From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
William Erasmus Darwin
Date:
[17 Feb 1857]
Source of text:
DAR 210.6: 14
Summary:
Is glad WED is in the sixth [form]. Discusses WED’s intention to become a barrister.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
William Bernhard Tegetmeier
Date:
18 Feb [1857]
Source of text:
Archives of the New York Botanical Garden (Charles Finney Cox Collection)
Summary:
Has some fowls from Sir James Brooke, which WBT might like to display at Zoological Society.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Syms Covington
Date:
22 Feb 1857
Source of text:
Sydney Mail , 9 August 1884, p. 255
Summary:
Sends news of his family, Sulivan, and FitzRoy.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
William Darwin Fox
Date:
22 Feb [1857]
Source of text:
Christ’s College Library, Cambridge (MS 53 Fox 101–2)
Summary:
Helix pomatia is quite healthy after 20 days’ submersion in salt water.
On peas, the evidence is on WDF’s side, but CD cannot see how they can avoid being crossed.
He is working hard, wishes he "could set less value on the bauble fame"; would work as hard, but with less gusto, if he knew his book would be published forever anonymously.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Richard Kippist; Linnean Society
Date:
23 Feb [1857]
Source of text:
Linnean Society of London
Summary:
Sends cheque for subscription [£20].
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Gardeners’ Chronicle
Date:
[after 28 Feb 1857]
Source of text:
Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette , 7 March 1857, p. 155
Summary:
Reports that he fertilised a single pale red carnation with the pollen of a crimson Spanish pink, and a Spanish pink with the pollen of the same carnation. He got seed from both crosses and raised many seedlings. There was no difference between the seedlings from reciprocal crosses, not one plant set a single seed.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
John Lubbock, 4th baronet and 1st Baron Avebury
Date:
[6 Mar 1857]
Source of text:
DAR 146: 71
Summary:
Voting to elect JL [a member of Athenaeum].
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Hugh Falconer
Date:
[7 Mar 1857]
Source of text:
DAR 144: 26
Summary:
Thinking about HF’s paper on Plagiaulax [Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 13 (1857): 261–82]. Owen might answer that all Purbeck mammals are marsupials.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Robert Patterson
Date:
10 Mar [1857]
Source of text:
W. E. Praeger 1935 , p. 714
Summary:
Asks RP’s help in procuring a specimen of a real Irish rabbit, L. veomicule [Lepus vermicula]?.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Date:
15 Mar [1857]
Source of text:
DAR 114: 193
Summary:
Separation of sexes in trees [U. S.].
Do plants offer positive evidence for "continuous land" theory?
Protean genera.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Asa Gray
Date:
[after 15 Mar 1857]
Source of text:
Archives of the Gray Herbarium, Harvard University (8)
Summary:
Urges AG to generalise from his observations on the flora of the northern U. S.
Expected to find separation of sexes in trees because he believes all living beings require an occasional cross, and none is perpetually self-fertilising. The multitude of flowers of a tree would be an obstacle to cross-fertilisation unless the sexes tended to be separate.
The Leguminosae are CD’s greatest opposers; he cannot find that garden varieties ever cross. Could AG inquire of intelligent nurserymen on the subject?
Thanks AG for information on protean genera; much wants to know whether their great variability is due to their conditions of existence or is innate in them at all times and places.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Royal Society
Date:
16 March 1857
Source of text:
MM/4/39, Royal Society
Summary:
No summary available.
Contributor:
Royal Society
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Edward Sabine
Date:
16 Mar [1857]
Source of text:
The Royal Society (MM4: 39)
Summary:
Would rather not serve on Royal Society committee [for a North American exploring expedition]. Suggests subjects for geological investigation.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Date:
[21 Mar 1857]
Source of text:
DAR 114: 192a
Summary:
Ranges of species in large vs small genera: Asa Gray’s compilation fits CD’s expectation.
CD studies seedling mortality in his weed garden.
JDH’s work on Indian flora.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
James Dwight Dana
Date:
5 Apr [1857]
Source of text:
Yale University Library: Manuscripts and Archives (Dana Family Papers (MS 164) Series 1, Box 2, folder 44)
Summary:
Asks whether Crustacea from temperate parts of the Southern Hemisphere are more strongly analogous to those in same latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere than are Arctic to Antarctic Crustacea.
Discusses astonishing finds of mammalian and reptilian remains in Purbeck beds; notes reactions of Lyell.
Has doubts about Richard Owen’s recent classification of mammals [J. Proc. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Zool.) 2 (1858): 1–37].
Works away [on Natural selection].
Asa Gray has given valuable assistance.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Date:
8 Apr [1857]
Source of text:
DAR 114: 191
Summary:
Independence of variation from climate shown by several plant genera; CD asks for confirmation.
Progressing with book [Natural selection].
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
William Sharpey
Date:
9 Apr [1857]
Source of text:
DAR 249: 128 (photocopy)
Summary:
Recommendations of books of general interest [for the Royal Society library]. These include [Louis] Agassiz’s works, [William] McGillivray’s [History of] British birds, and David Low’s [On the domesticated animals of the British Islands].
Comments on current candidates for the Royal Society.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Date:
12 Apr [1857]
Source of text:
DAR 114: 192
Summary:
Thanks JDH for response on variation. Studying variations that seem correlated with environment, e.g., north vs south, ascending mountains.
CD’s weed garden: observations on slugs killing seedlings.
Seed-salting. One-seventh of the plants of any country could be transported 924 miles by sea and would germinate.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
Date:
13 Apr [1857]
Source of text:
The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Gen.109/702)
Summary:
CD returns a letter from Wollaston.
Although opposed to the Forbesian doctrine [of continental extension] as a general rule, CD would have no objection to its being proved in some cases. Does not think Wollaston has proved it; nor can anyone until more is known about the means of distribution of insects – but the identity of the two faunas is certainly interesting.
His health is very poor and his "everlasting species-Book" quite overwhelms him with work. It is beyond his powers, but he hopes to live to finish it.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Laurence Edmondston
Date:
19 Apr [1857]
Source of text:
L. D. Edmondston (private collection)
Summary:
Thanks for pigeon.
Are there Shetland birds chequered with black marks, as Carl Julian Graba states are in Faeroes [Reise nach Färö (1830)] and Col. King in the Hebrides?
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project