From William Charles Linnaeus Martin [1859–61]
Summary
MS of a paper called "Comments on Mr Darwin’s grand theory", which generally supports CD but proposes that present flightless birds are primitive. Paper supplemented by a diagram showing the phylogeny of birds.
Author: | William Charles Linnaeus Martin |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [1859–61] |
Classmark: | DAR 171: 56/1–15 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-13827 |
From Hensleigh Wedgwood [13–19 March 1859]
Summary
HW has confirmed the report in the Times of a shower of fish (minnows and sticklebacks) that fell on the Wedgwood colliery.
Author: | Hensleigh Wedgwood |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [13–19 Mar 1859] |
Classmark: | DAR 205.2: 262 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-13854 |
From A. C. Ramsay 6 January 1859
Summary
Responds to CD’s queries concerning faults; is sending sections of the kind he wants. The Merionethshire fault with a downthrow of 12000ft. [See Origin, p. 285.]
Author: | Andrew Crombie Ramsay |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 6 Jan 1859 |
Classmark: | DAR 205.9: 399 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2398 |
From Richard Hill 10 January 1859
Summary
Will secure information on indigenous and naturalised bees as CD requests.
Believes Mexican and Jamaican Melipona are different.
Author: | Richard Hill |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 10 Jan 1859 |
Classmark: | DAR 166: 218 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2399 |
From J. D. Hooker 25 January 1859
Summary
Relieved by Wallace’s letter.
At work on introductory essay to Flora Tasmaniae.
European plants naturalised in Australia are almost all adapted to invading disturbed ground.
JDH supports Asa Gray against Alphonse de Candolle as foreign member of Royal Society.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 25 Jan 1859 |
Classmark: | DAR 100: 131–2 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2404 |
From John Lubbock 8 February 1859
Summary
Is sorry to hear of bad health of CD and his daughter.
Discusses, with an example, the difficulty of explaining structural differences between closely allied species.
Author: | John Lubbock, 4th baronet and 1st Baron Avebury |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 8 Feb 1859 |
Classmark: | DAR 48: A67 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2409 |
From T. H. Huxley [9–12 March 1859]
Summary
Serial homologies in the Mollusca. Gives instances of repetition of homological parts in Radiata.
Author: | Thomas Henry Huxley |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [9–12 Mar 1859] |
Classmark: | DAR 166: 288 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2427 |
From J. D. Hooker [9 March 1859]
Summary
Outlines the basic categories of phanerogams.
Places Gymnospermae in the dicotyledons.
Evaluates the variable utility of embryological characters in plant classification.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [9 Mar 1859] |
Classmark: | DAR 100: 152–3 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2428 |
From John Lubbock 15 March 1859
Summary
Embryology of Diptera. Development of insects; metamorphosis. JL feels all insects go through metamorphosis but that in some of them, part takes place before birth.
Author: | John Lubbock, 4th baronet and 1st Baron Avebury |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 15 Mar 1859 |
Classmark: | DAR 170: 22 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2433 |
From John Murray 1 April 1859
Summary
On the strength of CD’s details about his work on species and his knowledge of CD’s former publications, JM offers to publish [Origin] without seeing the MS.
Author: | John Murray |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 1 Apr 1859 |
Classmark: | National Library of Scotland (John Murray Archive) (Ms. 41913 p.32) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2443 |
From J. D. Hooker [8–11 April 1859]
Summary
Lyell has been strongly urging John Murray to publish CD’s book [Origin]. JDH feels Lyell overestimates the public interest in such works.
Gives examples of plants showing most marked varieties on the edge of their range.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [8–11 Apr 1859] |
Classmark: | DAR 100: 127 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2444 |
From Frederick Smith 30 April 1859
Summary
Reports his observations on the habits of slave-making ants (Formica sanguinea).
Author: | Frederick Smith |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 30 Apr 1859 |
Classmark: | DAR 177: 192 (fragile) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2456 |
From John Higgins 15 July 1859
Summary
Suggests giving Marcus Huish permission to shoot over CD’s Beesby estate, but not to revoke JH’s occasional privilege to take a visitor shooting there.
