Showing 21–33 of 33 items
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.
Condemns theory of Edward Forbes and others that many islands were formerly connected to South America by now submerged continents.
Sends a cultivated specimen of Myosotis (first generation) grown from seed sent by JSH. Asks for a tuft of flower.
Hopes JSH will publish a book on teaching botany, because he has no idea how to begin with his children.
Comments on Huxley–Falconer dispute [see "On the method of palaeontology", Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 18 (1856): 43–54].
Wollaston’s On the variation of species [1856].
Has exploded to Lyell against the extension of continents.
Plants common to Europe and NW. America as result of temperate climate.
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?
Seeks to verify whether bulldogs have degenerated in India [see Variation 1: 37–8].
CD has "sometimes gone so far as to doubt whether climate has any influence even on colour".
Conveys [? J. T. I. Boswell-]Syme’s opinion of variability of agrarian weeds and ranges of species common to U. S. and W. Europe. The Hispano-Hibernian connection.
CD sends reference for "Laburnum case", with comment on his own credulity.
Wants to quote JDH on plants endemic to NW. America.
Now has 89 pigeons. The laughing pigeons are safe at Down. Can WBT spare a pair of Mr Gulliver’s runts?
Thanks EWVH for his offer but he is not likely to go to London soon to visit John Leadbeater, the bird dealer; he could take a rock pigeon for comparison, but other skins he would have compare at the British Museum.
Would be obliged if EWVH could investigate domestic species in Egypt, especially a type of dog depicted in ancient monuments; and he is particularly interested in tumbler pigeons.
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.
Can no longer make out story of NW. American plants; consulting Asa Gray.
Questionable validity of seed-salting experiments.
Aristolochia and Viscum seem to shed pollen before flower opens.
Ray Society should only do translations.
Thomas Thomson in India has rediscovered Aldrovanda, a rare relative of Drosera.
Madeiran insects. Regards the "Atlantic province" as a centre of the Coleoptera.
On the relationship of the loss of the powers of flight [in Coleoptera] to increase of bulk.
