If I can think of any one likely to take_More Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 1 A Record of His Work in a Series of Hitherto Unpublished Letters

"Illustrations of Himalayan Plants from Drawings made by J.F. Cathcart."

Folio, 1855.), I will send the advertisement. If you want to make up

some definite number so as to go to press, I will put my name down with

PLEASURE (and I hope and believe that you will trust me in saying

so), though I should not in the course of nature subscribe to any

horticultural work:--act for me.

LETTER 37. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, [May] 29th, 1854.

I am really truly sorry to hear about your [health]. I entreat you

to write down your own case,--symptoms, and habits of life,--and then

consider your case as that of a stranger; and I put it to you, whether

common sense would not order you to take more regular exercise and work

your brain less. (N.B. Take a cold bath and walk before breakfast.) I

am certain in the long run you would not lose time. Till you have a

thoroughly bad stomach, you will not know the really great evil of

it, morally, physically, and every way. Do reflect and act resolutely.

Remember your troubled heart-action formerly plainly told how your

constitution was tried. But I will say no more--excepting that a man

is mad to risk health, on which everything, including his children's

inherited health, depends. Do not hate me for this lecture. Really I am

not surprised at your having some headache after Thursday evening, for

it must have been no small exertion making an abstract of all that was

said after dinner. Your being so engaged was a bore, for there were

several things that I should have liked to have talked over with you. It

was certainly a first-rate dinner, and I enjoyed it extremely, far more

than I expected. Very far from disagreeing with me, my London visits

have just lately taken to suit my stomach admirably; I begin to think

that dissipation, high-living, with lots of claret, is what I want,

and what I had during the last visit. We are going to act on this same

principle, and in a very profligate manner have just taken a pair of

season-tickets to see the Queen open the Crystal Palace. (37/1. Queen

Victoria opened the Crystal Palace at Sydenham on June 10th, 1854.) How

I wish there was any chance of your being there! The last grand thing we

were at together answered, I am sure, very well, and that was the Duke's

funeral.

Have you seen Forbes' introductory lecture (37/2. Edward Forbes

was appointed to a Professorship at Edinburgh in May, 1854.) in the

"Scotsman" (lent me by Horner)? it is really ADMIRABLY done, though

without anything, perhaps, very original, which could hardly be

expected: it has given me even a higher opinion than I before had, of

the variety and polish of his intellect. It is, indeed, an irreparable

loss to London natural history society. I wish, however, he would not

praise so much that old brown dry stick Jameson. Altogether, to my

taste, it is much the best introductory lecture I have ever read. I hear

his anniversary address is very good.

Adios, my dear Hooker; do be wise and good, and be careful of your

stomach, within which, as I know full well, lie intellect, conscience,

temper, and the affections.

LETTER 38. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, December 2nd [1854].

You are a pretty fellow to talk of funking the returning thanks at the

dinner for the medal. (38/1. The Royal medal was given to Sir Joseph

in 1854.) I heard that it was decidedly the best speech of the evening,

given "with perfect fluency, distinctness, and command of language," and

that you showed great self-possession: was the latter the proverbially

desperate courage of a coward? But you are a pretty fellow to be so

desperately afraid and then to make the crack speech. Many such an

ordeal may you have to go through! I do not know whether Sir William

[Hooker] would be contented with Lord Rosse's (38/2. President of the

Royal Society 1848-54.) speech on giving you the medal; but I am very

much pleased with it, and really the roll of what you have done was,

I think, splendid. What a great pity he half spoiled it by not having

taken the trouble just to read it over first. Poor Hofmann (38/3. August

Wilhelm Hofmann, the other medallist of 1854.) came off in this respect

even worse. It is really almost arrogant insolence against every one not

an astronomer.

The next morning I was at a very pleasant breakfast party at Sir R.

Inglis's. (38/4. Sir Robert Inglis, President of the British Association

in 1847. Apparently Darwin was present at the afternoon meeting, but

not at the dinner.) I have received, with very many thanks, the aberrant

genera; but I have not had time to consider them, nor your remarks on

Australian botanical geography.

LETTER 39. TO T.H. HUXLEY.

(39/1. The following letter shows Darwin's interest in the adjudication

of the Royal medals. The year 1855 was the last during which he served

on the Council of the Society. He had previously served in 1849-50.)

Down, March 31st, 1855.

I have thought and enquired much about Westwood, and I really think he

amply deserves the gold medal. But should you think of some one with

higher claim I am quite ready to give up. Indeed, I suppose without I

get some one to second it, I cannot propose him.

Will you be so kind as to read the enclosed, and return it to me? Should

I send it to Bell? That is, without you demur or convince me. I had

thought of Hancock, a higher class of labourer; but, as far as I can

weigh, he has not, as yet, done so much as Westwood. I may state that I

read the whole "Classification" (39/2. Possibly Westwood's "Introduction

to the Modern Classification of Insects" (1839).) before I was on the

Council, and ever thought on the subject of medals. I fear my remarks

are rather lengthy, but to do him justice I could not well shorten them.

Pray tell me frankly whether the enclosed is the right sort of thing,

for though I was once on the Council of the Royal, I never attended any

meetings, owing to bad health.

