Would have liked to come to lunch, but has been talking so much to Hooker that he has no strength left.
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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.
Would have liked to come to lunch, but has been talking so much to Hooker that he has no strength left.
Thanks for THH’s address [to Geological Society, Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 25 (1869): 28–53]. Admires it and enjoyed attack on William Thomson hugely, but would tremble if he were in THH’s boots. Distinction made by THH between evolutionists and uniformitarians is too great. CD’s sentences on age of world in Origin will do, but he might have been less timid had he read THH.
Discusses views of Wallace, H. N. Moseley, and Croll on the mechanics of glacier movement.
Comments on Wallace’s new book [The Malay Archipelago (1869)].
CD will supply the sheets of the new edition of the Origin [5th ed. (1869)] if JD goes ahead with his work [Kurze Darstellung der Lehre Darwin’s über die Entstehung der Arten der Organismen (1870)]. Has no objection to JD’s quoting him, but wonders whether the German publisher of Origin might not feel injured.
Asks about coat colour of elk,
the mane of American bison,
and about sexual preferences of female deer.
Comments on Wallace’s Malay Archipelago.
Thanks MW for two publications [see 6682].
Hopes ARW has not "murdered too completely your own and my child" [natural selection] in his Quarterly Review article ["Sir Charles Lyell on geological climates and the Origin", 126 (1869): 359–94] on Lyell’s Principles [10th ed.].
CD is attributing more significance to useless variability in new [5th] edition of Origin.
Congratulates WP on the success of his lectures.
Discusses the phrase "struggle for existence".
Sends a list of his papers.
Interested in Barkly’s letter about Mauritius. Doubts non-volcanic origin. Urges collection of all forms of terrestrial life to determine whether they are of a former continent or "waifs and strays". He leans to latter view, as snakes and reptiles are different.
Huxley’s address wonderfully "brilliant", but it is a mistake to separate evolutionists from uniformitarians.
Bentham has come out "splendidly" on descent of species.
Williams and Norgate inform CD that they dispatched the small parcel to Leipzig on 23 February. CD fears it may not be worth the trouble to CC.
RS’s facts are remarkable. A year or two ago CD would not have believed ants could produce an inherited effect, but he has "lately come to believe rather more in inherited mutilations". However, CD is not satisfied that the sacs are inherited and urges RS to produce any other evidence he might have.
Discusses wear and tear due to glaciation and significance of this evidence for dating the glacial period. Mentions views of James Croll and Archibald Geikie on the issue.
Drosophyllum plants recovering [from trip]. Describes experiments on them.
Wants information on plumage of chickens
and table of sex ratios in greyhounds.
Regrets he cannot come to London to be photographed [for GCW’s Eminent men of the day (1870)]. Invites GCW to Down.
Thanks for greyhound table; interested in transmission of colour in greyhounds and relationship to sex.
Not well owing to fall from horse.
[Drosophyllum] plants going on very well.
Enquires about spurs in the last year’s birds of Pavo Spicifer and cristatus.
Enquires about sexual differences in mandrills.
Asks the correct spelling of JNH’s surname and offers to send a copy of Journal of Researches.
ARW’s review of 10th ed. of Lyell’s Principles [see 6684] is admirable.
But he differs "grievously" with ARW on man. CD sees no necessity for an additional and proximate cause.