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From:
Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
23 Apr 1855
Source of text:
Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine Archives (Huxley 6: 7)
Summary:

CL would like to put Joachim Barrande on the Royal Society’s foreign list. Of French geologists and palaeontologists, he is the man who has made the greatest sacrifices and produced the greatest results.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
1–2 May 1856
Source of text:
DAR 205.3: 282
Summary:

Urges CD to publish his theory with small part of data.

Corrects names of land shells on list of shells picked up at Down.

Discusses transport of Ancylus from one river-bed to another by water-beetle.

"I hear that when you & Hooker & Huxley & Wollaston got together you made light of all Species & grew more & more unorthodox."

Mentions discussion of old Atlantis by Oswald Heer.

Comments on Helix and Nanina.

Mentions beetle discovered with small bag of eggs of water-spider under wing.

Madeira evidence favours single species birth-place theory.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
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From:
Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
17 June 1856
Source of text:
DAR 146: 475
Summary:

CD forgets an author [CD himself in Coral reefs] "who, by means of atolls, contrived to submerge archipelagoes (or continents?), the mountains of which must originally have differed from each other in height 8,000 (or 10,000?) feet".

CL begins to think that all continents and oceans are chiefly post-Eocene, but he admits that it is questionable how far one is at liberty to call up continents "to convey a Helix from the United States to Europe in Miocene or Pliocene periods".

Will CD explain why the land and marine shells of Porto Santo and Madeira differ while the plants so nearly agree?

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
[1 July 1856]
Source of text:
The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell collection Coll-203/A3/2: 132–6)
Summary:

To cast doubt on CD’s view that volcanic action is associated with elevation of land, CL suggests that local oscillations in strata underlying volcanoes could also explain how active volcanoes have uplifted fossil deposits of marine shells. Overall he is more inclined to believe that recent volcanoes belong to areas of subsidence rather than of elevation.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
[16 Jan 1857]
Source of text:
DAR 205.9: 394
Summary:

Enumerates fossil mammals known in Secondary strata.

Lack of angiosperm plants in rocks older than Chalk is no reason to anticipate rarity of warm-blooded quadrupeds.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
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From:
Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
To:
Thomas Henry Huxley
Date:
17 June 1859
Source of text:
Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine Archives (Huxley 6: 20)
Summary:

Extended discussion of their respective difficulties with the definition and status of species and with the extent to which the theory of transmutation may be applied.

Has rediscovered S. S. Haldeman’s 1844 paper defending the transmutation theory with great skill.

Asks for reference to Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire’s first enunciation of the progressive development and transmutation theory.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
3 Oct 1859
Source of text:
DAR 98: B1–6
Summary:

Praises the Origin: a "splendid case of close reasoning".

Objects to CD’s having ignored Lamarck and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire.

Thinks CD should omit mentioning problem of explaining the eye at the beginning of chapter 14. Suggests rewording several passages.

Thinks want of peculiar birds in Madeira a difficulty, considering presence of them in Galapagos.

Has always felt that the case of man and his races is one and the same with animals and plants.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
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From:
Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
22 Oct 1859
Source of text:
The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell collection Coll-203/A1/242: 15–24)
Summary:

Wishes CD would enlarge on the doctrines of [Pyotr Simon] Pallas about the various races of dogs having come from several distinct wild species or sub-species.

Suggests organisms have a latent principle of improvement which is brought out by selection or breeding.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
28 Oct 1859
Source of text:
The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell collection Coll-203/A3/4: 170–3)
Summary:

Since dogs have same gestation period as the wolf it is likely that the wolf is the ancestral wild species, if it is just one species.

CD’s belief that domestic dogs are descended from several distinct aboriginal species seems to contradict views on sterility of hybrids and variation in Origin. If domestic varieties came from hybrids of wild species it will be impossible to trace ancestry. Opponents will exploit these problems.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
21 Nov 1859
Source of text:
The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell collection Coll-203/A3/4: 195–7)
Summary:

Questions CD’s view in Origin that domestic dogs are not descended from a single stock. Occasional crossings of domestic stock with wild species could explain cases of reversion towards wild specific forms. CD’s views on hybridity do not then have to be contradicted in constructing an ancestral stock.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
[22 Nov 1859]
Source of text:
DAR 205.11: 139
Summary:

Comments on pp. 201, 211, and 218 [of Origin].

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
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From:
Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
[13–14 Feb 1860]
Source of text:
DAR 205.3: 283, DAR 205.9: 395
Summary:

Discusses phases of climate.

Describes fossil mammals discovered by Auguste Bravard in South America.

Has had argument with Bishop of Oxford [Samuel Wilberforce] about CD’s book [Origin].

Discusses review in Annals and Magazine of Natural History. Guesses that T. V. Wollaston is the author.

Discusses evidence of shells on Madeira.

Comments on paper by Wallace ["On the zoological geography of the Malay Archipelago", J. Proc. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Zool.) 4 (1860): 172–84].