Author: | John Higgins |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 15 July 1859 |
Classmark: | Lincolnshire Archives (HIG/4/2/4/2) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2476G |
From Charles Lyell 3 October 1859
Summary
Praises the Origin: a "splendid case of close reasoning".
Objects to CD’s having ignored Lamarck and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire.
Thinks CD should omit mentioning problem of explaining the eye at the beginning of chapter 14. Suggests rewording several passages.
Thinks want of peculiar birds in Madeira a difficulty, considering presence of them in Galapagos.
Has always felt that the case of man and his races is one and the same with animals and plants.
Author: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 3 Oct 1859 |
Classmark: | DAR 98: B1–6 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2501 |
DCP-LETT-2501F
Summary
Cancelled: Known only from reference in letter to Charles Lyell, 11 October [1859]
Author: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [4 October 1859] |
Classmark: | |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2501F |
From Charles Lyell 22 October 1859
Summary
Wishes CD would enlarge on the doctrines of [Pyotr Simon] Pallas about the various races of dogs having come from several distinct wild species or sub-species.
Suggests organisms have a latent principle of improvement which is brought out by selection or breeding.
Author: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 22 Oct 1859 |
Classmark: | The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell collection Coll-203/A1/242: 15–24) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2508F |
From Hugh Falconer 25 October and 12 November [1859]
Summary
The antlers of 800 deer of the glacial period have been found in a cave. They show great variety of form, but gradation from one to the other can be traced when all are laid out. Suggests CD study changes that have taken place in the species since glacial period.
Has ordered the wicked book [Origin] CD has been so long a-hatching.
Author: | Hugh Falconer |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 25 Oct and 12 Nov 1859 |
Classmark: | DAR 47: 215–17 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2511 |
From Charles Lyell 28 October 1859
Summary
Since dogs have same gestation period as the wolf it is likely that the wolf is the ancestral wild species, if it is just one species.
CD’s belief that domestic dogs are descended from several distinct aboriginal species seems to contradict views on sterility of hybrids and variation in Origin. If domestic varieties came from hybrids of wild species it will be impossible to trace ancestry. Opponents will exploit these problems.
Author: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 28 Oct 1859 |
Classmark: | The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell collection Coll-203/A3/4: 170–3) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2512A |
From John Murray 2 November 1859
Summary
By this post he sends for approval specimen copy of CD’s book [Origin of species]. At 14 s., 1250 copies will yield £240, two-thirds of which will go to author. Arrangements for early copies.
Author: | John Murray |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 2 Nov 1859 |
Classmark: | National Library of Scotland (John Murray Archive) (Ms. 41913 pp. 53–4) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2513A |
From Richard Owen 12 November 1859
Summary
Will welcome CD’s work [Origin] with a "close & continuous perusal".
Believes in the "operation of existing influences or causes in the ordained becoming and incoming of living species" and so could not regard CD’s attempt to demonstrate the nature of such influences as "heterodox".
Author: | Richard Owen |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 12 Nov 1859 |
Classmark: | Shrewsbury School, Taylor Library |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2526 |
letter | (40) |
Darwin, E. A. | (2) |
Falconer, Hugh | (1) |
Galton, Francis | (1) |
Higgins, John | (1) |
Hill, Richard | (2) |
Holland, Henry | (1) |
Hooker, J. D. | (6) |
Huxley, T. H. | (2) |
Jardine, William | (1) |
Kingsley, Charles | (1) |
Lubbock, John | (2) |
Lyell, Charles | (7) |
Martin, W. C. L. | (2) |
Murray, John (b) | (2) |
Owen, Richard | (1) |
Ramsay, A. C. | (2) |
Scrimgeour, Robert Shedden & John Shedden & Co. | (1) |
Sedgwick, Adam | (1) |
Smith, Frederick (a) | (1) |
Watson, H. C. | (2) |
Wedgwood, Hensleigh | (1) |
Darwin, C. R. | (40) |
Lyell, Charles | (7) |
Hooker, J. D. | (6) |
Darwin, E. A. | (2) |
Hill, Richard | (2) |