More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume I

C >> Charles Darwin >> More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume I

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44

A discussion on the relations of the floras, especially the alpine ones, of
Azores, Madeira, and Canary Islands, would be, I should think, of general
interest. How curious, the several doubtful species, which are referred to
by Watson, at the end of his paper; just as happens with birds at the
Galapagos...Any time that you can put me in the way of reading about alpine
floras, I shall feel it as the greatest kindness. I grieve there is no
better authority for Bourbon, than that stupid Bory: I presume his remark
that plants, on isolated volcanic islands are polymorphous (i.e., I
suppose, variable?) is quite gratuitous. Farewell, my dear Hooker. This
letter is infamously unclear, and I fear can be of no use, except giving
you the impression of a botanical ignoramus.

LETTER 316. TO J.D. HOOKER.
Down, March 19th [1845].

...I was very glad to hear Humboldt's views on migrations and double
creations. It is very presumptuous, but I feel sure that though one cannot
prove extensive migration, the leading considerations, proper to the
subject, are omitted, and I will venture to say even by Humboldt. I should
like some time to put the case, like a lawyer, for your consideration, in
the point of view under which, I think, it ought to be viewed. The
conclusion which I come to is, that we cannot pretend, with our present
knowledge, to put any limit to the possible, and even probable, migration
of plants. If you can show that many of the Fuegian plants, common to
Europe, are found in intermediate points, it will be a grand argument in
favour of the actuality of migration; but not finding them will not, in my
eyes, much diminish the probability of their having thus migrated. My pen
always runs away, in writing to you; and a most unsteady, vilely bad pace
it goes. What would I not give to write simple English, without having to
rewrite and rewrite every sentence.

LETTER 317. TO J.D. HOOKER.
Friday [June 29th, 1845].

I have been an ungrateful dog for not having answered your letter sooner,
but I have been so hard at work correcting proofs (317/1. The second
edition of the "Journal."), together with some unwellness, that I have not
had one quarter of an hour to spare. I finally corrected the first third
of the old volume, which will appear on July 1st. I hope and think I have
somewhat improved it. Very many thanks for your remarks; some of them came
too late to make me put some of my remarks more cautiously. I feel,
however, still inclined to abide by my evaporation notion to account for
the clouds of steam, which rise from the wooded valleys after rain. Again,
I am so obstinate that I should require very good evidence to make me
believe that there are two species of Polyborus (317/2. Polyborus Novae
Zelandiae, a carrion hawk mentioned as very common in the Falklands.) in
the Falkland Islands. Do the Gauchos there admit it? Much as I talked to
them, they never alluded to such a fact. In the Zoology I have discussed
the sexual and immature plumage, which differ much.

I return the enclosed agreeable letter with many thanks. I am extremely
glad of the plants collected at St. Paul's, and shall be particularly
curious whenever they arrive to hear what they are. I dined the other day
at Sir J. Lubbock's, and met R. Brown, and we had much laudatory talk about
you. He spoke very nicely about your motives in now going to Edinburgh.
He did not seem to know, and was much surprised at what I stated (I believe
correctly) on the close relation between the Kerguelen and T. del Fuego
floras. Forbes is doing apparently very good work about the introduction
and distribution of plants. He has forestalled me in what I had hoped
would have been an interesting discussion--viz., on the relation between
the present alpine and Arctic floras, with connection to the last change of
climate from Arctic to temperate, when the then Arctic lowland plants must
have been driven up the mountains. (317/3. Forbes' Essay "On the
Connection between the Distribution of the Existing Fauna and Flora of the
British Isles and the Geological Changes which have affected their Area,"
was published in 1846. See note, Letter 20.)

I am much pleased to hear of the pleasant reception you received at
Edinburgh. (317/4. Sir J.D. Hooker was a candidate for the Chair of
Botany at Edinburgh. See "Life and Letters," I., pages 335, 342.) I hope
your impressions will continue agreeable; my associations with auld Reekie
are very friendly. Do you ever see Dr. Coldstream? If you do, would you
give him my kind remembrances? You ask about amber. I believe all the
species are extinct (i.e. without the amber has been doctored), and
certainly the greater number are. (317/5. For an account of plants in
amber see Goeppert and Berendt, "Der Bernstein und die in ihm befindlichen
Pflanzenreste der Vorwelt," Berlin, 1845; Goeppert, "Coniferen des
Bernstein," Danzig, 1883; Conwentz, "Monographie der Baltischen
Bernsteinbaume," Danzig, 1890.)

