More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II

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LETTER 568. TO J.D. HOOKER.
Down, June 30th [1866].

I have heard from Sulivan (who, poor fellow, gives a very bad account of
his own health) about the fossils (568/1. In a letter to Huxley (June 4th,
1866) Darwin wrote: "Admiral Sulivan several years ago discovered an
astonishingly rich accumulation of fossil bones not far from the Straits
[of Magellan]...During many years it has seemed to me extremely desirable
that these should be collected; and here is an excellent opportunity.")...
The place is Gallegos, on the S. coast of Patagonia. Sulivan says that in
the course of two or three days all the boats in the ship could be filled
twice over; but to get good specimens out of the hardish rock two or three
weeks would be requisite. It would be a grand haul for Palaeontology. I
have been thinking over your lecture. (568/2. A lecture on "Insular
Floras" given at the British Association meeting at Nottingham, August
27th, 1866, published in the "Gard. Chron." 1867.) Will it not be possible
to give enlarged drawings of some leading forms of trees? You will, of
course, have a large map, and George tells me that he saw at Sir H. James',
at Southampton, a map of the world on a new principle, as seen from within,
so that almost 4/5ths of the globe was shown at once on a large scale.
Would it not be worth while to borrow one of these from Sir H. James as a
curiosity to hang up?

Remember you are to come here before Nottingham. I have almost finished
the last number of H. Spencer, and am astonished at its prodigality of
original thought. But the reflection constantly recurred to me that each
suggestion, to be of real value to science, would require years of work.
It is also very unsatisfactory, the impossibility of conjecturing where
direct action of external circumstances begins and ends--as he candidly
owns in discussing the production of woody tissue in the trunks of trees on
the one hand, and on the other in spines and the shells of nuts. I shall
like to hear what you think of this number when we meet.

LETTER 569. TO A. GAUDRY.
Down, November 17th, 1868.

On my return home after a short absence I found your note of Nov. 9th, and
your magnificent work on the fossil animals of Attica. (569/1. The
"Geologie de l'Attique," 2 volumes 4to, 1862-7, is the only work of
Gaudry's of this date in Mr. Darwin's library.) I assure you that I feel
very grateful for your generosity, and for the honour which you have thus
conferred on me. I know well, from what I have already read of extracts,
that I shall find your work a perfect mine of wealth. One long passage
which Sir C. Lyell quotes from you in the 10th and last edition of the
"Principles of Geology" is one of the most striking which I have ever read
on the affiliation of species. (569/2. The quotation in Lyell's
"Principles," Edition X., Volume II., page 484, is from M. Gaudry's
"Animaux Fossiles de Pikermi," 1866, page 34:--

"In how different a light does the question of the nature of species now
present itself to us from that in which it appeared only twenty years ago,
before we had studied the fossil remains of Greece and the allied forms of
other countries. How clearly do these fossil relics point to the idea that
species, genera, families, and orders now so distinct have had common
ancestors. The more we advance and fill up the gaps, the more we feel
persuaded that the remaining voids exist rather in our knowledge than in
nature. A few blows of the pickaxe at the foot of the Pyrenees, of the
Himalaya, of Mount Pentelicus in Greece, a few diggings in the sandpits of
Eppelsheim, or in the Mauvaises Terres of Nebraska, have revealed to us the
closest connecting links between forms which seemed before so widely
separated. How much closer will these links be drawn when Palaeontology
shall have escaped from its cradle!")

LETTER 570. A. SEDGWICK TO CHARLES DARWIN.

(570/1. In May, 1870, Darwin "went to the Bull Hotel, Cambridge, to see
the boys, and for a little rest and enjoyment." (570/2. See "Life and
Letters," III., 125.) The following letter was received after his return
to Down.)

Trinity College, Cambridge, May 30th, 1870.

My dear Darwin,

Your very kind letter surprised me. Not that I was surprised at the
pleasant and very welcome feeling with which it was written. But I could
not make out what I had done to deserve the praise of "extraordinary
kindness to yourself and family." I would most willingly have done my best
to promote the objects of your visit, but you gave me no opportunity of
doing so. I was truly grieved to find that my joy at seeing you again was
almost too robust for your state of nerves, and that my society, after a
little while, became oppressive to you. But I do trust that your Cambridge
visit has done you no constitutional harm; nay, rather that it has done you
some good. I only speak honest truth when I say that I was overflowing
with joy when I saw you, and saw you in the midst of a dear family party,
and solaced at every turn by the loving care of a dear wife and daughters.
How different from my position--that of a very old man, living in cheerless
solitude! May god help and cheer you all with the comfort of hopeful
hearts--you and your wife, and your sons and daughters!