With respect to the Copley medal (39/3. The Copley Medal was given to

Lyell in 1858.), I have a strong feeling that Lyell has a high claim,

but as he has had the Royal Medal I presume that it would be thought

objectionable to propose him; and as I intend (you not objecting and

converting me) to propose W. for the Royal, it would, of course, appear

intolerably presumptuous to propose for the Copley also.

LETTER 40. TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, June 10th, 1855.

Shall you attend the Council of the Royal Society on Thursday next? I

have not been very well of late, and I doubt whether I can attend; and

if I could do anything (pray conceal the scandalous fact), I want to

go to the Crystal Palace to meet the Horners, Lyells, and a party. So I

want to know whether you will speak for me most strongly for Barrande.

You know better than I do his admirable labours on the development of

trilobites, and his most important work on his Lower or Primordial Zone.

I enclose an old note of Lyell's to show what he thinks. With respect to

Dana, whom I also proposed, you know well his merits. I can speak most

highly of his classificatory work on crustacea and his Geographical

Distribution. His Volcanic Geology is admirable, and he has done much

good work on coral reefs.

If you attend, do not answer this; but if you cannot be at the Council,

please inform me, and I suppose I must, if I can, attend.

Thank you for your abstract of your lecture at the Royal Institution,

which interested me much, and rather grieved me, for I had hoped things

had been in a slight degree otherwise. (40/1. "On certain Zoological

Arguments commonly adduced in favour of the hypothesis of the

Progressive Development of Animal Life," Discourse, Friday, April 20,

1855: "Proceedings R.I." (1855). Published also in "Huxley's Scientific

Memoirs." The lecturer dwelt chiefly on the argument of Agassiz, which

he summarises as follows: "Homocercal fishes have in their embryonic

state heterocercal tails; therefore heterocercality is, so far, a mark

of an embryonic state as compared with homocercality, and the earlier

heterocercal fish are embryonic as compared with the later homocercal."

He shows that facts do not support this view, and concludes generally

"that there is no real parallel between the successive forms assumed in

the development of the life of the individual at present and those which

have appeared at different epochs in the past.") I heard some time ago

that before long I might congratulate you on becoming a married man.

(40/2. Mr. Huxley was married July 21st, 1855.) From my own experience

of some fifteen years, I am very sure that there is nothing in this

wide world which more deserves congratulation, and most sincerely and

heartily do I congratulate you, and wish you many years of as much

happiness as this world can afford.

LETTER 41. TO J.D. HOOKER.

(41/1. The following letter illustrates Darwin's work on aberrant

genera. In the "Origin," Edition I., page 429, he wrote: "The more

aberrant any form is, the greater must be the number of connecting forms

which, on my theory, have been exterminated and utterly lost. And we

have some evidence of aberrant forms having suffered severely from

extinction, for they are generally represented by extremely few species;

and such species as do occur are generally very distinct from each

other, which again implies extinction.")

Down, November 15th [1855?].

In Schoenherr's Catalogue of Curculionidae (41/2. "Genera et Species

Curculionidum." (C.J. Schoenherr: Paris, 1833-38.)), the 6,717 species

are on an average 10.17 to a genus. Waterhouse (who knows the group

well, and who has published on fewness of species in aberrant genera)

has given me a list of 62 aberrant genera, and these have on an average

7.6 species; and if one single genus be removed (and which I cannot yet

believe ought to be considered aberrant), then the 61 aberrant genera

would have only 4.91 species on an average. I tested these results in

another way. I found in Schoenherr 9 families, including only 11 genera,

and these genera (9 of which were in Waterhouse's list) I found included

only 3.36 species on an average.

This last result led me to Lindley's "Vegetable Kingdom," in which I

found (excluding thallogens and acrogens) that the genera include each

10.46 species (how near by chance to the Curculionidae), and I find 21

orders including single genera, and these 21 genera have on average 7.95

species; but if Lindley is right that Erythroxylon (with its 75 species)

ought to be amongst the Malpighiads, then the average would be only 4.6

per genus.

But here comes, as it appears to me, an odd thing (I hope I shall not

quite weary you out). There are 29 other orders, each with 2 genera,

and these 58 genera have on an average 15.07 species: this great number

being owing to the 10 genera in the Smilaceae, Salicaceae (with 220

species), Begoniaceae, Balsaminaceae, Grossulariaceae, without which the

remaining 48 genera have on an average only 5.91 species.

This case of the orders with only 2 genera, the genera notwithstanding

having 15.07 species each, seems to me very perplexing and upsets,

almost, the conclusion deducible from the orders with single genera.

I have gone higher, and tested the alliances with 1, 2, and 3 orders;

and in these cases I find both the genera few in each alliance, and the

species, less than the average of the whole kingdom, in each genus.