If you have any other corrections ready, will you send them soon, for I
shall go to press with second Part in less than a week. I have been so
busy that I have not yet begun d'Urville, and have read only first chapter
of Canary Islands! I am most particularly obliged to you for having lent
me the latter, for I know not where else I could have ever borrowed it.
There is the "Kosmos" to read, and Lyell's "Travels in North America." It
is awful to think of how much there is to read. What makes H. Watson a
renegade? I had a talk with Captain Beaufort the other day, and he charged
me to keep a book and enter anything which occurred to me, which deserved
examination or collection in any part of the world, and he would sooner or
later get it in the instructions to some ship. If anything occurs to you
let me hear, for in the course of a month or two I must write out
something. I mean to urge collections of all kinds on any isolated
islands. I suspect that there are several in the northern half of the
Pacific, which have never been visited by a collector. This is a dull,
untidy letter. Farewell.

As you care so much for insular floras, are you aware that I collected all
in flower on the Abrolhos Islands? but they are very near the coast of
Brazil. Nevertheless, I think they ought to be just looked at, under a
geographical point of view.

LETTER 318. TO J.D. HOOKER.
Down, November [1845].

I have just got as far as Lycopodium in your Flora, and, in truth, cannot
say enough how much I have been interested in all your scattered remarks.
I am delighted to have in print many of the statements which you made in
your letters to me, when we were discussing some of the geographical
points. I can never cease marvelling at the similarity of the Antarctic
floras: it is wonderful. I hope you will tabulate all your results, and
put prominently what you allude to (and what is pre-eminently wanted by
non-botanists like myself), which of the genera are, and which not, found
in the lowland or in the highland Tropics, as far as known. Out of the
very many new observations to me, nothing has surprised me more than the
absence of Alpine floras in the S[outh] Islands. (318/1. See "Flora
Antarctica," I., page 79, where the author says that "in the South...on
ascending the mountains, few or no new forms occur." With regard to the
Sandwich Islands, Sir Joseph wrote (page 75) that "though the volcanic
islands of the Sandwich group attain a greater elevation than this [10,000
feet], there is no such development of new species at the upper level."
More recent statements to the same effect occur in Grisebach, "Vegetation
der Erde," Volume II., page 530. See also Wallace, "Island Life," page
307.) It strikes me as most inexplicable. Do you feel sure about the
similar absence in the Sandwich group? Is it not opposed quite to the case
of Teneriffe and Madeira, and Mediterranean Islands? I had fancied that T.
del Fuego had possessed a large alpine flora! I should much like to know
whether the climate of north New Zealand is much more insular than
Tasmania. I should doubt it from general appearance of places, and yet I
presume the flora of the former is far more scanty than of Tasmania. Do
tell me what you think on this point. I have also been particularly
interested by all your remarks on variation, affinities, etc.: in short,
your book has been to me a most valuable one, and I must have purchased it
had you not most kindly given it, and so rendered it even far more valuable
to me. When you compare a species to another, you sometimes do not mention
the station of the latter (it being, I presume, well-known), but to non-
botanists such words of explanation would add greatly to the interest--not
that non-botanists have any claim at all for such explanations in
professedly botanical works. There is one expression which you botanists
often use (though, I think, not you individually often), which puts me in a
passion--viz., calling polleniferous flowers "sterile," as non-seed-
bearing. (318/2. See Letter 16.) Are the plates from your own drawings?
They strike me as excellent. So now you have had my presumptuous
commendations on your great work.

LETTER 319. TO J.D. HOOKER.
Down, Friday [1845-6].