You were talking about my style of writing,--I send you my last specimen,
and it will probably continue to be my last. It is the continuation of a
former pamphlet of which I have not one spare copy. I do not ask you to
read it. It is addressed to the old people in my native Dale of Dent, on
the outskirts of Westmorland. While standing at the door of the old
vicarage, I can see down the valley the Lake mountains--Hill Bell at the
head of Windermere, about twenty miles off. On Thursday next (D.V.) I am
to start for Dent, which I have not visited for full two years. Two years
ago I could walk three or four miles with comfort. Now, alas! I can only
hobble about on my stick.

I remain your true-hearted old friend
A. Sedgwick.

LETTER 571. TO C. LYELL.
Down, September 3rd [1874].

Many thanks for your very kind and interesting letter. I was glad to hear
at Southampton from Miss Heathcote a good account of your health and
strength.

With respect to the great subject to which you refer in your P.S., I always
try to banish it from my mind as insoluble; but if I were circumstanced as
you are, no doubt it would recur in the dead of the night with painful
force. Many persons seem to make themselves quite easy about immortality
(571/1. See "Life and Letters," I., page 312.) and the existence of a
personal God, by intuition; and I suppose that I must differ from such
persons, for I do not feel any innate conviction on any such points.

We returned home about ten days ago from Southampton, and I enjoyed my
holiday, which did me much good. But already I am much fatigued by
microscope and experimental work with insect-eating plants.

When at Southampton I was greatly interested by looking at the odd gravel
deposits near at hand, and speculating about their formation. You once
told me something about them, but I forget what; and I think that Prestwich
has written on the superficial deposits on the south coasts, and I must
find out his paper and read it. (571/2. Prof. Prestwich contributed
several papers to the Geological Society on the Superficial Deposits of the
South of England.)

From what I have seen of Mr. Judd's papers I have thought that he would
rank amongst the few leading British geologists.

LETTER 572. TO J.D. HOOKER.

(572/1. The following letter was written before Mr. Darwin knew that Sir
Charles Lyell was to be buried in Westminster Abbey, a memorial which
thoroughly satisfied him. See "Life and Letters," III., 197.)

Down, February 23rd, 1875.

I have just heard from Miss Buckley of Lyell's death. I have long felt
opposed to the present rage for testimonials; but when I think how Lyell
revolutionised Geology, and aided in the progress of so many other branches
of science, I wish that something could be done in his honour. On the
other hand it seems to me that a poor testimonial would be worse than none;
and testimonials seem to succeed only when a man has been known and loved
by many persons, as in the case of Falconer and Forbes. Now, I doubt
whether of late years any large number of scientific men did feel much
attachment towards Lyell; but on this head I am very ill fitted to judge.
I should like to hear some time what you think, and if anything is proposed
I should particularly wish to join in it. We have both lost as good and as
true a friend as ever lived.

LETTER 573. TO J.D. HOOKER.

(573/1. This letter shows the difficulty which the inscription for Sir
Charles Lyell's memorial gave his friends. The existing inscription is,
"Charles Lyell...Author of 'The Principles of Geology'...Throughout a long
and laborious life he sought the means of deciphering the fragmentary
records of the Earth's history in the patient investigation of the present
order of Nature, enlarging the boundaries of knowledge, and leaving on
Scientific thought an enduring influence..."

Down, June 21st [1876].

I am sorry for you about the inscription, which has almost burst me. We
think there are too many plurals in yours, and when read aloud it hisses
like a goose. I think the omission of some words makes it much stronger.
"World" (573/2. The suggested sentence runs: "he gave to the world the
results of his labour, etc.") is much stronger and truer than "public." As
Lyell wrote various other books and memoirs, I have some little doubt about
the "Principles of Geology." People here do not like your "enduring
value": it sounds almost an anticlimax. They do not much like my "last
(or endure) as long as science lasts." If one reads a sentence often
enough, it always becomes odious.

God help you.

LETTER 574. TO OSWALD HEER.
Down, March 8th [1875].

I thank you for your very kind and deeply interesting letter of March 1st,
received yesterday, and for the present of your work, which no doubt I
shall soon receive from Dr. Hooker. (574/1. "Flora Fossilis Arctica,"
Volume III., 1874, sent by Prof. Heer through Sir Joseph Hooker.) The
sudden appearance of so many Dicotyledons in the Upper Chalk appears to me
a most perplexing phenomenon to all who believe in any form of evolution,
especially to those who believe in extremely gradual evolution, to which
view I know that you are strongly opposed. (574/2. The volume referred to
contains a paper on the Cretaceous Flora of the Arctic Zone (Spitzbergen
and Greenland), in which several dicotyledonous plants are described. In a
letter written by Heer to Darwin the author speaks of a species of poplar
which he describes as the oldest Dicotyledon so far recorded.) The
presence of even one true Angiosperm in the Lower Chalk makes me inclined
to conjecture that plants of this great division must have been largely
developed in some isolated area, whence owing to geographical changes, they
at last succeeded in escaping, and spread quickly over the world. (574/3.
No satisfactory evidence has so far been brought forward of the occurrence
of fossil Angiosperms in pre-Cretaceous rocks. The origin of the
Monocotyledons and Dicotyledons remains one of the most difficult and
attractive problems of Palaeobotany.) (574/4. See Letters 395, 398.) But
I fully admit that this case is a great difficulty in the views which I
hold. Many as have been the wonderful discoveries in Geology during the
last half-century, I think none have exceeded in interest your results with
respect to the plants which formerly existed in the Arctic regions. How I
wish that similar collections could be made in the Southern hemisphere, for
instance in Kerguelen's Land.

