"I have received a very large box full of beautiful tea from Russia yesterday … my life is as regular & monotonous as a clock.
I make sure, but wofully slow progress, with my new book."
Showing 1–20 of 44 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.
"I have received a very large box full of beautiful tea from Russia yesterday … my life is as regular & monotonous as a clock.
I make sure, but wofully slow progress, with my new book."
Moritz Wagner is going to attack selection theory in his new book on his travels in America [Naturwissenschaftliche Reisen im tropischen Amerika (1870)].
K. G. Semper may attack CD’s theory of coral islands.
Describes his brother Alexander’s discovery of male of Bonellia, a striking example of dimorphism. Encloses a plate with notes on his brother’s work.
The difficulty his wife, Sofya Kovalevsky, has had as a woman in being admitted to Berlin University. Kirchow [Gustav Robert Kirchhoff], at Heidelberg, has taken an interest in her.
Plans to visit Down in a week.
Wishes to visit Down.
Will order the first set of casts from Murray.
Thanks CD for a book for his wife from the Royal Society Library.
His brother [Alexander] is delighted at being referred to in CD’s work [Descent 1: 205].
Requests a copy of [Living] Cirripedia to send to his brother, Alexander, who is working in Naples and wishes to verify CD’s discovery of complementary males.
Thanks for Cirripedia. Sorry CD has had to buy the books.
Forwards Alexander Kovalevsky’s letter [7326] with the information on the vertebrate character of ascidian larvae.
Leaving England.
Asks CD to send four sheets [of Descent proofs].
Sofya Kovalevsky not admitted to University in Berlin.
Translating the four sheets CD sent. When will book [Descent] be printed?
Alexander [Kovalevsky] has gone to the Red Sea to study corals.
Will work on live Scalpellum at Naples in spring.
Bemoans England’s Prussian sympathies. Paris will fall without bombardment.
Progress on his Russian translation of Descent.
Alexander Kovalevsky is at Tor in Sinai, where C. G. Ehrenberg was in 1827.
Has CD seen Ernst Haeckel’s new book [Biologische Studien (1870–7)]?
Has received (from CD) the sheets of the second volume [of Descent].
He fears he has offended CD or someone in England and he begs to know his offence.
His brother is working at the Red Sea and wishes CD to know that he has evidence for the affinity of ascidians and vertebrates in their nervous systems.
Plans to go to Paris upon its imminent capitulation to help his sister-in-law.
Has received all the proof-sheets of first volume and of second volume to p. 168 [Descent].
Leaves for Paris tomorrow.
VOK and his wife walked 25 miles through the Prussian lines to Paris.
Natural history collections undamaged by bombardment, but Edmond Hébert and A. J. Gaudry fear Prussians will rob them.
Several sheets of Descent lost as they passed through the lines.
Russian translation of Descent in progress, but the Minister of Interior has banned CD’s work and the book will be seized.
His foolish brother-in-law, Mayor of Montmartre, attempted to defend their section against the government.
CD’s queries on man and camels have gone to Alexander [Kovalevsky] in Sinai.
Asks VOK to translate a passage from Franz Körte, Die Streich-, Zug- oder Wander-Heuschrecke [1828], p. 33.
Deplores the "fearful piece of tyranny" that is obstructing publication of Descent in Russia.
Paris is in the hands of "brigands and socialists", but one grows accustomed to sporadic bombardment,
and VOK is peacefully studying invertebrate palaeontology collections.
Reports on Paul Gervais’ successful cross between a Triton and an axolotl.
Interested in W. Hepworth Dixon’s Free Russia, but does not know "whether he is to be trusted".
VOK’s hard work in palaeontology will prepare him for future original investigations.
Will translate passages as CD requests [see 7735].
Bitter at Prussian militarism.