From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Date:
[1 Mar – 15 May 1862]
Source of text:
DAR 101: 87
Summary:
[List of plants in CD’s hand, with notes by JDH identifying them.]
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
George Edwin Harris
Date:
5 Mar [1862]
Source of text:
Mrs Jane Brown (private collection)
Summary:
Has directed Murray to send Harris a copy of Origin.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Date:
7 Mar [1862]
Source of text:
DAR 115: 185
Summary:
CD wishes he could sympathise with Asa Gray’s politics.
Orchids to appear soon.
Pre-glacial Arctic distribution.
Work on floral dimorphism.
High opinion of Buckle as a writer.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Heinrich Georg Bronn
Date:
11 Mar [1862]
Source of text:
DAR 143: 153
Summary:
Pleased that new German edition of Origin is wanted. Wishes to make corrections.
Suggests German translation of Orchids.
Comments on HGB’s book [Untersuchungen (1858)].
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Unidentified
Date:
11 Mar [1862-9]
Source of text:
Karpeles Manuscript Library Museums
Summary:
Gives permission to insert in his magazine anything from CD’s works.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
Text Online
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Date:
14 March 1862
Source of text:
Cambridge University Library: DAR 115: 150
Summary:
Darwin mentions that ARW will soon return from the Malay Archipelago.
Contributor:
Alfred Russel Wallace Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Date:
14 Mar [1862]
Source of text:
DAR 115: 150
Summary:
Thinks JDH is a bit hard on Asa Gray.
Bates’s letter is that of a true thinker. Asks to see JDH’s to Bates. Point raised in it is most difficult. "There is one clear line of distinction; – when many parts of structure as in woodpecker show distinct adaptation to external bodies, it is preposterous to attribute them to effect of climate etc. – but when a single point, alone, as a hooked seed, it is conceivable that it may thus have arisen." His study of orchids shows nearly all parts of the flower co-adapted for fertilisation by insects and therefore the result of natural selection. Mormodes ignea "is a prodigy of adaptation".
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Asa Gray
Date:
15 Mar [1862]
Source of text:
Gray Herbarium of Harvard University (64)
Summary:
Gives some observations on changes in pistil position with age in Monochaetum. Asks whether AG can observe Rhexia for similar movements.
"One of the best men, though at present unknown", H. W. Bates, has taken up natural selection.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Date:
18 Mar [1862]
Source of text:
DAR 115: 145
Summary:
On effect of external conditions: CD thinks all variability due to changes in conditions of life because there is more variability under unnatural domestic conditions than under nature, and changed conditions affect the reproductive organs. But why one seedling out of thousands presents some new character transcends the wildest powers of conjecture.
Not shaken by "saltus" – he had examined all cases of normal structure resembling monstrosities which appear per saltum. Has fought his tendency to attribute too much to natural selection; perhaps he has too much conquered it.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Richard Kippist
Date:
18 Mar [1862]
Source of text:
Linnean Society of London
Summary:
Sends paper to be read ["Sexual forms of Catasetum", Collected papers 2: 63–70].
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Richard Kippist; Linnean Society
Date:
18 Mar [1862]
Source of text:
Linnean Society of London
Summary:
Asks that referee of his [Catasetum] paper be informed that if it is ordered to be printed he will borrow woodcuts. But if referee thinks fit, he will withdraw it, for almost all will be published in Orchids. He is not willing to spare time to condense it.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
William Bernhard Tegetmeier
Date:
18 Mar [1862]
Source of text:
Archives of the New York Botanical Garden (Charles Finney Cox Collection)
Summary:
Orchids taking up all his time.
He longs to be at work again on poultry and rabbits.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Date:
22 [Mar 1862]
Source of text:
DAR 115: 146
Summary:
Asks JDH to correct names of two species of Calanthe.
Note from Asa Gray ends "Yours cordially", so CD hopes he is forgiven.
His Catasetum paper will be read 3 Apr [Collected papers 2: 63–70].
Plants and seeds sent will be of great use, especially Lythrum, which according to J. P. E. Vaucher seems grand case of trimorphism. Asks what sort of man Vaucher is.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Date:
26 [Mar 1862]
Source of text:
DAR 115: 147
Summary:
Both JDH’s and Bates’s letters are excellent. JDH has said all that can be said against direct effect of conditions, but CD still sticks to his own and Bates’s side. CD should have done what JDH suggests (since naturally he is pleased to attribute little to conditions) – viz., started on the fundamental principle that variation is innate and stated that afterwards, perhaps, this principle would be made explicable. Variation will show that "use and disuse" have some effect. Does not believe in perfect reversion. Demurs at JDH’s "centrifugal variation"; the doctrine of the good of diversification amply accounts for variation being centrifugal.
The wonderful mechanism of Mormodes ignea.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Thomas Francis Jamieson
Date:
27 Mar [1862]
Source of text:
McConnochie 1901 , p. 236
Summary:
Will forward TFJ’s letter to Charles Lyell.
Gives up the marine theory [of the parallel roads of Glen Roy] for ‘ever & ever’, but ‘with a groan’.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Unidentified
Date:
29 Mar [1862-9]
Source of text:
Wellcome Collection (MS.7781/1–32 item 8)
Summary:
Declines, regretfully, to contribute to or to have his name appear on a new magazine.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
George Bentham
Date:
30 Mar [1862]
Source of text:
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (Bentham Correspondence, Vol. 3, Daintree–Dyer, 1830–1884, GEB/1/3: f. 699)
Summary:
Will try to come to Linnean Society to read his paper, but has been "extra headachy". Fears his paper ["Sexual forms of Catasetum", Collected papers 2: 63–70] will not be worth Lindley’s attendance.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project