It is quite curious how our opinions agree about Forbes' views. (319/1.
See Letter 20.) I was very glad to have your last letter, which was even
more valuable to me than most of yours are, and that is saying, I assure
you, a great deal. I had written to Forbes to object about the Azores
(319/2. Edward Forbes supposed that the Azores, the Madeiras, and Canaries
"are the last remaining fragments" of a continent which once connected them
with Western Europe and Northern Spain. Lyell's "Principles," Edition XI.,
Volume II., page 410. See Forbes, op. cit.) on the same grounds as you
had, and he made some answer, which partially satisfied me, but really I am
so stupid I cannot remember it. He insisted strongly on the fewness of the
species absolutely peculiar to the Azores--most of the non-European species
being common to Madeira. I had thought that a good sprinkling were
absolutely peculiar. Till I saw him last Wednesday I thought he had not a
leg to stand on in his geology about his post-Miocene land; and his
reasons, upon reflection, seem rather weak: the main one is that there are
no deposits (more recent than the Miocene age) on the Miocene strata of
Malta, etc., but I feel pretty sure that this cannot be trusted as evidence
that Malta must have been above water during all the post-Miocene period.
He had one other reason, to my mind still less trustworthy. I had also
written to Forbes, before your letter, objecting to the Sargassum (319/3.
Edward Forbes supposed that the Sargassum or Gulf-weed represents the
littoral sea-weeds of a now submerged continent. "Mem. Geol. Survey Great
Britain," Volume I., 1846, page 349. See Lyell's "Principles," II., page
396, Edition XI.), but apparently on wrong grounds, for I could see no
reason, on the common view of absolute creations, why one Fucus should not
have been created for the ocean, as well as several Confervae for the same
end. It is really a pity that Forbes is quite so speculative: he will
injure his reputation, anyhow, on the Continent; and thus will do less
good. I find this is the opinion of Falconer, who was with us on Sunday,
and was extremely agreeable. It is wonderful how much heterogeneous
information he has about all sorts of things. I the more regret Forbes
cannot more satisfactorily prove his views, as I heartily wish they were
established, and to a limited extent I fully believe they are true; but his
boldness is astounding. Do I understand your letter right, that West
Africa (319/4. This is of course a misunderstanding.) and Java belong to
the same botanical region--i.e., that they have many non-littoral species
in common? If so, it is a sickening fact: think of the distance with the
Indian Ocean interposed! Do some time answer me this. With respect to
polymorphism, which you have been so very kind as to give me so much
information on, I am quite convinced it must be given up in the sense you
have discussed it in; but from such cases as the Galapagos birds and from
hypothetical notions on variation, I should be very glad to know whether it
must be given up in a slightly different point of view; that is, whether
the peculiar insular species are generally well and strongly
distinguishable from the species on the nearest continent (when there is a
continent near); the Galapagos, Canary Islands, and Madeira ought to answer
this. I should have hypothetically expected that a good many species would
have been fine ones, like some of the Galapagos birds, and still more so on
the different islands of such groups.

I am going to ask you some questions, but I should really sometimes almost
be glad if you did not answer me for a long time, or not at all, for in
honest truth I am often ashamed at, and marvel at, your kindness in writing
such long letters to me. So I beg you to mind, never to write to me when
it bores you. Do you know "Elements de Teratologie (on monsters, I
believe) Vegetale," par A. Moquin Tandon"? (319/5. Paris, 1841.) Is it a
good book, and will it treat on hereditary malconformations or varieties?
I have almost finished the tremendous task of 850 pages of A. St. Hilaire's
Lectures (319/6. "Lecons de Botanique," 1841.), which you set me, and very
glad I am that you told me to read it, for I have been much interested with
parts. Certain expressions which run through the whole work put me in a
passion: thus I take, at hazard, "la plante n'etait pas tout a fait ASSEZ
AFFAIBLIE pour produire de veritables carpelles." Every organ or part
concerned in reproduction--that highest end of all lower organisms--is,
according to this man, produced by a lesser or greater degree of
"affaiblissement"; and if that is not an AFFAIBLISSEMENT of language, I
don't know what is. I have used an expression here, which leads me to ask
another question: on what sort of grounds do botanists make one family of
plants higher than another? I can see that the simplest cryptogamic are
lowest, and I suppose, from their relations, the monocotyledonous come
next; but how in the different families of the dicotyledons? The point
seems to me equally obscure in many races of animals, and I know not how to
tell whether a bee or cicindela is highest. (319/7. On use of terms
"high" and "low" see Letters 36 and 70.) I see Aug. Hilaire uses a
multiplicity of parts--several circles of stamens, etc.--as evidence of the
highness of the Ranunculaceae; now Owen has truly, as I believe, used the
same argument to show the lowness of some animals, and has established the
proposition, that the fewer the number of any organ, as legs or wings or
teeth, by which the same end is gained, the higher the animal. One other
question. Hilaire says (page 572) that "chez une foule de plantes c'est
dans le bouton," that impregnation takes place. He instances only Goodenia
(319/8. For letters on this point, see Index s.v. Goodenia.), and Falconer
cannot recollect any cases. Do you know any of this "foule" of plants?
From reasons, little better than hypothetical, I greatly misdoubt the
accuracy of this, presumptuous as it is; that plants shed their pollen in
the bud is, of course, quite a different story. Can you illuminate me?
Henslow will send the Galapagos scraps to you. I direct this to Kew, as I
suppose, after your sister's marriage (on which I beg to send you my
congratulations), you will return home.

