From:
Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
[22 Nov 1859]
Source of text:
DAR 205.11: 139
Summary:
Comments on pp. 201, 211, and 218 [of Origin].
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Richard Hill
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
26 Nov 1859
Source of text:
DAR 205.3: 275
Summary:
Sends some bees CD requested
and discusses the differences among several animal species on islands of the West Indies.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Hewett Cottrell Watson
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
30 Nov [1859]
Source of text:
DAR 181: 37
Summary:
Sends a correction for Origin reprint.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Henry Holland, 1st baronet
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
10 Dec [1859]
Source of text:
DAR 47: 148–9
Summary:
Comments on the Origin. Outlines difficulties he finds in CD’s theory. Believes CD must define natural selection more accurately and mentions instances in which that principle is an insufficient cause to account for the form of certain structures.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Joseph Dalton Hooker
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
[12 Dec 1859]
Source of text:
DAR 100: 137–8
Summary:
JDH half through Origin. High praise for facts and reasoning.
Lyell told JDH his criticisms: small matters JDH did not appreciate.
Reactions of G. Bentham, J. S. Henslow, and C. C. Babington.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Joseph Dalton Hooker
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
[20 Dec 1859]
Source of text:
DAR 104: 180–1
Summary:
Forwards letter from Asa Gray.
Bentham is very agitated by Origin. CD over-emphasises natural selection. His theory accounts for too much and would be improved by unburdening it of natural selection.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
William Jardine
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
20 Dec 1859
Source of text:
DAR 205.3: 278
Summary:
Cannot agree with all of CD’s views [in Origin].
Thinks too much is made of the Galapagos. The peculiarity of their ornithology will break down.
Offers to answer any questions on ornithology.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
William Charles Linnaeus Martin
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
[1859–61]
Source of text:
DAR 47: 211–13
Summary:
Examples of animals that dwell in dark places, some of which are blind, some not. Asks: where causes are the same, why is not the effect? Does not think disuse is the answer, but arrested development.
Comments also on the absence of a ligament in four mammals and asks how natural selection accounts for this.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Andrew Crombie Ramsay
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
[27–30 June 1859]
Source of text:
DAR 205.9: 400
Summary:
No doubt about worm-holes in the Long Mynd, and they are certainly lower than J. Barrande’s primordial zone. Fossils in Laurentian gneiss.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Erasmus Alvey Darwin
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
15 Aug [1859 or later]
Source of text:
DAR 105: B68
Summary:
Wonders whether CD would be interested in a book by Dr Bucknell [J. C. Bucknill?] on psychology.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
4 Oct 1859
Source of text:
DAR 170: 81; The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Notebook 241, pp. 75–90)
Summary:
Response to Origin. Praise for summary of chapter 10 and chapter 11.
The dissimilarity of African and American species is ‘necessary result of “Creation” adapting new species to the pre-existing ones. Granting this unknown & if you please miraculous power acting’.
C. T. Gaudin writes of Oswald Heer’s finding many species common between Miocene floras of Iceland and Switzerland. Interesting for CD’s migration theory.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project