Text Online
From:
Michael Faraday
To:
Paolo Volpicelli
Date:
6 December 1856
Source of text:
Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei
Summary:
No summary available.
Contributor:
Faraday Project
From:
Samuel Haughton
To:
John Tyndall
Date:
6 December 1856
Source of text:
MS JT/1/TYP/2/483, RI
Summary:
No summary available.
Contributor:
Tyndall Project
From:
Sir John Herschel
To:
Francis Charles Knowles
Date:
[6 December 1856]
Source of text:
RS:HS 11.67 & 23.184
Summary:
Would be inclined to try a combination of cryolite and silex to obtain a glass. Comments on his process for decomposing alumina by cyanide of sodium. Sorry to see that FK uses the current forms of chemical notation.
Contributor:
John Herschel Project
Text Online
From:
Alfred Russel Wallace
To:
Wallace, John & Wallace (née Webster), Mary Elizabeth Podger
Date:
6 December 1856
Source of text:
California Historical Society
Summary:
No summary available.
Contributor:
Alfred Russel Wallace Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
John Stevens Henslow
Date:
[after 6 Dec 1856]
Source of text:
DAR 93: A115
Summary:
He is steadily and very hard at work on "Variation" [Natural selection] and finds the whole subject "deeply interesting but horribly perplexed".
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Joseph Dalton Hooker
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
7 Dec 1856
Source of text:
DAR 100: 113–14
Summary:
Has done New Zealand flora calculations. Results support CD’s theory of necessity of crossing. Trees tend to have separate sexes.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
James Dwight Dana
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
8 Dec 1856
Source of text:
DAR 205.9: 378
Summary:
Agassiz has informed him that the mice and rats of Mammoth Cave are American in type.
Alludes to CD’s doubt of the principle that "progress of life on the globe is parallel with the development in different tribes". Outlines his own ideas on the "unfolding of the type-idea" and its "parallelism with the law of development in the embryo".
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
John Tyndall
To:
Edward Frankland
Date:
8th, Dec, 1856
Source of text:
MS JT/1/TYP/12/3968, RI
Summary:
No summary available.
Contributor:
Tyndall Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Harriet Hotham; Harriet Lubbock
Date:
[8 Dec 1856]
Source of text:
American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.141)
Summary:
Thanks her for kindness. Announces, "We have now half-a-dozen Boys" [Charles Waring Darwin, born 6 Dec].
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Thomas Henry Huxley
Date:
9 Dec [1856]
Source of text:
Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine Archives (Huxley 5: 42, 374)
Summary:
Grateful for Siebold’s wonderful facts [C. T. E. von Siebold, On a true parthenogenesis in moths and bees (1856), trans. by W. S. Dallas (1857)].
Vitality of spermatozoa.
Hybridisation of bees. Bees are in one respect his greatest theoretical difficulty.
CD still convinced about the relation of cement receptacles and ovarian tubes [in Crustacea].
Birth of C. W. Darwin.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
Text Online
From:
Darwin, G. H.
To:
Darwin, W. E.
Date:
[10 December 1856]
Source of text:
DAR 210.6: 13
Summary:
No summary available.
Contributor:
Darwin Family Letters
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
William Erasmus Darwin
Date:
10 [Dec 1856]
Source of text:
DAR 210.6: 12
Summary:
Writes of arrangements for the end of the school-term.
Condition of Emma and the new baby [C. W. Darwin].
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Date:
10 Dec [1856]
Source of text:
DAR 114: 186
Summary:
CD is convinced of relation between separation of sexes and tree-habit.
Recent hard blows against crossing theory.
CD long tormented by land molluscs on oceanic islands; found transport possible experimentally.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
Text Online
From:
Alfred Russel Wallace
To:
Frances ("Fanny") Sims (née Wallace)
Date:
10 December 1856
Source of text:
- Natural History Museum, London: NHM WP1/3/40
- Marchant, J. (Ed.). (1916). In: Alfred Russel Wallace; Letters and Reminiscences. Vol. 1. London & New York: Cassell & Co. [p. 64]
Summary:
Arrival of letters from home; birth of first niece or nephew; expense of Sims's rent and financial burden to his mother; departure for Aru in two days time; diet on Aru, list of food stores to be taken, scarcity of fowl, will eat Birds of Paradise and Kangaroo; friends and family; Eliza Roberts's moustache.
Contributor:
Alfred Russel Wallace Correspondence Project
From:
Sir John Herschel
To:
James David Forbes
Date:
1856[?]-12-11
Source of text:
St. Andrews 109
Summary:
Letter of introduction for the Drs. Hermann and Robert Schlagentweit, whose scientific interests parallel JF's.
Contributor:
John Herschel Project
From:
Thomas Vernon Wollaston
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
[11 or 18] Dec 1856
Source of text:
DAR 205.3: 301
Summary:
Informs CD that the "dishonest mollusks" were collected in May 1855 in Porto Santo. Describes some Madeira species. Though believing in "species" more and more, these may be "mere insular modifications".
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Thomas Henry Huxley
Date:
13 [Dec 1856]
Source of text:
Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine Archives (Huxley 5: 44, 375)
Summary:
Pleased by what THH says on cement glands and organs in higher Crustacea. Content to be moderately right.
Hopes THH will dissect the Conchoderma.
Asks for cases of organs in which there is no apparent transition from other organs or in which transition can be shown in an unexpected way and for instances of odd and inexplicable connections between parts, such that if one part varies the other varies also.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Henry W. Field
To:
Sir John Herschel
Date:
[15 December 1856]
Source of text:
RS:HS 7.215
Summary:
Congratulations on the success of his son at Addiscombe.
Contributor:
John Herschel Project
From:
Robert M. Morrell
To:
Sir John Herschel
Date:
[15 December 1856]
Source of text:
RS:HS 13.52
Summary:
Forwards the draft of the words of the Memorial to be presented to Her Majesty. Nonmembers of the League have signed. On receipt of JH's reply will forward the written headings for JH's signature.
Contributor:
John Herschel Project
Text Online
From:
Robert Murray
To:
Michael Faraday
Date:
15 December 1856
Source of text:
RI MS F1 I130
Summary:
No summary available.
Contributor:
Faraday Project