Text Online
From:
Ferdinand von Mueller
To:
Asa Gray
Date:
17 June 1859
Source of text:
Gray Herbarium Archives, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Summary:
No summary available.
Contributor:
Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller Project
No summary available.
No summary available.
Sends copy of Origin for comments.
Does not feel AG’s views of migration after the last glaciation explain distribution in U. S. as well as CD’s view of migration prior to glaciation.
No summary available.
Would welcome American edition of Origin.
Thanks for AG’s Japan memoir [Mem. Am. Acad. Arts & Sci. 6 (1857–9): 377–452]. Does not think AG’s arguments for a warm post-glacial period are sufficient, but will not be sorry to be proved wrong.
Believes natural selection explains many classes of facts which repeated creation does not.
Writes of some responses to the Origin.
Comments on AG’s memoir on Japanese plants [see 2599]; relationship of Japanese flora to N. American.
If an American edition of Origin is considered worth while, CD would like AG’s reviews prefixed to it.
Will use all his strength to produce first part of his three-volume big work [Variation].
CD is glad there is to be an American edition of Origin printed from the corrected 2d English edition.
Sends historical preface and corrections for American edition of Origin;
would have liked AG’s review [Am. J. Sci. 2d ser. 29 (1860): 153–84] at the head.
Agrees with AG’s assessment of weak points.
Thinks AG’s review is admirable.
Reactions of others to the Origin.
Last sheets of AG’s review of Origin have arrived. CD’s comments and criticisms.
Has been ill with pleurisy.
Sends more corrections and additions for American edition of Origin.
Further additions and corrections for American Origin.
Views of Owen, G. H. K. Thwaites, and W. H. Harvey on CD’s theories.
Thinks AG’s review [of Origin] will aid much in making people think about subject.
Has been savagely and unfairly reviewed by Adam Sedgwick in the Spectator [24 Mar 1860],
but thinks F. J. Pictet’s review in opposition ["Sur l’origine de l’espèce", Arch. Sci. Phys. & Nat. n.s. 7 (1860): 231–55] a very fair one.
Origin reviews. Is annoyed at Richard Owen’s malignity [Edinburgh Rev. 111 (1860): 487–532].
Bitter and incessant attacks on the Origin.
Any truth in it has been saved only by a small body of men like Lyell, AG, Hooker, and Huxley.
Opinions and reviews of Origin.
CD’s view on design in nature; although he does not believe in the necessity of design, he finds it hard to conclude that everything is the result of "brute force".
Comments on Owen’s review of Origin [Edinburgh Rev. 111 (1860): 487–532].
Discusses recent reviews of Origin and has made a note on Owen’s [see 2737].
Has become interested in the floral structures of orchids.
Notes his recent observations on Primula; believes he has found male and female forms.
JDH informs Asa Gray that he thinks Picrasma japonica is the same as P. ailanthoides. He is not convinced that Gray's Amaroria is a valid genus, it is close to Soulamea. JDH has seen Monroe. Asks Gray not to send things via bookseller as it is expensive, Trupena's charges are especially high. Mentions Gray's description of Holacantha, & correct use of the term hypogynous. Work on the Arctic flora has led JDH to consider the correct classification of North temperate flora, for example Alsineae; many of which could be referred to Stellarias, Holostea or Gramineae. Speculates that Greenland flora is unique & limited due to glacial factors. JDH can find no specimen of Dupontia cooleyi [at the RBG Kew herbarium]. He asks how Narthecium americanum differs from N. ossifragum. JDH has a newborn son [Brian Harvey Hodgson Hooker]. [George] Bentham is continuing the Hong Kong colonial flora, FLORA HONKONGENSIS, with support from the Treasury. JDH gives his opinion on [Richard] Owen's review of [Charles] Darwin's theory of evolution [ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES BY MEANS OF NATURAL SELECTION]. Mentions reviews of his own essay [on plant distribution in the FLORA ANTARCTICA, supporting Darwin's theory]. Gray owes JDH for Horsfield's plants. JDH bought Booth's Bhutan plants at the [Thomas] Nuttall [estate] sale. [Letter incomplete, it bears no valediction or signature but is written in the hand of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker].