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From Samuel Newington   23 November 1880

Ticehurst.

23d Novr 1880.

My dear Sir

I have read the critique in the Times of your book on the “Movement of Plants”.1 I think it might have been more scientific. I perceive it refers to the sensibility of the radicles. I was just writing an article for one of the Hort. papers.2 I think I have proved that heat is generated by the exudation of oxygen from the bark of the peripheral roots, (& probably from that of all roots) by the combination of oxygen with carbonaceous matter. I think I have also proved that there is an electrical action always going on from the leaves to the rootlets. the air being positive & the earth negative. I have not yet worked out a sympathetic system on which these currents act, but since the sap is never in a quiescent state I have presumed it is kept moving by the electric forces passing from the air through the leaves to the roots.

I have such a short time in the morning to work out my favorite studies but I have not yet been to get up the article for publication.3

It is very evident that Zoophites have the property of secreting gastric juice to render soluble albuminous matters.4

There is still a large field of discovery left, I suppose you are aware that the step in walking or running is synchronous with the pulse, or rather the pulse with the step. & however fast a person runs the action of the heart commences at the same moment. This is no doubt due to the whole mass of blood being lifted up by the movement of the body, the valves of the heart & vessels preventing the return of the blood, the intention being to supply oxygen in the same ratio for the disintegration of nervous & muscular tissues, it is a discovery I made some years since when I passed it on to my old friend, Sir J Hirshcell, from whom I received a letter corroborating my views, since then I have made accurate experiments with the Sphygmograph & proved my views correct.5

You may recollect the grapes I sent you, last season I cut off the vine which I believed caused the berries to assume their normal shape & allowed the Madresfield Court to grow about four times the size of the Black Hamburgh. & by this means the former overcame the established type, & the berries were those of the Madresfield Court. & splendid berries they were, I grow them in large tubs & do not water them for six weeks before they are ripe, & thus prevent splitting.6

believe me Yours very truly | Samuel Newington

1
A review of Movement in plants appeared in The Times, 20 November 1880, p. 9.
2
The article has not been found. In his letter of 2 September 1875 (Correspondence vol. 23), Newington mentioned having written articles on the exudation of carbonic acid in solution from the rootlets of plants and the exudation of oxygen in solution, neither of which have been found.
3
Newington was superintendent of the mental hospital at Ticehurst House, Sussex.
4
The term zoophyte generally referred to any animal that superficially resembled a plant, including those now classified within the phyla Cnidaria (corals, sea anemones, true jellyfish, etc.) and Ctenophora (comb jellies); see, for example, Grant 1834.
5
Newington had sent CD the letter from John Frederick William Herschel corroborating his views on pulse and step in 1875; see Correspondence vol. 23, letter to Samuel Newington, 17 September 1875. Herschel’s letter has not been found.
6
In 1875, Newington had described and said he would send grapes from grafted vines of Black Hamburgh and Madresfield, varieties of Vitis vinifera (wine grape); see Correspondence vol. 23, letter from Samuel Newington, 2 September 1875.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12846,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12846