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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.
JT’s tube [of boiled infusion] dated 16 Oct was clear on 19th; on the 20th it was muddy and contained many bacteria in living movement.
Asks whether he may send two or three other tubes [of boiled infusions] to be placed in the open and observed for him.
Asks JT to send the tubes [of boiled infusions]. Frank Darwin will do his best. Asks for full instructions.
Tells CD of his engagement to Louisa, eldest daughter of Lord Claud Hamilton.
His investigations [into spontaneous generation] continue. He will deal with Bastian’s work [The modes of origin of lowest organisms (1871)].
The medical journals see that the end of the nonsense they have so long countenanced is nigh.
Sends congratulations and a teapot on the occasion of JT’s engagement.
Is pleased JT is not giving up on the spontaneous generation question. Feels strongly that subject will not be clear until it is understood how J. S. Burdon Sanderson and others succeeded in getting bacteria in infusions they had boiled for a long time.
JT will not quit the subject [of spontaneous generation] until light is let in on every cranny of the question.
The teapot is exquisite. Louisa says to say "the gift is worthy of the giver. Nothing higher can be said."
CD has quite given up the marine theory [of Glen Roy] and has accepted glacier lakes. "Nothing makes me gnash my teeth so much as that confounded paper of mine." It is a lesson "never in science to infer one explanation is right because no other one seems possible".
Has read JT’s address ["Science and man", The Times, 2 October 1877, p. 8]. What JT says about CD honours and pleases him. JT’s short character of Faraday is beautiful.
Has observed, perhaps erroneously, that certain plants were excited to movement by a prolonged high note on the bassoon. Would now like to try a siren and asks JT to bring one from the Royal Institution.
Will provide the siren.
Returns the siren; the plants "ill luck to them, are not sensitive to aerial vibrations". Is ashamed of his blunder.
Has been asked to contribute to W. K. Clifford memorial fund. Asks JT’s advice on how much the committee hopes to raise. Would like to give handsomely but feels bound "with such a lot of children, not to be extravagant".
Thanks JT for his information. Sends £50 to the W. K. Clifford memorial fund.
Sends W. K. Clifford subscription.
Has been unwell and hardly able to do anything. Has seen Andrew Clark.
Sends CD proofs of a lecture he will give at Liverpool. Asks CD to check the part referring to him.
Élie de Beaumont’s remark, in which he requires CD to recant before being admitted to the [French] Academy, is intolerable. "This spirit has much to do with the present condition of France."
CD finds JT’s discourse "grand and most interesting" [On the scientific use of the imagination (1870)]. Flattered by what JT says about him.
He is "a rash man to say a good word for Pangenesis for it has hardly a friend among naturalists".
CD is much struck with what JT says about "pondering" and delighted by his "as if" argument.
Has devised a respirator for firemen by moistening cotton wool with glycerine and adding charcoal. JT suggests the nose with its hairs and mucus is a respirator that would give protection against diseases caused by floating particles. The presence of hair and mucus is thus explained by CD’s theory.
Thinks JT’s discovery of a glycerine respirator is an interesting practical discovery. CD has been wondering about the hairs in our nostrils, but doubts that JT has explained their function, since there are hardly enough.
Will ask W. Ogle to observe hairs in nostrils of different races.
Ogle will keep JT’s suggestion in mind in observing less hairy races of man and the lower animals.
Asks JT whether he can help Ogle on a troublesome point on the colour of tissues with olfactory nerves, and the relation of colour to the absorption of odours. Does JT’s respirator deprive odorous substances of their smell?