] will visit in a week or two.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | John Higgins |
Date: | 21 June [1860] |
Classmark: | Lincolnshire Archives (HIG/4/2/3/15) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2840 |
To John Higgins 22 June 1860
Summary
Acknowledges receipt of £244 5s. 11d. for half-year rents less deductions.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | John Higgins |
Date: | 22 June 1860 |
Classmark: | Dominic Winter Auctioneers (dealers) (10 April 2019, lot 138) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2840F |
To Alexander Goodman More 24 June [1860]
Summary
Asks for information about pollen of bee orchid. Asks for specimens.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Alexander Goodman More |
Date: | 24 June [1860] |
Classmark: | Royal Irish Academy (A. G. More papers RIA MS 4 B 46) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2841 |
To Charles Lyell 25 [June 1860]
Summary
Encloses arrow-heads.
Comments on gestation in dogs.
Mentions BAAS meeting at Oxford.
Etty’s illness.
Criticises views of J. W. Dawson on organic and geological change.
The problems of distinguishing varieties and species.
Discusses facts explained by his theory.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | 25 [June 1860] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.220) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2843 |
To John Obadiah Westwood 25 June [1860]
Summary
Would like to borrow the bees that, as reported in Gardeners’ Chronicle, were sent to JOW with pollen-masses of orchids sticking to them. CD has never seen a bee visit an orchid. He believes he could identify the genus and perhaps species of the orchids the pollen comes from.
His health is too bad to attend the meeting [of British Association for the Advancement of Science].
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | John Obadiah Westwood |
Date: | 25 June [1860] |
Classmark: | Oxford University Museum (Hope Entomological collections) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2844 |
To J. D. Hooker 26 [June 1860]
Summary
Going for hydropathy. Too ill for Oxford BAAS meeting.
Pollination by minute insects.
CD proves his view regarding Goodenia stigmatic surfaces by dissection and following pollen-tubes up to grains.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 26 [June 1860] |
Classmark: | DAR 115: 63 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2846 |
From Frederick Bond 26 June 1860
Author: | Frederick Bond |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 26 June 1860 |
Classmark: | DAR 76 (ser. 2): 169 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2847 |
To Entomologist’s Weekly Intelligencer [20 June 1860]
Summary
Is it physically possible for moths to eat the pollen of Mercurialis? Believes moths may visit the smaller clovers to suck the nectar.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Entomologist’s Weekly Intelligencer |
Date: | [20 June 1860] |
Classmark: | Entomologist’s Weekly Intelligencer, 30 June 1860, p. 103 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2848 |
To A. G. More [30 June 1860]
Summary
Asks about removal of pollen-masses in bee orchid.
Will return home on 5th and go to Charles Langton’s on the 9th.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Alexander Goodman More |
Date: | [30 June 1860] |
Classmark: | Royal Irish Academy (A. G. More papers RIA MS 4 B 46) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2849 |
To J. D. Hooker 19 [June 1860]
Summary
CD writes of his admiration for pollination contrivances in Gymnadenia. Ask George Bentham whether this plant should be removed from genus Orchis.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 19 [June 1860] |
Classmark: | DAR 261.10: 69 (EH 88206052) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3290 |
letter | (40) |
Darwin, C. R. | (33) |
Bond, Frederick | (2) |
Higgins, John | (2) |
Lyell, Charles | (2) |
Hooker, J. D. | (1) |
Darwin, C. R. | (7) |
Hooker, J. D. | (6) |
Lyell, Charles | (6) |
Higgins, John | (3) |
Miller, W. H. | (2) |
Bond, Frederick | (2) |
Carpenter, W. B. | (1) |
Darwin, C. R. | (40) |
Entomologist’s Weekly Intelligencer | (1) |
Eyton, T. C. | (1) |
Fox, W. D. | (1) |
Gardeners’ Chronicle | (1) |
Gray, Asa | (1) |
Gärtner, Emma | (1) |
Higgins, John | (5) |
Hooker, J. D. | (7) |
Lyell, Charles | (8) |
Miller, W. H. | (2) |
More, A. G. | (2) |
Murray, John (b) | (1) |
Rolleston, George | (2) |
Stainton, H. T. | (2) |
Unidentified | (1) |
Westwood, J. O. | (1) |