References to and résumés of articles on climbing plants.
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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.
References to and résumés of articles on climbing plants.
JDH explains why he cannot take Scott on at Kew.
John Tyndall cannot answer CD’s questions on glaciers. Edward Frankland’s ignorance. In JDH’s opinion, heaviness of winter snowfall is the greatest element in size of glaciers and this is a function of low mean temperature. Discusses descent of glaciers.
Marvels that seeds from the lump of clay on the partridge’s foot have germinated. At Zoological Society [J. E.?] Gray ridiculed him. Now Frank Buckland would like to see the specimen.
JDH has written to J. H. Balfour for a character reference for John Scott.
Reports on a strange breed of sheep at Aden,
a Brazilian plant naturalised in Ceylon,
the Australian Casuarina equisetum spreading in Taiwan,
and an excrescence on wing of several thrushes of Taiwan similar to a growth on wing of a Syrian species.
Asks how he can identify pollen-tubes.
Has succeeded in impregnating orchids of widely different genera with each other’s pollinia. "Is not this something new?"
Offers to exchange Catasetum for other varieties.
J. H. Balfour gives Scott excellent character reference, but says he is unfit either to superintend or be subordinate.
Herbert Spencer’s review of J. M. Schleiden is interesting [see 4457].
Calculates the relationship between grains and milligrams; asks his mother for a fruit tart and twelve napkins.
CD need not worry about having discarded the partridge’s foot.
Men of Scott’s Celtic temperament are very troublesome. Tries to dissuade CD from hiring him as a scientific gardener.
George Rolleston, not Spencer, wrote review of Schleiden [Nat. Hist. Rev. (1864): 187–99].
Lyell thinks an expedition should be sent to the caves in Borneo, supported by the sale of surplus specimens; thinks "our progenitors" may well be there.
Observations on [length of style and length of filament and stigmas of] Pulmonaria.
Thanks for CD’s consoling letter. His mind cannot concentrate after losing his position, and he feels "an inward dread of life’s future". Would have been glad to work for CD. Understands why Hooker cannot recommend him.
No doubt that Owen wrote "Oken" and the archetype book, which appeared in its second edition in French.
Pressures of work and family.
CD is right about variability [of Pulmonaria]. Encloses observations and diagrams of additional plants.
Again refuses to help Scott as "unfitted" to make his way in the world. Scott is unwilling to take his part in the "struggle for life", unlike Tyndall, Faraday, Huxley, and Lindley, who established themselves. Scott’s work is not science, but "scientific horticulture".
JDH on John Scott.
Curious about the rationale of pollen prepotence.
Working on variation in New Zealand flora.
Forwards a letter from H. W. Bates to JDH announcing HWB’s appointment as Assistant Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society.
Will send grasses CD asked about.
Reports observations on brood of Australian chicks he is hatching.
On rereading the Origin, offers a criticism on two grounds: 1. Blending inheritance; 2. The tendency of species to elude competing species. Also competition within species eliminates the weak and thus preserves the species.