All this has amused me, but I daresay you will have a good sneer at me,

and tell me to stick to my barnacles. By the way, you agree with me that

sometimes one gets despondent--for instance, when theory and facts will

not harmonise; but what appears to me even worse, and makes me despair,

is, when I see from the same great class of facts, men like Barrande

deduce conclusions, such as his "Colonies" (41/3. Lyell briefly refers

to Barrande's Bohemian work in a letter (August 31st, 1856) to Fleming

("Life of Sir Charles Lyell," II., page 225): "He explained to me on the

spot his remarkable discovery of a 'colony' of Upper Silurian fossils,

3,400 feet deep, in the midst of the Lower Silurian group. This has made

a great noise, but I think I can explain away the supposed anomaly by,

etc." (See Letter 40, Note.) and his agreement with E. de Beaumont's

lines of Elevation, or such men as Forbes with his Polarity (41/4.

Edward Forbes "On the Manifestation of Polarity in the Distribution of

Organised Beings in Time" ("Edinburgh New Phil. Journal," Volume LVII.,

1854, page 332). The author points out that "the maximum development

of generic types during the Palaeozoic period was during its earlier

epochs; that during the Neozoic period towards its later periods." Thus

the two periods of activity are conceived to be at the two opposite

poles of a sphere which in some way represents for him the system of

Nature.); I have not a doubt that before many months are over I shall

be longing for the most dishonest species as being more honest than the

honestest theories. One remark more. If you feel any interest, or can

get any one else to feel any interest on the aberrant genera question,

I should think the most interesting way would be to take aberrant genera

in any great natural family, and test the average number of species to

the genera in that family.

How I wish we lived near each other! I should so like a talk with you on

geographical distribution, taken in its greatest features. I have been

trying from land productions to take a very general view of the world,

and I should so like to see how far it agrees with plants.

LETTER 42. TO MRS. LYELL.

(42/1. Mrs. Lyell is a daughter of the late Mr. Leonard Horner, and

widow of Lieut.-Col. Lyell, a brother of Sir Charles.)

Down, January 26th [1856].

I shall be very glad to be of any sort of use to you in regard to the

beetles. But first let me thank you for your kind note and offer of

specimens to my children. My boys are all butterfly hunters; and all

young and ardent lepidopterists despise, from the bottom of their souls,

coleopterists.

The simplest plan for your end and for the good of entomology, I should

think, would be to offer the collection to Dr. J.E. Gray for the British

Museum on condition that a perfect set was made out for you. If the

collection was at all valuable, I should think he would be very glad to

have this done. Whether any third set would be worth making out would

depend on the value of the collection. I do not suppose that you expect

the insects to be named, for that would be a most serious labour. If you

do not approve of this scheme, I should think it very likely that Mr.

Waterhouse would think it worth his while to set a series for you,

retaining duplicates for himself; but I say this only on a venture.

You might trust Mr. Waterhouse implicitly, which I fear, as [illegible]

goes, is more than can be said for all entomologists. I presume, if

you thought of either scheme, Sir Charles Lyell could easily see the

gentlemen and arrange it; but, if not, I could do so when next I come to

town, which, however, will not be for three or four weeks.

With respect to giving your children a taste for Natural History, I will

venture one remark--viz., that giving them specimens in my opinion would

tend to destroy such taste. Youngsters must be themselves collectors

to acquire a taste; and if I had a collection of English lepidoptera, I

would be systematically most miserly, and not give my boys half a dozen

butterflies in the year. Your eldest has the brow of an observer, if

there be the least truth in phrenology. We are all better, but we have

been of late a poor household.

LETTER 43. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down [1855].

I should have less scruple in troubling you if I had any confidence

what my work would turn out. Sometimes I think it will be good, at

other times I really feel as much ashamed of myself as the author of the

"Vestiges" ought to be of himself. I know well that your kindness and

friendship would make you do a great deal for me, but that is no reason

that I should be unreasonable. I cannot and ought not to forget that all

your time is employed in work certain to be valuable. It is superfluous

in me to say that I enjoy exceedingly writing to you, and that your

answers are of the greatest possible service to me. I return with

many thanks the proof on Aquilegia (43/1. This seems to refer to

the discussion on the genus Aquilegia in Hooker and Thomson's "Flora

Indica," 1855, Volume I., Systematic Part, page 44. The authors'

conclusion is that "all the European and many of the Siberian forms

generally recognised belong to one very variable species." With regard

to cirripedes, Mr. Darwin spoke of "certain just perceptible differences

which blend together and constitute varieties and not species" ("Life

and Letters," I., page 379).): it has interested me much. It is exactly

like my barnacles; but for my particular purpose, most unfortunately,

both Kolreuter and Gartner have worked chiefly on A. vulgaris and

canadensis and atro-purpurea, and these are just the species that you

seem not to have studied. N.B. Why do you not let me buy the Indian

Flora? You are too magnificent.

Now for a short ride on my chief (at present) hobbyhorse, viz. aberrant

genera. What you say under your remarks on Lepidodendron seems just the

case that I want, to give some sort of evidence of what we both believe

in, viz. how groups came to be anomalous or aberrant; and I think some

sort of proof is required, for I do not believe very many naturalists

would at all admit our view.

Thank you for the caution on large anomalous genera first catching

attention. I do not quite agree with your "grave objection to the whole

process," which is "that if you multiply the anomalous species by 100,

and divide the normal by the same, you will then reverse the names..."

