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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.
Encloses a sketch of the principal events in his life [for RH’s memoir on CD in Walford, ed., Portraits of men of eminence (1863–7)].
Regrets that JvH is not on list of candidates for Royal Society. This year the Council of Royal Society is extraordinarily deficient in natural historians and geologists. Thinks JvH is sure to be elected another year.
Writes a line of thanks; includes instructions on procedure for crossing experiments.
Thanks CD for invitation. Solicitous of CD’s health. Will let Hooker decide whether CD’s health will allow his visit.
[Alexander] Braun in poor health.
Thinks a new U. S. edition of Origin is needed.
Gives observations on the climbing habits of Bignonia capreolata.
Age at which babies first shed tears.
Describes the floral structure of broom, particularly the form of the varying anthers. Encloses drawings of anthers and pollen.
Asks for the name of a hummingbird.
Mogg [John Traherne Moggridge] wants to visit CD.
Self-fertilising orchids.
Encloses letter from H. B. Geinitz, who declines to handle translation of new edition of Origin. Recommends Julius Victor Carus. Also suggests Gustav von Leonhard as translator for Origin.
Discusses translation of Variation.
Gives CD genus and species names of the singular humming-bird; distressed by specific name made necessary by revised laws of nomenclature.
Sends a box of orchids.
The apparent difference in arm lengths of compositors is due to a drooping shoulder. File-makers stand in a peculiar position and call one of their legs the hind leg.
Sends flowers of buckthorn [Rhamnus catharticus] collected on Isle of Wight.
Sending his paper on tristyly in Oxalis.
Cannot attend botanical congress, where CD will be vice-president.
Caspary wants to visit Down. CD would like to see him but dreads the exertion.
Pleased that JDH will get D.C.L. at Oxford.
Refers to enclosure from Asa Gray
with whom he can talk calmly now that war is over. North had no right to resort to bloodshed.
Startled by CD’s attendance at Royal Society soirée.
Has asked E. B. Tylor to make up questions for consuls and missionaries, through whose wives a lot of most curious information [for Descent?] could be obtained.
Tying umbilical cord has always been a mystery to JDH.
John Crawfurd’s paper on cultivated plants is shocking twaddle ["On the migration of cultivated plants in reference to ethnology", J. Bot. Br. & Foreign 4 (1866): 317–32].
R. T. Lowe back from Madeira.
Gives CD some references to papers.
Reports improvement in his wife’s health.
Memorial to the Chancellor of the Exchequer from the fellows of the Royal, Linnean, Geological, and Zoological Societies of London, stating the importance of separating the administration of the national natural history collections of the British Museum from that of the library and art collections, and placing it in the hands of one officer, immediately responsible to one of the Queen’s ministers.
Acknowledges receipt of £262 8s. 8d.
Had not heard they had suffered so much from the cattle plague in Lincolnshire.