To T. H. Huxley 3 February [1857]
Summary
Thanks THH for his response on glacial movement. Hopes Tyndall will experiment on broken ice and explain how two pieces of ice can freeze together.
Sorry to hear of THH’s row with Richard Owen.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Thomas Henry Huxley |
Date: | 3 Feb [1857] |
Classmark: | Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine Archives (Huxley 5: 104) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2045 |
To John Tyndall 4 February [1857]
Summary
CD is "as ignorant of mechanics as a pig", but glaciers have interested him greatly. Hopes to hear that JT’s experiments with ice will explain the freezing together of ice below the freezing point.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | John Tyndall |
Date: | 4 Feb [1857] |
Classmark: | DAR 261.8: 2 (EH 88205940) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2046 |
From Henry Doubleday 5 February 1857
Summary
The variations of Peronea caused A. H. Haworth and J. F. Stephens to create 30 or 40 species based on colour and markings. HD was first to be convinced these would be reduced to two.
Discusses species that closely resemble one another;
cites species that differ in variation in different localities;
in some double-brooded species the broods differ markedly in size and colour.
Encloses his list of varieties of Peronea.
Author: | Henry Doubleday |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 5 Feb 1857 |
Classmark: | DAR 162: 236 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2047 |
To W. B. Tegetmeier 6 February [1857]
Summary
Would welcome eggs of any rumpless fowl so that he can investigate how early in development rudimentary organs are rudimentary.
Has not noticed much difference between skeletons of ducks.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | William Bernhard Tegetmeier |
Date: | 6 Feb [1857] |
Classmark: | Archives of the New York Botanical Garden (Charles Finney Cox Collection) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2048 |
To Bernard Peirce Brent 7 February [1857]
Summary
Sympathises with Brent’s legal difficulties. Declines offer of a cock silk fowl, but accepts offer of a German old fashioned pouter pigeon.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Bernard Peirce Brent |
Date: | 7 Feb [1857] |
Classmark: | Richard Brent (private collection) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2048F |
To W. D. Fox 8 February [1857]
Summary
Birth of his sixth son [C. W. Darwin]. It is dreadful "to think of all the sendings to school and the professions afterwards".
CD is not well but has not the courage for water-cure again; trying mineral acids.
Working hard on the book [Natural selection]; is overwhelmed with riches in facts and interested in way facts fall into groups.
To his surprise [Helix pomatia] has withstood 14 days in salt water.
Pigeons’ skins come in from all parts of the world.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | William Darwin Fox |
Date: | 8 Feb [1857] |
Classmark: | Christ’s College Library, Cambridge (MS 53 Fox 110) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2049 |
To Charles Lyell 11 February [1857]
Summary
Discusses a proposed expedition to Australia. Urges collecting and investigating productions of isolated islands. Recommends dredging the sea-bottom.
Mentions keeping Helix pomatia alive in sea-water.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | 11 Feb [1857] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.145) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2050 |
To W. B. Tegetmeier 11 February [1857]
Summary
CD is sending two pairs of Persian fowl, from Hon. C. Murray.
Thanks WBT for various offers: a drake, a young silk fowl, a rumpless chick.
The German pouters are not old-fashioned ones but fancy birds, probably crosses since they do not breed true.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | William Bernhard Tegetmeier |
Date: | 11 Feb [1857] |
Classmark: | Archives of the New York Botanical Garden (Charles Finney Cox Collection) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2051 |
From Asa Gray 16 February 1857
Summary
Discusses the ranges of alpine species in U. S. and considers the possible migration routes of such species from Europe.
Lists those U. S. genera which he considers protean and describes the U. S. character of some genera which are protean in Europe.
Describes how he distinguishes introduced and aboriginal stocks of the same species.
Author: | Asa Gray |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 16 Feb 1857 |
Classmark: | DAR 165: 96 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2053 |
To W. B. Tegetmeier 18 February [1857]
Summary
Has some fowls from Sir James Brooke, which WBT might like to display at Zoological Society.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | William Bernhard Tegetmeier |
Date: | 18 Feb [1857] |
Classmark: | Archives of the New York Botanical Garden (Charles Finney Cox Collection) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2054 |
To Syms Covington 22 February 1857
Summary
Sends news of his family, Sulivan, and FitzRoy.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Syms Covington |
Date: | 22 Feb 1857 |
Classmark: | Sydney Mail, 9 August 1884, p. 255 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2056 |
To W. D. Fox 22 February [1857]
Summary
Helix pomatia is quite healthy after 20 days’ submersion in salt water.