For, to take an example, Ornithorhynchus and Echidna would not be less

aberrant if each had a dozen (I do not say 100, because we have no such

cases in the animal kingdom) species instead of one. What would really

make these two genera less anomalous would be the creation of many

genera and sub-families round and radiating from them on all sides.

Thus if Australia were destroyed, Didelphys in S. America would be

wonderfully anomalous (this is your case with Proteaceae), whereas now

there are so many genera and little sub-families of Marsupiata that the

group cannot be called aberrant or anomalous. Sagitta (and the earwig)

is one of the most anomalous animals in the world, and not a bit the

less because there are a dozen species. Now, my point (which, I think is

a slightly new point of view) is, if it is extinction which has made the

genus anomalous, as a general rule the same causes of extinction would

allow the existence of only a few species in such genera. Whenever we

meet (which will be on the 23rd [at the] Club) I shall much like to hear

whether this strikes you as sound. I feel all the time on the borders of

a circle of truism. Of course I could not think of such a request,

but you might possibly:--if Bentham does not think the whole subject

rubbish, ask him some time to pick out the dozen most anomalous genera

in the Leguminosae, or any great order of which there is a monograph by

which I could calculate the ordinary percentage of species to genera. I

am the more anxious, as the more I enquire, the fewer are the cases

in which it can be done. It cannot be done in birds, or, I fear, in

mammifers. I doubt much whether in any other class of insects [other

than Curculionidae].

I saw your nice notice of poor Forbes in the "Gardeners' Chronicle,"

and I see in the "Athenaeum" a notice of meeting on last Saturday of his

friends. Of course I shall wish to subscribe as soon as possible to any

memorial...

I have just been testing practically what disuse does in reducing

parts. I have made [skeletons] of wild and tame duck (oh the smell of

well-boiled, high duck!), and I find the tame duck ought, according to

scale of wild prototype, to have its two wings 360 grains in weight; but

it has only 317, or 43 grains too little, or 1/7 of [its] own two wings

too little in weight. This seems rather interesting to me. (43/2. On

the conclusions drawn from these researches, see Mr. Platt Ball, "The

Effects of Use and Disuse" (Nature Series), 1890, page 55. With regard

to his pigeons, Darwin wrote, in November 1855: "I love them to that

extent that I cannot bear to kill and skeletonise them.")

P.S.--I do not know whether you will think this worth reading over. I

have worked it out since writing my letter, and tabulate the whole.

21 orders with 1 genus, having 7.95 species (or 4.6?).

29 orders with 2 genera, having 15.05 species on an average.

23 orders each with 3 genera, and these genera include on an average 8.2

species.

20 orders each with 4 genera, and these genera include on an average

12.2 species.

27 orders each with above 50 genera (altogether 4716 genera), and these

genera on an average have 9.97 species.

From this I conclude, whether there be many or few genera in an order,

the number of species in a genus is not much affected; but perhaps when

[there is] only one genus in an order it will be affected, and this will

depend whether the [genus] Erythroxylon be made a family of.

LETTER 44. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, April 8th [1856].

I have been particularly glad to get your splendid eloge of Lindley. His

name had been lately passing through my head, and I had hoped that Miers

would have proposed him for the Royal medal. I most entirely agree that

the Copley (44/1. The late Professor Lindley never attained the honour

of the Copley medal. The Royal medal was awarded to him in 1857.) is

more appropriate, and I daresay he would not have valued the Royal. From

skimming through many botanical books, and from often consulting the

"Vegetable Kingdom," I had (ignorant as I am) formed the highest opinion

of his claims as a botanist. If Sharpey will stick up strong for him,

we should have some chance; but the natural sciences are but feebly

represented in the Council. Sir P. Egerton, I daresay, would be strong

for him. You know Bell is out. Now, my only doubt is, and I hope that

you will consider this, that the natural sciences being weak on the

Council, and (I fancy) the most powerful man in the Council, Col.

S[abine], being strong against Lindley, whether we should have any

chance of succeeding. It would be so easy to name some eminent man whose

name would be well-known to all the physicists. Would Lindley hear of

and dislike being proposed for the Copley and not succeeding? Would it

not be better on this view to propose him for the Royal? Do think of

this. Moreover, if Lindley is not proposed for the Royal, I fear both

Royal medals would go [to] physicists; for I, for one, should not like

to propose another zoologist, though Hancock would be a very good man,

and I fancy there would be a feeling against medals to two botanists.

But for whatever Lindley is proposed, I will do my best. We will talk

this over here.

LETTER 45. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, May 9th [1856].

...With respect to Huxley, I was on the point of speaking to Crawford

and Strezlecki (who will be on Committee of the Athenaeum) when I

bethought me of how Owen would look and what he would say. Cannot you

fancy him, with slow and gentle voice, asking "Will Mr. Crawford tell

me what Mr. Huxley has done, deserving this honour; I only know that

he differs from, and disputes the authority of Cuvier, Ehrenberg, and

Agassiz as of no weight at all." And when I began to tell Mr. Crawford

what to say, I was puzzled, and could refer him only to some excellent

papers in the "Phil. Trans." for which the medal had been awarded. But

I doubt, with an opposing faction, whether this would be considered

enough, for I believe real scientific merit is not thought enough,

without the person is generally well known. Now I want to hear what you

deliberately think on this head: it would be bad to get him proposed and

then rejected; and Owen is very powerful.

