Thanks for GR’s "Address" [see 10141].
Wishes he had not quoted Bagehot’s remark [in Descent 1: 239] about decrease in savage populations. Interest in subject.
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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.
Thanks for GR’s "Address" [see 10141].
Wishes he had not quoted Bagehot’s remark [in Descent 1: 239] about decrease in savage populations. Interest in subject.
Will send vol. 1 [of Variation, 2d ed.] as soon as complete so that correspondent can decide about the translation.
Thanks for FdeC’s work [Lectures on state medicine (1875)].
Sends signed photo of himself.
Has published only one paper in Philosophical Transactions of Royal Society, "Parallel roads of Glen Roy" [Collected papers 1: 87–137]. His conclusions have proved erroneous.
Thanks MN for essay ["Die Congerien", Abh. Geol. Bundesanst. Wien 7 (1875)]. It is the best case CD has met, showing "direct influence of conditions of life on the organization". A. Hyatt has come to same conclusion: that closely similar forms may be derived from distinct lines of descent. CD did not emphasise in Origin the direct action of environment on modification of species; most of the best evidence has been observed since its publication.
Letter of recommendation for Richard Bowdler Sharpe, ornithologist.
Wants WED to thank F. de Chaumont for some valuable observations.
Sends contribution of £5 to Settle Cave Exploration Fund.
Asks to have observations made of a person retching violently, but ejecting nothing from stomach, in order to test relation between spasmodic contraction of orbicular muscles and tears. CD believes tears are caused by matter filling nostrils.
Introduces E. L. Youmans to correspondent. Youmans is seeking small monographs by the most competent English authors [for his International Scientific Series].
Asks WWB to send 8 grains of acetate of strychnine by post.
[An autograph.] "With Mr Darwin’s compliments."
Thanks WM for his letter. CD does not think WM’s principle of [up-tending and down-tending] lines explains the cases of expression of emotions referred to, and, even if it did, the problem would remain as to why the lines should express what WM believes they do.
Arranges a visit to CL.
Has heard from Ashwin Conway Newman of Guy’s Hospital of a case of a child without any prepuce whose father was a renegade, uncircumcised Jew, but whose ancestors had all been Jews. Newman thinks this a good case of inheritance with reversion. JP’s letter [missing] now shows how rash such a conclusion would be.
Thanks for J. D. MacDonald’s paper ["Distribution of invertebrata", Proc. R. Soc. Lond. 21 (1872–3): 218–23].
CD feels lines of genetic connection between animals offer a most difficult problem; Ernst Haeckel may have done mischief by facing the difficulty.
Thanks FdeC for his note and invites criticisms.
At the suggestion of Crichton-Browne CD writes on behalf of his son George, who is making a study of marriages between first cousins and of their offspring to determine the proportion of the latter who may be among the insane, deaf and dumb, idiotic, blind etc. Is GES willing to ask his patients [at the Royal Albert Asylum] for the information relevant to this study?
Agrees to sign FDeC’s certificate for admission to the Royal Society.
Returns FDeC’s certificate for the Royal Society signed.