On peas, the evidence is on WDF’s side, but CD cannot see how they can avoid being crossed.
He is working hard, wishes he "could set less value on the bauble fame"; would work as hard, but with less gusto, if he knew his book would be published forever anonymously.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | William Darwin Fox |
Date: | 22 Feb [1857] |
Classmark: | Christ’s College Library, Cambridge (MS 53 Fox 101–2) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2057 |
From Victor de Robillard 26 February 1857
Summary
The species of Mollusca at Mauritius are almost all different from those of surrounding islands, which confirms the belief that the islands were elevated from the ocean rather than separated from the continent by volcanic action.
Author: | Jean Aimé Victor (Victor) de Robillard |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 26 Feb 1857 |
Classmark: | DAR 205.3: 287 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2059 |
To Asa Gray [after 15 March 1857]
Summary
Urges AG to generalise from his observations on the flora of the northern U. S.
Expected to find separation of sexes in trees because he believes all living beings require an occasional cross, and none is perpetually self-fertilising. The multitude of flowers of a tree would be an obstacle to cross-fertilisation unless the sexes tended to be separate.
The Leguminosae are CD’s greatest opposers; he cannot find that garden varieties ever cross. Could AG inquire of intelligent nurserymen on the subject?
Thanks AG for information on protean genera; much wants to know whether their great variability is due to their conditions of existence or is innate in them at all times and places.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Asa Gray |
Date: | [after 15 Mar 1857] |
Classmark: | Archives of the Gray Herbarium, Harvard University (8) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2060 |
To Gardeners’ Chronicle [after 28 February 1857]
Summary
Reports that he fertilised a single pale red carnation with the pollen of a crimson Spanish pink, and a Spanish pink with the pollen of the same carnation. He got seed from both crosses and raised many seedlings. There was no difference between the seedlings from reciprocal crosses, not one plant set a single seed.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Gardeners’ Chronicle |
Date: | [after 28 Feb 1857] |
Classmark: | Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, 7 March 1857, p. 155 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2061 |
To Robert Patterson 10 March [1857]
Summary
Asks RP’s help in procuring a specimen of a real Irish rabbit, L. veomicule [Lepus vermicula]?.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Robert Patterson |
Date: | 10 Mar [1857] |
Classmark: | W. E. Praeger 1935, p. 714 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2062 |
From H. C. Watson 10 March 1857
Summary
HCW is trying to define what CD means by "variable" genera.
Author: | Hewett Cottrell Watson |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 10 Mar 1857 |
Classmark: | DAR 181: 35 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2063 |
From Richard Hill 12 March 1857
Summary
Comments on transport of ducks to Jamaica by hurricanes,
fish feeding on seeds,
and sterility of birds in captivity.
Author: | Richard Hill |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 12 Mar 1857 |
Classmark: | DAR 205.2: 238 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2064 |
To J. D. Hooker 15 March [1857]
Summary
Separation of sexes in trees [U. S.].
Do plants offer positive evidence for "continuous land" theory?
Protean genera.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 15 Mar [1857] |
Classmark: | DAR 114: 193 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2066 |
To J. D. Hooker [21 March 1857]
Summary
Ranges of species in large vs small genera: Asa Gray’s compilation fits CD’s expectation.
CD studies seedling mortality in his weed garden.
JDH’s work on Indian flora.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | [21 Mar 1857] |
Classmark: | DAR 114: 192a |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2067 |
letter | (179) |
Darwin, C. R. | (47) |
Hooker, J. D. | (31) |
Tegetmeier, W. B. | (12) |
Huxley, T. H. | (10) |
Darwin, W. E. | (8) |
Darwin, C. R. | (179) |
Hooker, J. D. | (36) |
Gray, Asa | (12) |
Huxley, T. H. | (12) |
Tegetmeier, W. B. | (12) |