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The Charles Darwin Collection
The Darwin Correspondence Project is publishing letters written by and to the naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882). Complete transcripts of letters are being made available through the Project’s website (www.darwinproject.ac.uk) after publication in the ongoing print edition of The Correspondence of Charles Darwin (Cambridge University Press 1985–). Metadata and summaries of all known letters (c. 15,000) appear in Ɛpsilon, and the full texts of available letters can also be searched, with links to the full texts.
Further details of pavement that sank from action of earthworms. There were plenty of castings, which first led him to think worms were involved.
Responds to CD’s queries about the thickness of various geological formations. [See Origin, p. 284.]
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.]
ACR has for years had a belief in mutability and transmutation of species, prompted by disputes over the nature of species and varieties, and the existence of representative species in space and in the geological record. Could not accept a Creator employing small miracles to make species differ just a little between formations. Has maintained that one would not expect to find fine gradations between forms in the fossil record, but only representatives of very populous forms. [See 2711.]
No doubt about worm-holes in the Long Mynd, and they are certainly lower than J. Barrande’s primordial zone. Fossils in Laurentian gneiss.
In his paper for Geological Society ["Glacial origin of certain lakes", Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 18 (1862): 185–204] he will prove that all the lake-basins of the Alps were scooped out by glaciers.
Sends his paper [on glacial lakes, see 3450]. Falconer attacked it. Falconer thinks Himalayas confound the theory, but Hooker writes that it explains the absence of lakes there.
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.
Glad CD likes his Presidential Address to Geological Society [1863].
Will continue the practice [of discussing the break in succession of strata].
Has devised a diagram showing number of genera and species in each geological formation and the number that pass from formation to formation.
Describes the glaciated terrain of S. Wales.
Sends 2d ed. of his Physical geology [1864]; hopes that he will burn the 1st because of its errors.
ACR is convinced he is right about denudation of the Weald.
R. I. Murchison has criticised ACR’s glacial lake theory in his Presidential Address to Royal Geographical Society [J. R. Geogr. Soc. 34 (1864): cix–cxcii].
ACR has finished his Geology of N. Wales.
Lyell says CD is revising what he says about the Weald in the Origin. Asks CD to look at his subaerial denudation views in his book [Physical geology and geography of Great Britain, 2d ed. (1864)].
Sends two papers ["On the physical relations of the new red marl", Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 27 (1871): 189–98 and "On the red rocks of England", Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 27 (1871): 241–54] bearing on the continuance of generic and specific terrestrial types, in areas of Europe and elsewhere, that lasted from the Upper Silurian to the Lias.
Glad CD agrees with his views as much as he does. Not surprised that his red rocks [Red Sandstones] ideas are disputed. The red marls of Auvergne support his inland water theory.
Sends description and measurements of the 18th century courtyard pavement of his house, the stones of which have sunk as a result of earthworm action [see Earthworms, pp. 192–3].
Further details and measurements of the stones in the courtyard pavement for CD’s investigation of earthworm action.