Showing 1–20 of 55 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.
Has learned that German edition [of Expression] will be on larger pages than English one. No copies of heliotype plates [for Expression] have been delivered. Hopes Heliotype Company is not going to throw them over. Suggests CD write a strong letter.
Arrangements for foreign editions [of Expression]. Delay by Heliotype Company is provoking.
Heliotype Company assures RC all 8000 sets of the plates [for Expression] will be ready next week.
Thanks GH for his Theory of the ants [1869] and offers to supply any zoological information that he can.
Is sending Drosera back
and "the curious Kerguelen book".
"Drosera has almost been the death of me."
Hopes the accursed man [Ayrton] does not give JDH any more trouble.
Discusses the coiling of tendrils of climbing plants.
AG’s recent tour of the U. S.
He will send his book [Harvesting ants and trap-door spiders (1873)]. Describes two new types of trap-door spider nests.
Has translated half of Expression; is delighted with it. Comments on some points that he questions.
Is at work on concluding part of his handbook of zoology [Handbuch der Zoologie, 2 vols. (1863–75), with A. Gerstaecker].
Miscellaneous personal matters.
What does CD think of Robert Mallet’s earthquake theory? Would it not account for strata dipping at base of range of mountains?
Expression is now almost ready. The plates will require great care in the binding.
Discusses JTM’s research on habits of insects. "How incomparably more valuable are such researches than the mere description of a thousand species."
Will consider JVC’s comments on Expression when he prepares a new edition.
Is much vexed about Drosera.
Land-level changes and volcanic activity.
Thanks for "Embryology of the fossil cephalopods", [Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool. Harvard 3 (1872–4): 59–112].
Regrets error in attributing acceleration concept to E. D. Cope instead of to AH in last edition of Origin, and misrepresentation of their joint view.
Corrects CD’s spelling of the name of a statue: the Arrotino (spelled "Arretino" by CD) [see Expression, p. 184, on grief-muscles].
D. Appleton has been sent 3000 sets of plates [for Expression]. Hopes to publish [Expression] on 12 Nov.
Discusses printing of Expression.
Much experiment and observation needed before spontaneous generation will be empirically advanced, but philosophically the matter is clear.
Thinks Ludwig Rütimeyer has attacked EH to satisfy pious opinion in Basel.
Will soon be finished with his monograph Die Kalkschwämme [1872].
THF’s article in Nature ["The fertilisation of a few papilionaceous flowers", 6 (1872): 478–80, 498–501] is extremely good.
Suspects he now has answer to why common peas and sweetpeas hardly ever intercross, a point which half drove CD mad for years.
Huxley will be asked to review Expression in Pall Mall Gazette.