LETTER 46. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down [1856].

I have got the Lectures, and have read them. (46/1. The reference is

presumably to the Royal Institution Lectures given in 1854-56. Those

which we have seen--namely, those reprinted in the "Scientific Memoirs,"

Volume I.--"On the Common Plan of Animal Form," page 281; "On certain

Zoological Arguments, etc." page 300; "On Natural History as Knowledge,

Discipline, and Power," page 305, do not seem to us to contain anything

likely to offend; but Falconer's attack in the "Ann. and Mag. of Nat.

Hist." June 1856, on the last-named lecture, shows strong feeling. A

reply by Mr. Huxley appeared in the July number of the same Journal. The

most heretical discussion from a modern standpoint is at page 311, where

he asks how it is conceivable that the bright colours of butterflies and

shells or the elegant forms of Foraminifera can possibly be of service

to their possessors; and it is this which especially struck Darwin,

judging by the pencil notes on his copy of the Lecture.) Though I

believe, as far as my knowledge goes, that Huxley is right, yet I think

his tone very much too vehement, and I have ventured to say so in a

note to Huxley. I had not thought of these lectures in relation to the

Athenaeum (46/2. Mr. Huxley was in 1858 elected to the Athenaeum Club

under Rule 2, which provides for the annual election of "a certain

number of persons of distinguished eminence in science, literature, or

the arts, or for public services."), but I am inclined quite to agree

with you, and that we had better pause before anything is said...(N.B.

I found Falconer very indignant at the manner in which Huxley treated

Cuvier in his Royal Institution lectures; and I have gently told Huxley

so.) I think we had better do nothing: to try in earnest to get a great

naturalist into the Athenaeum and fail, is far worse than doing nothing.

How strange, funny, and disgraceful that nearly all (Faraday and Sir J.

Herschel at least exceptions) our great men are in quarrels in couplets;

it never struck me before...

LETTER 47. C. LYELL TO CHARLES DARWIN.

(47/1. In the "Life and Letters," II., page 72, is given a letter (June

16th, 1856) to Lyell, in which Darwin exhales his indignation over

the "extensionists" who created continents ad libitum to suit the

convenience of their theories. On page 74 a fuller statement of his

views is given in a letter dated June 25th. We have not seen Lyell's

reply to this, but his reply to Darwin's letter of June 16th is extant,

and is here printed for the first time.)

53, Harley Street, London, June 17th, 1856.

I wonder you did not also mention D. Sharpe's paper (47/2. "On the Last

Elevation of the Alps, etc." ("Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc." Volume XII.,

1856, page 102.), just published, by which the Alps were submerged

as far as 9,000 feet of their present elevation above the sea in the

Glacial period and then since uplifted again. Without admitting this,

you would probably convey the alpine boulders to the Jura by marine

currents, and if so, make the Alps and Jura islands in the glacial sea.

And would not the Glacial theory, as now very generally understood,

immerse as much of Europe as I did in my original map of Europe, when I

simply expressed all the area which at some time or other had been under

water since the commencement of the Eocene period? I almost suspect the

glacial submergence would exceed it.

But would not this be a measure of the movement in every other

area, northern (arctic), antarctic, or tropical, during an equal

period--oceanic or continental? For the conversion of sea into land

would always equal the turning of much land into sea.

But all this would be done in a fraction of the Pliocene period; the

Glacial shells are barely 1 per cent. extinct species. Multiply this by

the older Pliocene and Miocene epochs.

You also forget an author who, by means of atolls, contrived to submerge

archipelagoes (or continents?), the mountains of which must originally

have differed from each other in height 8,000 (or 10,000?) feet, so

that they all just rose to the surface at one level, or their sites are

marked by buoys of coral. I could never feel sure whether he meant

this tremendous catastrophe, all brought about by what Sedgwick called

"Lyell's niggling operations," to have been effected during the era of

existing species of corals. Perhaps you can tell me, for I am really

curious to know...(47/3. The author referred to is of course Darwin.)

Now, although there is nothing in my works to warrant the building up

of continents in the Atlantic and Pacific even since the Eocene period,

yet, as some of the rocks in the central Alps are in part Eocene, I

begin to think that all continents and oceans may be chiefly, if not

all, post-Eocene, and Dana's "Atlantic Ocean" of the Lower Silurian is

childish (see the Anniversary Address, 1856). (47/4. Probably Dana's

Anniversary Address to the "American Association for the Advancement of

Science," published in the "Proceedings" 1856.) But how far you are at

liberty to call up continents from "the vasty deep" as often as you

want to convey a Helix from the United States to Europe in Miocene or

Pliocene periods is a question; for the ocean is getting deeper of late,

and Haughton says the mean depth is eleven miles! by his late paper

on tides. (47/5. "On the Depth of the Sea deducible from Tidal

Observations" ("Proc. Irish Acad." Volume VI., page 354, 1853-54).) I

shall be surprised if this turns out true by soundings.

