Showing 61–80 of 132 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.
Bentham has sent a damaged spurless Orchis pyramidalis; asks CL to send another. Fears they are irregular monsters. [See Orchids, pp. 47–8.]
Thanks CL for orchids acquired from a collector.
Discusses role of Providence in variation. Does CL honestly think it applies to variations in domestication? If not ordained there, sees no reason for it in nature either.
Suggests change in a passage [in MS] of CL’s [Antiquity of man (1863)] dealing with adaptations for travel.
Comments on review of Origin by F. W. Hutton [Geologist (1861): 132–6, 183–8].
Emphasises importance of variability for natural selection.
Discusses possiblity of intelligent causes in variation.
Sends an enclosure [a letter from T. F. Jamieson, see 3247].
"I am smashed to atoms about Glen Roy. My paper was one long gigantic blunder."
Absence of organic remains in many deposits.
Discusses presence of marine animals near icebergs.
Comments on former geological state of England.
Discusses CL’s correspondence with T. F. Jamieson. Comments on Jamieson’s theory that the roads of Glen Roy were formed by a glacial lake. Discusses elevation of Scotland during the glacial period.
Additional discussion of Jamieson’s theory that the roads of Glen Roy were formed by a glacial lake. Suggests the possible marine origin of the Glen Spean terraces. Comments on the power of lakes to produce pebbles. Discusses elevation of Wales and Scotland during the glacial period.
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.
The flint tools found at Bedford.
Further discussion of Jamieson’s theory of the formation of the roads of Glen Roy by a glacial lake. Comments on formation of Glen Spean terraces. Mentions glaciers in North Wales.
Agreement with John Murray to publish [Orchids].
Continued discussion of Jamieson’s Glen Roy theory. Mentions river erosion of glaciers. Quotes from old letter to CL [1116].
Is working hard on orchids; fears subject is too complex for the public.
Ice could not have formed the blockages in Lochaber unless in every case the water escaped over some col into a contiguous valley on the same watershed, or into the eastern watershed. Supposes that the cols were not land-straits, but the places where the lakes were drained when forced to flow the wrong way.
Comments especially on the "intermediate shelf" problem of Glen Roy; views of Jamieson and Milne. CD "cannot help a sneaking hope that the sea might have formed the horizontal shelves".
Suggests that the height of the water which formed the shelves in Glen Roy was determined not by the height of the blocking glacier but by the height of a col. Notes problems in the idea.
Explains how melting of ice in Glen Spean could have successively freed two lower cols, thus establishing the water-levels that determined the two lower shelves in Glen Roy.
Plans to read a paper to the Linnean Society ["Sexual forms of Catasetum", Collected papers 2: 63–70].
Jamieson has revisited Glen Roy and confirmed his theory of glacier lakes.
A. G. More considers CD the most profound of reasoners.
Relates personal news about family members.
CD is "glad Glen Roy is settled".
Mentions evolutionary remarks on birds by Owen.
Compares variability among lower and higher organisms. Comments on Hooker’s view of the subject.
Forthcoming publication of Huxley’s book [Evidence as to man’s place in nature (1863)] and Lyell’s [Antiquity of man (1863)].
Mentions a discussion of man by Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire in his Histoire naturelle générale [1854–62].
Mentions a book by Friedrich Rolle [Ch. Darwin’s Lehre von der Entstehung der Arten (1863)].
Cites evolutionary statements on elephants by Hugh Falconer and notes Falconer’s objection to natural selection.
Further comments on Jamieson’s theory of the formation of the roads of Glen Roy; paper by Jamieson dealing with glaciation in Scotland ["On the ice-worn rocks of Scotland", Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 18 (1862): 164–84].
Comments on paper by A. C. Ramsay on the glacial formation of lakes ["On the glacial origin of certain lakes", Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 18 (1862): 185–204].
Criticises remarks by John Tyndall on glacial formation of Swiss valleys.
TFJ returns CD’s "too flattering" letter concerning Glen Roy [see 3761]. Further discussion of [A. C.] Ramsay’s, [J. D.] Hooker’s, and CL’s arguments about the formation of glacial lakes.
Thanks CL for "the great book" [Antiquity of man (1863)].
Richard Owen "ought to be ostracised by every Naturalist in England".
CL’s book will "give the whole subject of change of species an enormous advance".