Showing 41–52 of 52 items
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.
Insists that he, not Le Couteur, was the first to recognise and exploit variation within wheat varieties. Disturbed he was not acknowledged in Variation.
Discusses the price to be charged to Appleton’s for the plates of Insectivorous plants.
Believes Lyon Playfair has been led to compromise too far on bill about animal experimentation as a result of pressure from men wishing to suppress science. A full enquiry is to take place. [See 9987.] Suggests that CD send Playfair Huxley’s letter on the subject.
Replies to CD’s various questions and suggestions concerning publication plans for Insectivorous plants.
Thanks AD for his Ursprung [der Wirbelthiere (1875)], which astonished CD. AD’s views, if accepted by competent authorities, will show how much we have to learn about the history of every animal. Suggests caution on "degradation principle". Comments on other views in the work. Has long seen importance of the principle of "Functionswechsel" [transfer [change!?] of function], but never enunciated it as a distinct principle.
The insect-capturing Araujia has been forwarded from Portugal.
He discovers Apocynum is not in the same family, and he has misquoted [John Leonard Knapp’s Journal of a naturalist (1829)]; Apocynum captures by stamens, not stigma.
Sends seeds of Portuguese Drosera.
Reports some details of the geological tour he took with Sedgwick in North Wales in 1831. Recalls how neither he nor Sedgwick saw the obvious signs of past glaciation.
Writes about the Vivisection Bill; there is great fear that it may prevent demonstration dissections on insensible animals.
A set of electros of the woodcuts to Variation was sent to an Italian publisher in 1869, but no reply or payment has been made since then.
The Vivisection Bill was defeated because it was repudiated by one of its own fathers: J. S. Burdon Sanderson.
Writes again on the Vivisection Bill, expresses his desire not to ruin the progress of physiology whilst avoiding useless vivisection.
Has heard from Italian minister that the inhabitants of the Japanese island of Saghalien [Sakhalin], lately ceded to Russia, have their bodies covered with hair, like the gorilla, and are supposedly the remnant of the aboriginal population of the Japanese islands.