Showing 21–40 of 215 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.
Extracts from botanical literature dealing with Dionaea, intercrossing, and sensitivity. [Bot. Ztg. (1833): 96; Thomas Nuttall, Genera of N. American plants (1818)].
Habits of ducks when sleeping on water.
Gives an extract from L. von Buch on the flora of the Canaries [Physikalische Beschreibung der Canarische Inseln (1825)].
Natural selection does not explain why animals of different groups in the same place often resemble each other.
Agassiz denounces Origin as "atheistical";
AG is currently reviewing it [in Am. J. Sci. 2d ser. 29 (1860): 153–84].
Jeffries Wyman praises it, though not a convert.
Thanks CD for the Origin. WW is not yet a convert but there is so much "of thought and of fact" in what CD has written that "it is not to be contradicted without careful selection of the ground and manner of the dissent".
High praise and detailed comments on JDH’s introductory essay to Flora Tasmaniae, which CD has now finished reading.
Disagrees on power of transoceanic migration. Advocates glacial transport of plants.
CD’s response to reviews of Origin in Saturday Review [8 (1859): 775–6] and John Lindley’s in Gardeners’ Chronicle [but see 2651].
Notes by HCW on the Origin dealing especially with divergence and convergence. Believes there is some natural tendency to converge into groups in opposition to divergence generated by natural selection.
Opinions on the Origin: AG thinks it masterly; Agassiz considers it very poor.
WBC’s review [of Origin, Natl Rev. 10 (1860): 188–214] will do great good. It "turns the flanks of theological opposers" capitally.
Asks for information about cuckoo eggs and West Indian sheep.
Sends a copy of his Ventriculidae [of the Chalk (1848)]. This group, he feels, is well represented by CD’s plate of graduating species [Origin, ch. 4].
Answers to queries on expression with respect to Fuegians.
CD has learned from Lyell that JDH reviewed Origin in Gardeners’ Chronicle writing in Lindley’s style.
Lyell is working on man.
Thanks EC for help in finding French translator [for Origin].
American edition of Origin. AG’s assessment of the book’s weak and strong points. Suggests Jeffries Wyman would be a useful source of facts and hints for CD.
On the Origin. Before expressing his disagreements, CJFB praises CD’s labour, patience, fairness, and other qualities which make the work "one of the most important that has ever appeared in Natural History". [See 2690.]
CD preparing historical sketch, which will go into second American edition of Origin.
Asks JDH to copy out Naudin’s line on finality.
Very pleased with Asa Gray’s letter to JDH [see 2638], which is "rich on Agassiz".
It is not true that all the fossil cave bears are of the same species.
Discusses the direction of WED’s studies.
Tells of the response to the Origin and the impact that it has made in England and abroad.
Discusses NA’s pamphlet on human progress. Suggests making it a book [A survey of human progress (1861)].
Comments on study of dead languages.
Denies that animals are "governed only by selfish motives".