Showing 41–60 of 86 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.
Thinks THH’s [Anniversary] Address [to Geological Society, Feb 1862, Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 18 (1862): xl–liv] a wonderful condensed and original summary of palaeontology.
Nearly agrees on contemporaneity, but THH pushes his ideas too far. Would require strong evidence before believing that the so-called Silurian, Devonian, and Carboniferous strata could be contemporaneous. Thinks THH’s case on advancement of organisation is strong. But he should read Bronn, before publishing again, and say more on other side. Cannot help hoping he is not as right as he seems to be.
On THH’s Lectures to working men.
Work by Ferdinand J. Cohn on the contractile tissue of plants ["Über contractile Gewebe im Pflanzenreich" Abh. Schlesischen Ges. Vaterl. Cult. 1 (1861)] seems important. CD has come to the conclusion that there must be some substance in plants analogous to the supposed diffused nervous matter in lower animals.
[Part of P.S. missing from original.]
Enthusiastic about Lectures IV and V [Lectures to working men (1863)].
Sends specific comments on fantail pigeon,
sterility of hybrids,
the geological section diagram.
Returns Kingsley’s letter [see ML 1: 225 n.].
Lectures [to working men] would do good if widely circulated.
On sterility, they differ so much there is no use arguing. To get the degree of sterility THH expects in recently formed varieties seems to CD simply hopeless. Has suggested a test experiment to Tegetmeier [two fertile birds paired and unproductive].
CD overwhelmed by THH’s praise.
Agrees with his reservations about species theory but not wholly about sterility and gives his reasons for differing.
On Natural History Review, Hugh Falconer, and R. Owen.
Has written a review [Collected papers 2: 87–92] of H. W. Bates’s paper ["Contributions to an insect fauna of the Amazon valley", Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 23 (1862): 495–566].
THH’s efforts to obtain Copley Medal for CD fail. Thanks THH for kind words of sympathy.
On six-fingered men: suspects increase confined to metacarpals and digits. Has asked James Paget to look it up.
It is not carpal or tarsal bones that are increased [in six-fingered men] but generally only the digits and metacarpals.
Pectoral fins of fish and sharks.
Asks THH to check P. M. Roget’s statement that there is a rudiment of a sixth digit in frogs.
[P.S. missing from original.]
A note reminding THH to examine the rudiment of the 6th toe on the hind foot of a Batrachian.
Thanks for "monkey book" [Evidence as to man’s place in nature (1863)].
Must wait till he has finished Lyell [Antiquity of man (1863)].
Two criticisms (one by Henrietta Darwin) of THH’s Lectures [to working men].
Praise of Man’s place.
Owen’s muddling letter in Athenæum [21 Feb 1863, pp. 262–3].
Is disappointed in Lyell’s excessive caution on species and origin of man [in Antiquity of man].
Has caught a frog and examined its possibly rudimentary toe. Asks THH if he will dissect it.
Has heard THH is abused in Edinburgh Review and in Anthropological Review [reviews of Man’s place in nature, Edinburgh Rev. 117 (1863): 541–69 and Anthrop. Rev. 1 (1863): 107–17].
Owen on heterogeny and the aye-aye.
Has been very ill.
Will be obliged if Flower examines specimens. States questions he wants answered.
Thanks for Lectures on the elements of comparative anatomy [1864].
If Owen wrote article on "Oken" [Encyclopaedia Britannica, 8th ed.] and French work on archetype he never did a baser act [see ML 1: 246 n.].
Bad health lately.
Admires THH’s article on Kölliker’s and Flourens’ criticisms of Origin [in Natural History Review (1864): 566–80].
Appreciates THH’s note more than Medal.
Encourages THH to write a popular treatise on zoology.
Sends Mrs Huxley a quotation from Tennyson, with sarcastic comment.
Sabine’s Royal Society address [awarding the Copley Medal to CD], in referring to the Origin, did not contain the words "expressly excluded". The actual words were "expressly omitted from the grounds of our award". This was not meant to place the Origin on a sort of index expurgatorium, but was a simple statement of fact.
Wishes to correct an expression in his last letter which is "perhaps not rigorously exact": he should not have said "declining to honour it [the Origin] with the Copley Medal" but simply "not honouring it with the Copley medal". "Declining implies having been asked and there was no asking in the present case."
