From Mary Butler [before 25 December 1862]
Summary
J. P. Thom [of Home News] must change his position because of his health. Asks if CD can help find him a new situation.
Author: | Mary Butler |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [before 25 Dec 1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 160: 392 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3838 |
From T. H. Huxley 2 December 1862
Summary
Sends first three of his Lectures to working men [on our knowledge of the phenomena of organic nature (1863)]. Does not intend them to be widely circulated.
Author: | Thomas Henry Huxley |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 2 Dec 1862 |
Classmark: | DAR 166.2: 296 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3841 |
From Robert Swinhoe 2 December 1862
Summary
Sends CD a Chinese breed of guinea-pig. Has heard it claimed that the domestic guinea-pig will not interbreed with the wild rock cavy and that, therefore, artificial selection has formed a new species.
Author: | Robert Swinhoe |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 2 Dec 1862 |
Classmark: | DAR 177: 327 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3842 |
From Patrick Matthew 3 December 1862
Summary
Apologises for not writing last summer. Scientific progress is all but complete. Our civilisation will fall now that it has reached the peak of its development.
Author: | Patrick Matthew |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 3 Dec 1862 |
Classmark: | DAR 171: 91 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3843 |
From James Dwight Dana 4 December 1862
Summary
Illness has prevented his reading Origin. He has, however, expressed his [negative] opinion on the subject of mutability of species in his Manual of geology [1862]. Since his persuasions are so strong, he can do no less.
Author: | James Dwight Dana |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 4 Dec 1862 |
Classmark: | Yale University Library: Manuscripts and Archives (Dana Family Papers (MS 164) Series 1, Box 2, folder 44) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3845 |
From J. D. Hooker [14 December 1862]
Summary
On Asa Gray’s letter; has written why he avoids alluding to the war.
Has read Max Müller [see 3752] – last part unphilosophical.
On CD’s pigeon example, long-beaked and short-beaked pigeons must be either sterile or not inter se. There is "no such thing as Equality – hence no such thing as chance and Nat. Sel. is the sword of Damocles hanging over your head if you make a slip in your premisses."
Has read note on Lythrum sent several weeks ago. Its consequences are of most prolific order to CD’s doctrine.
Kew has no wild gooseberries.
JDH praises the Saturday Review reply [14 (1862): 589] to the Duke of Argyll’s bitter review of Orchids ["The supernatural", Edinburgh Rev. 116 (1862): 378–97].
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [14 Dec 1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 101: 83–4 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3846 |
From John Scott 6 December [1862]
Summary
JS not ready to publish on Primula.
Some of his objections to natural selection are based on belief that plants with separate sexes are less variable than those in which sexes are confluent (as in ferns).
Sends his paper on fern varieties [Edinburgh New Philos. J. 2d ser. 16 (1862): 209–27].
Will soon read paper on Drosera irritability [Edinburgh New Philos. J. 2d ser. 17 (1863): 317–18].
How does CD explain capricious distribution of irritability among plants?
P. scotica’s non-dimorphism is native.
Beginning Laelia experiments shortly.
Author: | John Scott |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 6 Dec [1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 108: 182a–d |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3847 |
From Asa Gray 9 December 1862
Author: | Asa Gray |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 9 Dec 1862 |
Classmark: | DAR 165: 125 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3850 |
From Julius von Haast 9 December 1862
Summary
Will try to procure specimens of native rat and frog for CD. Will be glad to make observations for him.
Cites case of a species of duck that normally nests on ground but builds in trees if disturbed.
Author: | John Francis Julius (Julius) von Haast |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 9 Dec 1862 |
Classmark: | DAR 166: 1 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3851 |
From Edinburgh Royal Medical Society [before 12 December 1862]
Summary
A diploma enrolling CD as an honorary member of the Society.
Author: | Edinburgh Royal Medical Society |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [before 12 Dec 1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 229: 6 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3853F |
From J. D. Hooker [21 December 1862]
Summary
"Throttled off" Welwitschia paper at Linnean Society [Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 24 (1863): 1–48].
Has read Tocqueville’s Democracy in America [1835–40] – disagrees with it. Tocqueville says democracy in America is a success. Democracy has persisted because there has been no cause for its overthrow (i.e., no struggle for existence, too much mobility).
Sends J. W. Dawson’s unsatisfactory letter.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [21 Dec 1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 101: 80–2 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3856 |
From A. C. Ramsay 13 December 1862
Summary
Sends 3d ed. of catalogue of rocks [A descriptive catalogue of the rock specimens in the Museum of Practical Geology (1862)].
T. F. Jamieson’s paper on the parallel roads of Glen Roy to be read 20 January. Asks whether CD will be a referee.
Author: | Andrew Crombie Ramsay |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 13 Dec 1862 |
Classmark: | DAR 176: 10 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3857 |
From E. A. Darwin 14 December [1862?]
Author: | Erasmus Alvey Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 14 Dec [1862?] |
Classmark: | DAR 105 (ser. 2): 12 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3859 |
From John Lubbock 15 December 1862
Summary
Thinks Bates’s paper on mimetic butterflies ["Contributions to an insect fauna of the Amazon valley", Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 23 (1862): 495–566], is very good; would appreciate an article on it from CD ["On mimetic butterflies", Nat. Hist. Rev. (1863): 219–24; Collected papers 2: 87–92].
Author: | John Lubbock, 4th baronet and 1st Baron Avebury |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 15 Dec 1862 |
Classmark: | DAR 170: 34 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3862 |
From J. B. Innes 16 December [1862]
Summary
News of family and friends.
Saw a white rabbit with black-tipped ears on a moor where only brown ones commonly and black ones occasionally dwell.
Author: | John Brodie Innes |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 16 Dec [1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 167: 10 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3863 |
From John Scott 17 December [1862]
Summary
Thanks for Journal of researches and Origin.
Thanks CD for comments on his fern paper [see 3847 and 3853]; has great difficulty in expressing his ideas.
Discusses inheritance and variation.
Asks CD for an account of the experiments he would like JS to perform.
Author: | John Scott |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 17 Dec [1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 177: 80 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3865 |
From John Lubbock 18 December 1862
Summary
Thanks CD for agreeing to review Bates’s paper for Natural History Review.
Author: | John Lubbock, 4th baronet and 1st Baron Avebury |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 18 Dec 1862 |
Classmark: | DAR 170: 35 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3867 |
From Francis Boott 22 December [1862]
Summary
Has had news from Asa Gray about Civil War.
Belatedly thanks CD for Orchids, which shows CD to be the successor to Gilbert White.
Author: | Francis Boott |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 22 Dec [1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 160: 251 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3873 |
From Francis Boott 26 December 1862
Summary
On his particular spiritual faith; worships great naturalists and authors.
Does not wish to see American newspapers that Asa Gray offers to send, or hear about Civil War.
Author: | Francis Boott |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 26 Dec 1862 |
Classmark: | DAR 160: 253 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3876 |
From J. D. Hooker [before 29 December 1862]
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [before 29 Dec 1862] |
Classmark: | DAR 101: 85 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3879F |
letter | (23) |
Darwin, C. R. | (23) |
Hooker, J. D. | (5) |
Boott, Francis | (2) |
Gray, Asa | (2) |
Lubbock, John | (2) |