Showing 81–100 of 528 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.
Summary of JDH’s objections to CD’s survey of floras and conclusion that large genera vary more than small.
Continued objections to methods and conclusions of CD’s survey.
Reports that N. J. Andersson finds every European willow bar one is also American.
Has heard from David Livingstone and reports on his progress.
Communicate papers by CD and A. R. Wallace on "The Laws which affect the Production of Varieties, Races, and Species". Explain that CD and Wallace have, independently and unknown to each other, arrived at the same theory to account for the appearance and perpetuation of specific forms, and that neither has yet published, although CD first sketched his theory in 1839. Give their reasons for arranging the joint presentation.
Sends proofs [of "On the tendency of species to form varieties … ", read 1 July 1858, Collected papers 2: 3–19]. CD could publish his abstract [later the Origin] as a separate supplemental number of [Journal of the Linnean Society].
JDH has studied in detail CD’s manuscript on variable species in large and small genera and concurs with its consequences. Discusses methodological idiosyncrasies of systematists, e.g., Bentham, Robert Brown, and C. C. Babington, which complicate CD’s tabulations.
The CD–Wallace paper has gone to press.
JDH’s tabulation of variable species from Bentham was done in haste.
Busy with introductory essay to [The botany of the Antarctic voyage, pt III] Flora Tasmaniae [printed separately as On the flora of Australia (1859)].
Now explains greater abundance of European species in Tasmania than in Fuegia by CD’s "refrigeration" hypothesis.
At work on the introductory essay to Flora Tasmaniae.
Discusses the effects of climate and geography on "vegetable strife".
Would appreciate loan of CD’s chapter on transmigration across tropics, which may help with the difficulties of Australian distribution.
Still regards plant types as older than animal types.
The Cape of Good Hope and Australian temperate floras cannot be connected by the highlands of Abyssinia.
JDH cannot abide CD’s connection of wide-ranging species and "highness". Australian flora contradicts this in many ways.
Relieved by Wallace’s letter.
At work on introductory essay to Flora Tasmaniae.
European plants naturalised in Australia are almost all adapted to invading disturbed ground.
JDH supports Asa Gray against Alphonse de Candolle as foreign member of Royal Society.
Outlines the basic categories of phanerogams.
Places Gymnospermae in the dicotyledons.
Evaluates the variable utility of embryological characters in plant classification.
Lyell has been strongly urging John Murray to publish CD’s book [Origin]. JDH feels Lyell overestimates the public interest in such works.
Gives examples of plants showing most marked varieties on the edge of their range.
JDH’s congratulations on Origin.
Lyell believes S. P. Woodward wrote review in Athenæum.
Lyell’s and Huxley’s positive responses.
JDH has only plunged into a few chapters.
JDH half through Origin. High praise for facts and reasoning.
Lyell told JDH his criticisms: small matters JDH did not appreciate.
Reactions of G. Bentham, J. S. Henslow, and C. C. Babington.
Forwards letter from Asa Gray.
Bentham is very agitated by Origin. CD over-emphasises natural selection. His theory accounts for too much and would be improved by unburdening it of natural selection.
CD’s observations on curved styles read well. JDH seeks morphological rationale of curvature in the position of nectaries.
He has avoided lecturing to Royal Family’s children at Buckingham Palace.
Has examined Leschenaultia and concludes the external viscid surfaces have nothing to do with the stigmatic surface. Agrees with CD’s style and nectary conclusions; accounts for their form and position in irregular flowers by describing floral development.
[Enclosed are some queries by CD with answers by JDH. Gives information on seed setting by Mucuna
and an opinion on the abruptness of N. and S. limits of plant ranges.]
CD’s divergent series explains those anomalous plants that hover between what would otherwise be two species in a genus.
Inclined to see conifers as a sub-series of dicotyledons that developed in parallel to monocotyledons, but retained cryptogamic characters.
Mentions H. C. Watson’s view of variations.
Man has destroyed more species than he has created varieties.
Variations are centrifugal because the chances are a million to one that identity of form once lost will return.
In the human race, we find no reversion "that would lead us to confound a man with his ancestors".
Glad to hear good news of Etty [Henrietta Darwin].
CD’s observations on Scaevola are capital. The indusium collects the pollen and is the homologue of the pollen-collecting hairs of Campanula. A boat-shaped organ forms a second indusium, the inside base of which forms the stigmatic surface. The latter later protrudes as horns, forming the stigma.
Describes W. H. Harvey’s scientific career and thinks his letter interesting. Agrees with Harvey that the primary agency of natural selection is as great a mystery as ever. [Response to 2823.]