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
2 May 1860
Source of text:
The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell collection Coll-203/A3/5: 176–9)
Summary:

It is small comfort to be told you will be succeeded in lineal descent by angels when Lamarck and Darwin have made your ancestors without souls. However, can the progressive system not be seen as most consonant with a higher destiny if all spiritual natures advance? The link of common descent to inferior beings like idiots should be obvious. Infants die before they become responsible. Pope’s An essay on Man [1733] shows how man was "In doubt to deem himself a God or Beast", without speculation on his genealogy.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
7 May 1860
Source of text:
DAR 205.9: 396
Summary:

Saw Salter’s Spirifer specimens; a very good proof of indefinite modifiability.

Beginning to think gap between Cambrian and Lower Silurian enormous.

Édouard Lartet to give paper before Geological Society ["On coexistence of man with certain extinct quadrupeds", Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 16 (1859–60): 471–5].

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
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From:
Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
15 June 1860
Source of text:
The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell collection Coll-203/A3/6: 108–9)
Summary:

Rejects CD’s comparison of natural selection with the architect of a building. The architect who plans and oversees construction should not be confused in his function with the wisest breeder. That would be to deify natural selection.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
19 June 1860
Source of text:
The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell collection Coll-203/A3/6: 117–23)
Summary:

Sees Huxley’s deification of matter and force as a reaction to the way Paley likened the "Unknown Cause" to the mind of man so that new causes could be introduced. If you wish to retain free will which is inconsistent with constant law, Paley’s position is better. Free will is a recently introduced cause on our planet. It cannot be fully attributed to secondary causes.

What CD says about the variation in gestation of the hound is remarkable.

The astonishing fertile rabbit–hare hybrids encourage belief in Pallas’s theory of the multiple origin of dogs.

Does the regularity of gestation in man indicate a common stock?

Hooker’s observation of absence of forms peculiar to extra-Arctic Greenland indicates that the time since the beginning of the glacial period is brief in geological terms.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
28 Aug 1860
Source of text:
The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell collection Coll-203/A3/6: 164–71)
Summary:

Objections to Origin which Owen and Wilberforce could have used. Why have incipient mammalian forms not arisen from lower vertebrates on islands separated since Miocene period? Knows CD would not derive Eocene Mammalia from higher reptiles, but would bats not be modified into other mammalian forms on an ancient island? This is not the case in New Zealand. Why have island seals not become terrestrial? Assumes rate of change is greatest in mammals. Difficulties are small compared with ability to explain absence of Mammalia in pre-Pliocene islands. Asks about descent of Amblyrhynchus. Believes objections apply equally well to independent creation of animal types, but not if the First Cause is allowed completely free agency.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
[before 20 Nov 1860]
Source of text:
DAR 170.2: 80
Summary:

Discusses the possibility of a land-bridge connecting Biscay with Ireland and the consequent occurrence in southern Ireland of Asturian plants which are absent from England.

Asks if Hooker or anyone has criticised Edward Forbes’ botanical migration of five floras in the British Isles ["On the connexion between the distribution of existing fauna and flora of the British Isles, and the geological changes which have affected their area", Mem. Geol. Surv. G. B. 1 (1846): 336–432].

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
8 Sept 1860
Source of text:
The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell collection Coll-203/A3/6: 179–86)
Summary:

Believes CD’s argument against special creation based on absence of terrestrial mammals on islands isolated before Pliocene era is very strong. However, the absence means Cetacea and bats have not modified towards terrestrial existence. There is similar lack of development of bats and rodents in Australia. Constancy among land shells of Madeira over long period shows that the majority of their species are immutable: a minority of "metamorphic" species maintains the overall number of true species while extinction removes many. Emphasis on the role of extinction discomfits CD’s opponents since the power of generation of new species ought to keep pace. Mentions Ammonite deposits with reference to CD’s comments on their apparent sudden extinction [Origin, pp. 321–2]. Perhaps absence of transmutation on slowly subsiding atolls indicates the slow rate of selective change.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
18 Sept 1860
Source of text:
The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell collection Coll-203/A3/6: 187–95d)
Summary:

It is strange that Agassiz, who is for the "sanctity of species", should favour Pallas’s view of hybrid origin of domestic dog.

CL has not meant to advocate successive creation of types but to question assumption that all mammals descended from single stock. Why should a Triassic reptile or bird not move towards mammalian form because an ancestral marsupial has appeared? Believes recent appearance of rodents and bats in Australia explains their lack of development.

Can CD supply a reference on plant extinction on St Helena?

Believes marsupials better adapted for surviving drought in Australia than higher mammals.

Will not press argument about lack of development of mammalian forms on islands, but CD should note objection.

Does CD’s belief in multiple origin of dogs affect faith in single primates in different regions?

Does time lapse between putative independently descended mammalian forms mean first form will "keep down" later incipient one? Thus Homo sapiens has prevented improvement of other anthropomorphs; bats and rodents on islands would prevent improvement of lower forms into mammalian.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
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