From:
Edward Frankland
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
15 Apr 1874
Source of text:
DAR 58.1: 49–50
Summary:
Sends some phosphates of lime free of animal matter [see Insectivorous plants, p. 109].
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Thomas Henry Huxley
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
16 Apr 1874
Source of text:
DAR 166: 333
Summary:
His note on the brain should be in small type.
Glad CD agrees with him on hand, foot, and skull question.
Has heard from Dohrn.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
George Howard Darwin
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
18 Apr 1874
Source of text:
DAR 210.2: 34
Summary:
Sends queries [on proofs of Descent, 2d ed.]. Will be finished, except for the index, in two days.
Is now less satisfied than formerly with his statistics on cousin marriage.
[Enclosure is a copy by GHD of J. S. Mill’s statement about Origin (Logic 2: 18 n.).]
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
George Howard Darwin
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
20 Apr 1874
Source of text:
DAR 210.2: 35
Summary:
Sends Descent material. Is staggered by CD’s power of marshalling facts and his conciseness and clearness of thought. The only fault he finds is some slight want of conciseness of diction.
He feels CD’s power more now "that I quail before the thought of arranging the few paltry facts I’ve got about those d––d cousins".
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Eliza Meteyard
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
20 Apr 1874
Source of text:
DAR 171: 163
Summary:
The memorial failed last autumn. She asks for CD’s signature again so that it may be presented now that there is a new Government.
Her [Wedgwood] Handbook is now in press.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Johann Friedrich Theodor (Fritz) Müller
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
20 Apr [1874]
Source of text:
Nature , 11 June 1874, pp. 102–3
Summary:
FM gives his own observations of leaf-cutting ants, which support those of Thomas Belt in his book [The naturalist in Nicaragua (1873)]. [See 9223.] These ants feed only upon the fungus that grows upon the leaves that they carry to their nests.
He has caught a moth of the Glaucopidæ that when touched emitted a cloud of snow-white wool.
Observations on the stingless bees of Brazil.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Henry Cecil
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
21 Apr 1874
Source of text:
DAR 161: 129
Summary:
Affirms his belief in an impassable spiritual gulf between man and the lower creatures.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
24 Apr 1874
Source of text:
American Philosophical Society (Lyell correspondence Mss.B.L981)
Summary:
Will subscribe £25 towards F. A. Dohrn’s Zoological Station at Naples.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
John Scott Burdon Sanderson, 1st baronet
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
25 Apr 1874
Source of text:
DAR 58.2: 65–70
Summary:
Purpose of experiments was to determine digestive activity of liquids containing pepsin. Gives required amounts of hydrochloric, propionic, butyric and valerianic acids. Describes experiment and gives results. Also experimented on digestive activity of butyric acid at greater temperatures than the termperature of the body.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
William Boyd Dawkins
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
26 Apr 1874
Source of text:
DAR 162: 128
Summary:
Asks CD’s support for his application for the Chair of Geology at Oxford.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Edward Frankland
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
26 Apr 1874
Source of text:
DAR 164: 210
Summary:
Bullfinches’ instinctive capacity for removing nectaries from cowslips.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Cecil James Monro
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
26 Apr 1874
Source of text:
DAR 171: 230
Summary:
Sends cherry blossoms damaged by birds in response to CD’s letter in Nature ["Flowers of the primrose", Collected papers 2: 183–4].
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Albert Stratford George Canning
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
27 Apr 1874
Source of text:
DAR 161: 43
Summary:
Further particulars on pea-fowl.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Albrecht Carl Ludwig Gotthilf (Albert) Günther
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
28 Apr 1874
Source of text:
DAR 165: 255
Summary:
Thanks for recent edition of CD’s Journal of researches.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Francis Stephen Bennet François de Chaumont
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
29 Apr 1874
Source of text:
DAR 162: 139
Summary:
Observations on early shedding of tears and shrugging of shoulders.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Edward Frankland
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
30 Apr 1874
Source of text:
DAR 164: 211
Summary:
Variation in bullfinches’ instinctive ability to remove nectaries and ovaries from cowslips.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Joseph Marie Grandclément
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
[May 1874]
Source of text:
DAR 165: 87
Summary:
He was chagrined to read in Descent CD’s statement that smallpox vaccine has saved thousands of lives. He has found no scientific reason to believe in the prophylactic effect of the vaccine. In epidemic of 1870–1, smallpox killed more vaccinated persons than were killed by cholera, against which there is no vaccine, in 1853–4. Cites the difficulties in arriving at a conclusive proof of vaccine’s effectiveness.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Thereza Mary Llewelyn; Thereza Mary Story-Maskelyne
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
4 May 1874
Source of text:
DAR 177: 263
Summary:
Reply to CD’s letter in Nature ["Flowers of the primrose", Collected papers 2: 183–4]. She has a canary that eats primroses.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
John Ferguson McLennan
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
5 May 1874
Source of text:
DAR 171: 20
Summary:
Would like to see C. S. Wake’s paper ["Marriage among primitive peoples", Anthropologia 1 (1873–5): 197–207].
Will return L. H. Morgan’s work [? Systems of consanguinity (1871)].
Murray suggests Macmillan’s are more likely to reprint JFMcL’s Primitive marriage.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Thomas Mellard Reade
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
7 May 1874
Source of text:
DAR 176: 27
Summary:
Studying glacial drift in NW. England, he finds evidence of intense glacial activity, but the molluscan fauna does not appear to indicate a low sea temperature. Requests information on Tierra del Fuego molluscs for comparison.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project