I thought your mind was expanding so much in regard to time that

you would have been going ahead in regard to the possibility of

mountain-chains being created in a fraction of the period required to

convert a swan into a goose, or vice versa. Nine feet did the Rimutaka

chain of New Zealand gain in height in January, 1855, and a great

earthquake has occurred in New Zealand every seven years for half

a century nearly. The "Washingtonia" (Californian conifer) (47/6.

Washingtonia, or Wellingtonia, better known as Sequoia. Asa Gray,

writing in 1872, states his belief that "no Sequoia now alive can

sensibly antedate the Christian era" ("Scientific Papers," II., page

144).) lately exhibited was four thousand years old, so that one

individual might see a chain of hills rise, and rise with it, much

[more] a species--and those islands which J. Hooker describes as covered

with New Zealand plants three hundred (?) miles to the N.E. (?) of New

Zealand may have been separated from the mainland two or three or four

generations of Washingtonia ago.

If the identity of the land-shells of all the hundreds of British Isles

be owing to their having been united since the Glacial period, and the

discordance, almost total, of the shells of Porto Santo and Madeira be

owing to their having been separated [during] all the newer and possibly

older Pliocene periods, then it gives us a conception of time which will

aid you much in your conversion of species, if immensity of time will do

all you require; for the Glacial period is thus shown, as we might have

anticipated, to be contemptible in duration or in distance from us,

as compared to the older Pliocene, let alone the Miocene, when our

contemporary species were, though in a minority, already beginning to

flourish.

The littoral shells, according to MacAndrew, imply that Madeira and the

Canaries were once joined to the mainland of Europe or Africa, but that

those isles were disjoined so long ago that most of the species came

in since. In short, the marine shells tell the same story as the land

shells. Why do the plants of Porto Santo and Madeira agree so nearly?

And why do the shells which are the same as European or African species

remain quite unaltered, like the Crag species, which returned unchanged

to the British seas after being expelled from them by glacial cold,

when two millions (?) of years had elapsed, and after such migration to

milder seas? Be so good as to explain all this in your next letter.

LETTER 48. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, July 5th [1856].

I write this morning in great tribulation about Tristan d'Acunha. (48/1.

See "Flora Antarctica," page 216. Though Tristan d'Acunha is "only 1,000

miles distant from the Cape of Good Hope, and 3,000 from the Strait of

Magalhaens, the botany of this island is far more intimately allied to

that of Fuegia than Africa.") The more I reflect on your Antarctic flora

the more I am astounded. You give all the facts so clearly and fully,

that it is impossible to help speculating on the subject; but it drives

me to despair, for I cannot gulp down your continent; and not being able

to do so gives, in my eyes, the multiple creationists an awful triumph.

It is a wondrous case, and how strange that A. De Candolle should have

ignored it; which he certainly has, as it seems to me. I wrote Lyell a

long geological letter (48/2. "Life and Letters," II., page 74.) about

continents, and I have had a very long and interesting answer; but

I cannot in the least gather his opinion about all your continental

extensionists; and I have written again beseeching a verdict. (48/3.

In the tenth edition of the "Principles," 1872, Lyell added a chapter

(Chapter XLI., page 406) on insular floras and faunas in relation to the

origin of species; he here (page 410) gives his reasons against Forbes

as an extensionist.) I asked him to send to you my letter, for as it

was well copied it would not be troublesome to read; but whether worth

reading I really do not know; I have given in it the reasons which make

me strongly opposed to continental extensions.

I was very glad to get your note some days ago: I wish you would think

it worth while, as you intend to have the Laburnum case translated, to

write to "Wien" (that unknown place) (48/4. There is a tradition that

Darwin once asked Hooker where "this place Wien is, where they publish

so many books."), and find out how the Laburnum has been behaving: it

really ought to be known.

The Entada is a beast. (48/5. The large seeds of Entada scandens are

occasionally floated across the Atlantic and cast on the shores of

Europe.); I have never differed from you about the growth of a plant in

a new island being a FAR harder trial than transportal, though certainly

that seems hard enough. Indeed I suspect I go even further than you in

this respect; but it is too long a story.

Thank you for the Aristolochia and Viscum cases: what species were

they? I ask, because oddly these two very genera I have seen advanced

as instances (I forget at present by whom, but by good men) in which

the agency of insects was absolutely necessary for impregnation. In

our British dioecious Viscum I suppose it must be necessary. Was there

anything to show that the stigma was ready for pollen in these two

cases? for it seems that there are many cases in which pollen is shed

long before the stigma is ready. As in our Viscum, insects carry,

sufficiently regularly for impregnation, pollen from flower to flower,

I should think that there must be occasional crosses even in an

hermaphrodite Viscum. I have never heard of bees and butterflies, only

moths, producing fertile eggs without copulation.

With respect to the Ray Society, I profited so enormously by its

publishing my Cirrepedia, that I cannot quite agree with you on

confining it to translations; I know not how else I could possibly have

published.

I have just sent in my name for 20 pounds to the Linnaean Society, but

I must confess I have done it with heavy groans, whereas I daresay you

gave your 20 pounds like a light-hearted gentleman...