There are great fears that Falconer will have to go out to India--this will
be a grievous loss to Palaeontology.

LETTER 320. TO J.D. HOOKER.
Down, April 10th [1846].

I was much pleased to see and sign your certificate for the Geolog[ical
Society]; we shall thus occasionally, I hope, meet. (320/1. Sir Joseph
was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society in 1846.)

I have been an ungrateful dog not to have thanked you before this for the
cake and books. The children and their betters pronounced the former
excellent, and Annie wanted to know whether it was the gentleman "what
played with us so." I wish we were at a more reasonable distance, that
Emma and myself could have called on Lady Hooker with our congratulations
on this occasion. It was very good of you to put in both numbers of the
"Hort. Journal." I think Dean Herbert's article well worth reading. I
have been so extravagant as to order M[oquin] Tandon (320/2. Probably
"Elements de Teratologie Vegetale": Paris, 1841.), for though I have not
found, as yet, anything particularly novel or striking, yet I found that I
wished to score a good many passages so as to re-read them at some future
time, and hence have ordered the book. Consequently I hope soon to send
back your books. I have sent off the Ascension plants through Bunsen to
Ehrenberg.

There was much in your last long letter which interested me much; and I am
particularly glad that you are going to attend to polymorphism in our last
and incorrect sense in your works; I see that it must be most difficult to
take any sort of constant limit for the amount of possible variation. How
heartily I do wish that all your works were out and complete; so that I
could quietly think over them. I fear the Pacific Islands must be far
distant in futurity. I fear, indeed, that Forbes is going rather too
quickly ahead; but we shall soon see all his grounds, as I hear he is now
correcting the press on this subject; he has plenty of people who attack
him; I see Falconer never loses a chance, and it is wonderful how well
Forbes stands it. What a very striking fact is the botanical relation
between Africa and Java; as you now state it, I am pleased rather than
disgusted, for it accords capitally with the distribution of the mammifers
(320/3. See Wallace, "Geogr. Distribution," Volume I., page 263, on the
"special Oriental or even Malayan element" in the West African mammals and
birds.): only that I judge from your letters that the Cape differs even
more markedly than I had thought, from the rest of Africa, and much more
than the mammifers do. I am surprised to find how well mammifers and
plants seem to accord in their general distribution. With respect to my
strong objection to Aug. St. Hilaire's language on AFFAIBLISSEMENT (320/4.
This refers to his "Lecons de Botanique (Morphologie Vegetale)," 1841.
Saint-Hilaire often explains morphological differences as due to
differences in vigour. See Letter 319.), it is perhaps hardly rational,
and yet he confesses that some of the most vigorous plants in nature have
some of their organs struck with this weakness--he does not pretend, of
course, that they were ever otherwise in former generations--or that a more
vigorously growing plant produces organs less weakened, and thus fails in
producing its typical structure. In a plant in a state of nature, does
cutting off the sap tend to produce flower-buds? I know it does in trees
in orchards. Owen has been doing some grand work in the morphology of the
vertebrata: your arm and hand are parts of your head, or rather the
processes (i.e. modified ribs) of the occipital vertebra! He gave me a
grand lecture on a cod's head. By the way, would it not strike you as
monstrous, if in speaking of the minute and lessening jaws, palpi, etc., of
an insect or crustacean, any one were to say they were produced by the
affaiblissement of the less important but larger organs of locomotion. I
see from your letter (though I do not suppose it is worth referring to the
subject) that I could not have expressed what I meant when I allowed you to
infer that Owen's rule of single organs being of a higher order than
multiple organs applied only to locomotive, etc.; it applies to every the
most important organ. I do not doubt that he would say the placentata
having single wombs, whilst the marsupiata have double ones, is an instance
of this law. I believe, however, in most instances where one organ, as a
nervous centre or heart, takes the places of several, it rises in
complexity; but it strikes me as really odd, seeing in this instance
eminent botanists and zoologists starting from reverse grounds. Pray
kindly bear in mind about impregnation in bud: I have never (for some
years having been on the look-out) heard of an instance: I have long
wished to know how it was in Subularia, or some such name, which grows on
the bottom of Scotch lakes, and likewise in a grassy plant, which lives in
brackish water, I quite forget name, near Thames; elder botanists doubted
whether it was a Phanerogam. When we meet I will tell you why I doubt this
bud-impregnation.

