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Darwin, C. R. in correspondent 
Lyell, Charles in correspondent 
1850-1859 in date 
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Showing 18 of 8 items

From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
Date:
11 Oct [1859]
Source of text:
American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.172)
Summary:

CL’s comments on Origin. Mentions corrections to last chapter suggested by CL.

Comments on lack of peculiar bird species on Madeira and Bermuda. Emphasises importance of American types in Galapagos.

Denies necessity of continued creation of primitive "Monads".

Denies need for new powers and any principle of improvement.

Discusses gradations of intellectual powers.

Adaptive inferiority and extinction of groups of species and genera.

Asserts that climate is less important than the struggle with other organisms.

Suggests an experiment involving primroses and cowslips.

The chapter on hybridisation.

Rudimentary organs.

Gives opinion of Lamarck’s work.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
Date:
25 June [1856]
Source of text:
American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.132)
Summary:

Criticises at length the concept of submerged continents attaching islands to the mainland in the recent period. Notes drastic alteration of geography required, the dissimilar species on opposite shores of continents, and differences between volcanic islands and mountains of mainland areas. Admits sea-bed subsidence, but not enough to engulf continents. Denies that theory can explain island flora and fauna.

Considers Edward Forbes’s idea a check on study of dissemination of species.

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:
[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:
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 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:
4 Oct 1859
Source of text:
DAR 170: 81; The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Notebook 241, pp. 75–90)
Summary:

Response to Origin. Praise for summary of chapter 10 and chapter 11.

The dissimilarity of African and American species is ‘necessary result of “Creation” adapting new species to the pre-existing ones. Granting this unknown & if you please miraculous power acting’.

C. T. Gaudin writes of Oswald Heer’s finding many species common between Miocene floras of Iceland and Switzerland. Interesting for CD’s migration theory.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project