P.S. Wollaston speaks strongly about the intermediate grade between

two varieties in insects and mollusca being often rarer than the two

varieties themselves. This is obviously very important for me, and

not easy to explain. I believe I have had cases from you. But, if you

believe in this, I wish you would give me a sentence to quote from

you on this head. There must, I think, be a good deal of truth in it;

otherwise there could hardly be nearly distinct varieties under any

species, for we should have instead a blending series, as in brambles

and willows.

LETTER 49. TO J.D. HOOKER. July 13th, 1856.

What a book a devil's chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful,

blundering, low, and horribly cruel works of nature! With respect to

crossing, from one sentence in your letter I think you misunderstand me.

I am very far from believing in hybrids: only in crossing of the same

species or of close varieties. These two or three last days I have been

observing wheat, and have convinced myself that L. Deslongchamps is

in error about impregnation taking place in closed flowers; i.e., of

course, I can judge only from external appearances. By the way, R. Brown

once told me that the use of the brush on stigma of grasses was unknown.

Do you know its use?...

You say most truly about multiple creations and my notions. If any one

case could be proved, I should be smashed; but as I am writing my book,

I try to take as much pains as possible to give the strongest cases

opposed to me, and often such conjectures as occur to me. I have been

working your books as the richest (and vilest) mine against me; and

what hard work I have had to get up your New Zealand Flora! As I have

to quote you so often, I should like to refer to Muller's case of

the Australian Alps. Where is it published? Is it a book? A correct

reference would be enough for me, though it is wrong even to quote

without looking oneself. I should like to see very much Forbes's sheets,

which you refer to; but I must confess (I hardly know why) I have got

rather to mistrust poor dear Forbes.

There is wonderful ill logic in his famous and admirable memoir on

distribution, as it appears to me, now that I have got it up so as to

give the heads in a page. Depend on it, my saying is a true one--viz.

that a compiler is a great man, and an original man a commonplace man.

Any fool can generalise and speculate; but oh, my heavens, to get up at

second hand a New Zealand Flora, that is work...

And now I am going to beg almost as great a favour as a man can beg of

another: and I ask some five or six weeks before I want the favour done,

that it may appear less horrid. It is to read, but well copied out, my

pages (about forty!!) on Alpine floras and faunas, Arctic and Antarctic

floras and faunas, and the supposed cold mundane period. It would be

really an enormous advantage to me, as I am sure otherwise to make

botanical blunders. I would specify the few points on which I most want

your advice. But it is quite likely that you may object on the ground

that you might be publishing before me (I hope to publish in a year at

furthest), so that it would hamper and bother you; and secondly you may

object to the loss of time, for I daresay it would take an hour and a

half to read. It certainly would be of immense advantage to me; but of

course you must not think of doing it if it would interfere with your

own work.

I do not consider this request in futuro as breaking my promise to give

no more trouble for some time.

From Lyell's letters, he is coming round at a railway pace on the

mutability of species, and authorises me to put some sentences on this

head in my preface.

I shall meet Lyell on Wednesday at Lord Stanhope's, and will ask him to

forward my letter to you; though, as my arguments have not struck him,

they cannot have force, and my head must be crotchety on the subject;

but the crotchets keep firmly there. I have given your opinion on

continuous land, I see, too strongly.

LETTER 50. TO S.P. WOODWARD. Down, July 18th [1856].

Very many thanks for your kindness in writing to me at such length, and

I am glad to say for your sake that I do not see that I shall have to

beg any further favours. What a range and what a variability in the

Cyrena! (50/1. A genus of Lamellibranchs ranging from the Lias to the

present day.) Your list of the ranges of the land and fresh-water shells

certainly is most striking and curious, and especially as the antiquity

of four of them is so clearly shown.

I have got Harvey's seaside book, and liked it; I was not particularly

struck with it, but I will re-read the first and last chapters.

I am growing as bad as the worst about species, and hardly have a

vestige of belief in the permanence of species left in me; and this

confession will make you think very lightly of me, but I cannot help

it. Such has become my honest conviction, though the difficulties and

arguments against such heresy are certainly most weighty.

LETTER 51. TO C. LYELL. November 10th [1856].

I know you like all cases of negative geological evidence being upset.

I fancied that I was a most unwilling believer in negative evidence; but

yet such negative evidence did seem to me so strong that in my "Fossil

Lepadidae" I have stated, giving reasons, that I did not believe there

could have existed any sessile cirripedes during the Secondary ages.

Now, the other day Bosquet of Maestricht sends me a perfect drawing of a

perfect Chthamalus (a recent genus) from the Chalk! (51/1. Chthamalus,

a genus of Cirripedia. ("A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia," by

Charles Darwin, page 447. London, 1854.) A fossil species of this genus

of Upper Cretaceous age was named by Bosquet Chthamalus Darwini. See

"Origin," Edition VI., page 284; also Zittel, "Traite de Paleontologie,"

Traduit par Dr. C. Barrois, Volume II., page 540, figure 748. Paris,

1887.) Indeed, it is stretching a point to make it specifically distinct

from our living British species. It is a genus not hitherto found in any

Tertiary bed.

LETTER 52. TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down, July 9th, 1857.

