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.
Showing 61–80 of 200 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.
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.
Recalls being introduced to CD when [undergraduate] at Cambridge.
Sends CD some of his pamphlets
and expresses support of Origin.
Has discovered there are "3 sexes" in the solitary Cynips as well as social insects.
[Outline sketches of pollen from long- and short-styled yellow cowslips and from red cowslip, magnified 350x.]
Sir Henry Holland wants to see [Erasmus Darwin] Zoonomia.
Snow [F. J. Wedgwood] has gone, hoping to meet Fanny who is in a state of anxiety.
Would like to come to Down to visit.
Encloses MS of his paper ["On individual sterility of Oncidium", J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 8 (1865): 162–7].
His next will be on Passiflora, Disemma, and Tacsonia [J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 8 (1865): 197–206].
When he receives proofs of his Primula paper he will add CD’s case about equal-styled cowslip.
Diagrams of short- and long-styled Pulmonaria under magnification.
Henry Holland sends thanks for Zoonomia.
Sir Henry would not expect podophyllin to be good for CD.
On the Borneo cave exploration.
ARW will send his contribution to theory of origin of man. The vast mental and cranial differences between man and apes, whereas structural differences in other parts of body are small. The problem of explaining diversity of human races along with the stability of man’s form during all historical epochs. Discussion with "Anthropologicals" [following reading of ARW’s paper, "The origin of human races", before the Anthropological Society, 1 Mar 1864].
Cannot give information about the box of Oxalis bulbs that his brother [Roland Trimen] has forwarded to CD.
Observations on style length of 150 flowers of Pulmonaria [angustifolia]. [See Forms of flowers, p. 105.]
Is burning to hear CD’s reaction to Wallace’s excellent paper on man ["Origin of human races and the antiquity of man", J. Anthropol. Soc. Lond. 2 (1864): clviii–clxxxvi].
Wallace’s disclaimer of credit for natural selection is high-minded.
Thanks for communicating Oncidium sterility paper [see 4485] to Linnean Society.
Surprised that CD’s seedlings of non-dimorphic cowslip breed true.
Surprised also that the red primrose he sent reverts to wild form. He had reasoned from red’s infertility with yellow that it was an established variety. Tries to correlate inheritance of colour and sterility between varieties.