We are at present in a state of utmost confusion, as we have pulled all our
offices down and are going to rebuild and alter them. I am personally in a
state of utmost confusion also, for my cruel wife has persuaded me to leave
off snuff for a month; and I am most lethargic, stupid, and melancholy in
consequence.

Farewell, my dear Hooker. Ever yours.

LETTER 321. TO J.D. HOOKER.
Down, April 19th [1855].

Thank you for your list of R.S. candidates, which will be very useful to
me.

I have thought a good deal about my salting experiments (321/1. For an
account of Darwin's experiments on the effect of salt water on the
germination of seeds, see "Life and Letters," II., page 54. In April he
wrote to the "Gardeners' Chronicle" asking for information, and his results
were published in the same journal, May 26th and November 24th, 1855; also
in the "Linn. Soc. Journal," 1857.), and really think they are worth
pursuing to a certain extent; but I hardly see the use (at least, the use
equivalent to the enormous labour) of trying the experiment on the immense
scale suggested by you. I should think a few seeds of the leading orders,
or a few seeds of each of the classes mentioned by you, with albumen of
different kinds would suffice to show the possibility of considerable sea-
transportal. To tell whether any particular insular flora had thus been
transported would require that each species should be examined. Will you
look through these printed lists, and if you can, mark with red cross such
as you would suggest? In truth, I fear I impose far more on your great
kindness, my dear Hooker, than I have any claim; but you offered this, for
I never thought of asking you for more than a suggestion. I do not think I
could manage more than forty or fifty kinds at a time, for the water, I
find, must be renewed every other day, as it gets to smell horribly: and I
do not think your plan good of little packets of cambric, as this entangles
so much air. I shall keep the great receptacle with salt water with the
forty or fifty little bottles, partly open, immersed in it, in the cellar
for uniform temperature. I must plant out of doors, as I have no
greenhouse.

I told you I had inserted notice in the "Gardeners' Chronicle," and to-day
I have heard from Berkeley that he has already sent an assortment of seeds
to Margate for some friend to put in salt water; so I suppose he thinks the
experiment worth trying, as he has thus so very promptly taken it into his
own hands. (321/2. Rev. M.J. Berkeley published on the subject in the
"Gardeners' Chronicle," September 1st, 1855.)

Reading this over, it sounds as if I were offended!!! which I need not say
is not so. (321/3. Added afterwards between the lines.)

I may just mention that the seeds mentioned in my former note have all
germinated after fourteen days' immersion, except the cabbages all dead,
and the radishes have had their germination delayed and several I think
dead; cress still all most vigorous. French spinach, oats, barley, canary-
seed, borage, beet have germinated after seven days' immersion.

It is quite surprising that the radishes should have grown, for the salt
water was putrid to an extent which I could not have thought credible had I
not smelt it myself, as was the water with the cabbage-seed.

LETTER 322. TO J.D. HOOKER.
Down, June 10th [1855].

If being thoroughly interested with your letters makes me worthy of them, I
am very worthy.

I have raised some seedling Sensitive Plants, but if you can READILY spare
me a moderately sized plant, I shall be glad of it.

You encourage me so, that I will slowly go on salting seeds. I have not, I
see, explained myself, to let you suppose that I objected to such cases as
the former union of England and the Continent; I look at this case as
proved by animals, etc., etc.; and, indeed, it would be an astounding fact
if the land had kept so steady as that they had not been united, with
Snowdon elevated 1,300 feet in recent times, etc., etc.

It is only against the former union with the oceanic volcanic islands that
I am vehement. (322/1. See "Life and Letters," Volume II., pages 72, 74,
80, 109.) What a perplexing case New Zealand does seem: is not the
absence of Leguminosae, etc., etc., FULLY as much opposed to continental
connexion as to any other theory? What a curious fact you state about
distribution and lowness going together.