I am extremely much obliged to you for having so fully entered on my

point. I knew I was on unsafe ground, but it proves far unsafer than I

had thought. I had thought that Brulle (52/1. This no doubt refers to A.

Brulle's paper in the "Comptes rendus" 1844, of which a translation is

given in the "Annals and Mag. of Natural History," 1844, page 484. In

speaking of the development of the Articulata, the author says "that the

appendages are manifested at an earlier period of the existence of an

Articulate animal the more complex its degree of organisation, and vice

versa that they make their appearance the later, the fewer the number

of transformations which it has to undergo.") had a wider basis for his

generalisation, for I made the extract several years ago, and I

presume (I state it as some excuse for myself) that I doubted it, for,

differently from my general habit, I have not extracted his grounds.

It was meeting with Barneoud's paper which made me think there might be

truth in the doctrine. (52/2. Apparently Barneoud "On the Organogeny

of Irregular Corollas," from the "Comptes rendus," 1847, as given in

"Annals and Mag. of Natural History," 1847, page 440. The paper chiefly

deals with the fact that in their earliest condition irregular flowers

are regular. The view attributed to Barneoud does not seem so definitely

given in this paper as in a previous one ("Ann. Sc. Nat." Bot., Tom.

VI., page 268.) Your instance of heart and brain of fish seems to me

very good. It was a very stupid blunder on my part not thinking of

the posterior part of the time of development. I shall, of course, not

allude to this subject, which I rather grieve about, as I wished it

to be true; but, alas! a scientific man ought to have no wishes, no

affections--a mere heart of stone.

There is only one point in your letter which at present I cannot quite

follow you in: supposing that Barneoud's (I do not say Brulle's) remarks

were true and universal--i.e., that the petals which have to undergo

the greatest amount of development and modification begin to change the

soonest from the simple and common embryonic form of the petal--if this

were a true law, then I cannot but think that it would throw light on

Milne Edwards' proposition that the wider apart the classes of animals

are, the sooner do they diverge from the common embryonic plan--which

common embryonic [plan] may be compared with the similar petals in

the early bud, the several petals in one flower being compared to the

distinct but similar embryos of the different classes. I much wish that

you would so far keep this in mind, that whenever we meet I might hear

how far you differ or concur in this. I have always looked at Barneoud's

and Brulle's proposition as only in some degree analogous.

P.S. I see in my abstract of Milne Edwards' paper, he speaks of "the

most perfect and important organs" as being first developed, and I

should have thought that this was usually synonymous with the most

developed or modified.

LETTER 53. TO J.D. HOOKER.

(53/1. The following letter is chiefly of interest as showing the amount

and kind of work required for Darwin's conclusions on "large genera

varying," which occupy no more than two or three pages in the "Origin"

(Edition I., page 55). Some correspondence on the subject is given in

the "Life and Letters," II., pages 102-5.)

Down, August 22nd [1857].

Your handwriting always rejoices the cockles of my heart; though you

have no reason to be "overwhelmed with shame," as I did not expect to

hear.

I write now chiefly to know whether you can tell me how to write to

Hermann Schlagenheit (is this spelt right?) (53/2. Schlagintweit.), for

I believe he is returned to England, and he has poultry skins for me

from W. Elliot of Madras.

I am very glad to hear that you have been tabulating some Floras about

varieties. Will you just tell me roughly the result? Do you not find it

takes much time? I am employing a laboriously careful schoolmaster, who

does the tabulating and dividing into two great cohorts, more carefully

than I can. This being so, I should be very glad some time to have Koch,

Webb's Canaries, and Ledebour, and Grisebach, but I do not know even

where Rumelia is. I shall work the British flora with three separate

Floras; and I intend dividing the varieties into two classes, as Asa

Gray and Henslow give the materials, and, further, A. Gray and H.C.

Watson have marked for me the forms, which they consider real species,

but yet are very close to others; and it will be curious to compare

results. If it will all hold good it is very important for me; for it

explains, as I think, all classification, i.e. the quasi-branching and

sub-branching of forms, as if from one root, big genera increasing and

splitting up, etc., as you will perceive. But then comes in, also, what

I call a principle of divergence, which I think I can explain, but which

is too long, and perhaps you would not care to hear. As you have been on

this subject, you might like to hear what very little is complete (for

my schoolmaster has had three weeks' holidays)--only three cases as yet,

I see.

BABINGTON--British Flora.

593 species in genera of 5 and 593 (odd chance equal) in

upwards have in a thousand genera of 3 and downwards have

species presenting vars. in a thousand presenting vars.

134/1000.* 37/1000.

(*53/3. This sentence may be interpreted as follows: The number of

species which present varieties are 134 per thousand in genera of 5 species

and upwards. The result is obtained from tabulation of 593 species.)

HOOKER--New Zealand.

Genera with 4 species and With 3 species and downwards

upwards, 150/1000. 114/1000.

GODRON--Central France.

With 5 species and upwards With 3 species and downwards

160/1000. 105/1000.

I do not enter into details on omitting introduced plants and very

varying genera, as Rubus, Salix, Rosa, etc., which would make the result

If I can think of any one likely to take your "Illustrations" (36/3.