Fears that multiple origin of the domestic dog will be extended to mammals or man. Believes, with Hooker, that whatever occurs in domestication is possible in nature.
Showing 21–40 of 54 items
Fears that multiple origin of the domestic dog will be extended to mammals or man. Believes, with Hooker, that whatever occurs in domestication is possible in nature.
Expects lack of diversification of immigrant mammals on long isolated islands will come to show slowness of selective change.
Asks whether CD has speculated on turtles becoming terrestrial on remote islands.
Perhaps non-diversification on islands is explained by tiny proportion of variable species. Those that vary on continent may not do so on island.
A. Gray is afraid of objections to Origin from imperfection of fossil record.
His argument with Falconer over the hypothesis of limited modifiability.
Are the bird-like characters of the Apteryx parts not yet suppressed or nascent organs?
Extinctions of ammonites, belemnites, and hippurites are striking. Perhaps ammonites made way for higher cuttle-fish.
Believes hybrid origin of domestic dog would weaken objections to treating white man and negro as species. Are there not many reputed species among the Mammalia more closely related than these races?
Objects not to the term "selection" but to what CD assigns to it. It should not be confused with the "Creative power" behind variation and the "capacity of ascending in the scale of being".
Wonders why the coracoid bone in the flightless Apteryx is so large when the clavicles are reduced. The clavicles are even separate in the ostrich. The large coracoid in reptiles is explained by the connection to the forelimbs.
CL has calculated that elevation and subsidence of certain formations in Sweden and Norway take place at the rate of 2 1/2 feet per century. He now proposes to estimate the age of a bed by including a conjecture that pauses occur in the oscillations in the ratio of 4 periods of stasis to one of movement. Applying this formula to Scotland, the last subsidence and re-elevation would be 590,000 years and the age of the beds with human implements would be 20,000 years.
Satisfied that CD finds his conjectured rate of elevation and long periods of stasis reasonable, even if these periods cannot be estimated. Explaining upheaval by subterranean lava flow makes these pauses plausible. Suspects that mountainous areas move more than lowland and coastal areas. General upheavals or subsidence in Europe in glacial period are unlikely. Believes with Jamieson that there was glacial action in Scotland before its submergence and that it was equally mountainous then. Subterranean upheaval visits different countries by turn. Horizontal Silurian strata must have been submerged and upheaved. Rest has always been the general surface character. Believes, however, that the quantity of late Tertiary movement is against CD’s belief in the constancy of continents and oceans: perhaps since the Miocene period, but not since the Cretaceous.
Sends his article ["Quelques nouvelles espèces de poissons fossiles", Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen, Haarlem 2d ser. 14 (1861)]
and Dutch translation of the Origin.
Observations from a fortnight in Lochaber. Found the entrance to Loch Treig to present the clearest evidence of intense glacial action. States, in contradiction of David Milne-Home, that there is glacial scoring in Glen Spean, as Louis Agassiz described, and moraine around the mouth of Loch Treig. There is little sign of water erosion on the rocks crossed by the lines in Glen Roy. Believes the smoothed rocks at the eastern end of Loch Laggan are due to flow from the lake and not tidal action. The lines in Glen Roy are too neat for a lake shore subject to tides. Given the glacial scoring sweeping round from Glen Spean into Glen Treig, and all the boulders, TFJ is astonished that anyone could deny that there had been glaciers there. [See 3247.]
Asks for copy of CD’s paper ["Ancient glaciers of Caernarvonshire", Collected papers 1: 163–71]. Gathers that drift of Moel Tryfan is glacial.
Believes Glen Roy roads formed later than submergence of Scotland.
Asks CD’s opinion concerning relative chronology of various glacial deposits, particularly a flint tool find in the Ouse River near Bedford.
Discusses his observations at Glen Roy. Mentions glaciers seen by Hooker in the Himalayas. Discusses problems of glacier–lake theory.
"I could think of nothing for days after your lesson on coral reefs, but of the top of submerged continents. It is all true, but do not flatter youself that you will be believed, till you are growing bald, like me, with hard work & vexation at the incredulity in the world."
Writes with an important fact about the parallel roads of Glen Roy. The watershed at Makoul corresponds with the lowermost of the Glen Roy lines. Over a stretch of 20 miles from east to west the lowermost of the Glen Roy lines is near parallel with the present sea level.
Galapagos land birds and reptiles.
No two naturalists agree on any fundamental idea [of species]. "Everything is arbitrary."
Has been with Richard Owen going over the S. American fossils.
Has worked out the non-relation between animals’ bulk and luxuriance of vegetation.
The horse once common on the Pampas. The mystery of the extinction of these animals.
Jamieson has revisited Glen Roy and confirmed his theory of glacier lakes.
A. G. More considers CD the most profound of reasoners.
Has been to Osborne on the Isle of Wight to visit Queen Victoria, who had lots of questions about CD.
Thinks of adding chapter on man to Variation. Asks about muscles connected to os coccyx in man and existence of other rudimentary organs in man.
Sends copy of Origin.
Requests information about rudimentary muscles and organs in man. Asks about marrow of os coccyx, and about testes and ovaria in early embryos of both sexes.
Thanks for information about rudimentary organs. Asks about rudimentary character of human hair and panniculus carnosus.
Curious to read what CD will say on man and his races.
Has CD seen Ludwig Rütimeyer’s Ueber die Herkunft unserer Thierwelt (Rütimeyer 1867c)?
Discusses J. F. W. Herschel’s theory of active volcanoes existing at the junction of continents and the sea.
Has just arrived in London, and would like to visit the following morning at breakfast time.
Comments on Huxley’s address ["Geological reform", Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 25 (1869): xxxviii–liii].
Physicists have ignored variation in sea-level in calculating effects.
Doubts if sun only source of heat.
Notes average depth of sea is 15 times height of land.
Criticises CD’s concept of permanent continents.
Sedimentary strata of Alleghenies must have derived from continent located where Atlantic is. Thinks enormous amount of denudation, submergence, and elevation may have accompanied relatively insignificant organic changes.