The death of Sir C. Lyell is a great loss to science, but I do not think to
himself, for it was scarcely possible that he could have retained his
mental powers, and he would have suffered dreadfully from their loss. The
last time I saw him he was speaking with the most lively interest about his
last visit to you, and I was grieved to hear from him a very poor account
of your health. I have been working for some time on a special subject,
namely insectivorous plants. I do not know whether the subject will
interest you, but when my book is published I will have the pleasure of
sending you a copy.

I am very much obliged for your photograph, and enclose one of myself.

LETTER 574*. TO S.B.J. SKERTCHLY.
March 2nd, 1878.

It is the greatest possible satisfaction to a man nearly at the close of
his career to believe that he has aided or stimulated an able and energetic
fellow-worker in the noble cause of science. Therefore your letter has
deeply gratified me. I am writing this away from home, as my health
failed, and I was forced to rest; and this will account for the delay in
answering your letter. No doubt on my return home I shall find the memoir
which you have kindly sent me. I shall read it with much interest, as I
have heard something of your work from Prof. Geikie, and have read his
admirable "Ice Age." (574/5. "The Great Ice Age and its Relation to the
Antiquity of Man": London, 1874. By James Geikie.) I have noticed the
criticisms on your work, but such opposition must be expected by every one
who draws fine grand conclusions, and such assuredly are yours as
abstracted in your letter. (574/6. Mr. S.B.J. Skertchly recorded "the
discovery of palaeolithic flint implements, mammalian bones, and
fresh-water shells in brick-earths below the Boulder-clay of East Anglia,"
in a letter published in the "Geol. Mag." Volume III., page 476, 1876.
(See also "The Fenland, Past and Present." S.H. Miller and S.B.J.
Skertchly, London, 1878.) The conclusions of Mr. Skertchly as to the pre-
Glacial age of the flint implements were not accepted by some authorities.
(See correspondence in "Nature," Volume XV., 1877, pages 141, 142.) We are
indebted to Mr. Marr for calling our attention to Mr. Skertchly's
discovery.) What magnificent progress Geology has made within my lifetime!

I shall have very great pleasure in sending you any of my books with my
autograph, but I really do not know which to send. It will cost you only
the trouble of a postcard to tell me which you would like, and it shall
soon be sent. Forgive this untidy note, as it is rather an effort to
write.

With all good wishes for your continued success in science and for your
happiness...

CHAPTER 2.X.--BOTANY, 1843-1871.

2.X.I. Miscellaneous.--2.X.II. Melastomaceae.--2.X.III. Correspondence
with John Scott.

2.X.I. MISCELLANEOUS, 1843-1862.

(PLATE: SIR JOSEPH HOOKER, 1897. From a Photograph by W.J. Hawker
Wimborne. Walker & Cockerell, ph. sc.)

LETTER 575. TO WILLIAM JACKSON HOOKER.
Down, March 12th [1843].

...When you next write to your son, will you please remember me kindly to
him and give him my best thanks for his note? I had the pleasure yesterday
of reading a letter from him to Mr. Lyell of Kinnordy, full of the most
interesting details and descriptions, and written (if I may be permitted to
make such a criticism) in a particularly agreeable style. It leads me
anxiously to hope, even more than I did before, that he will publish some
separate natural history journal, and not allow (if it can be avoided) his
materials to be merged in another work. I am very glad to hear you talk of
inducing your son to publish an Antarctic Flora. I have long felt much
curiosity for some discussion on the general character of the flora of
Tierra del Fuego, that part of the globe farthest removed in latitude from
us. How interesting will be a strict comparison between the plants of
these regions and of Scotland and Shetland. I am sure I may speak on the
part of Prof. Henslow that all my collection (which gives a fair
representation of the Alpine flora of Tierra del Fuego and of Southern
Patagonia) will be joyfully laid at his disposal.

LETTER 576. TO JOHN LINDLEY.
Down, Saturday [April 8th, 1843].

I take the liberty, at the suggestion of Dr. Royle, of forwarding to you a
few seeds, which have been found under very singular circumstances. They
have been sent to me by Mr. W. Kemp, of Galashiels, a (partially educated)
man, of whose acuteness and accuracy of observation, from several
communications on geological subjects, I have a VERY HIGH opinion. He
found them in a layer under twenty-five feet thickness of white sand, which
seems to have been deposited on the margins of an anciently existing lake.
These seeds are not known to the provincial botanists of the district. He
states that some of them germinated in eight days after being planted, and
are now alive. Knowing the interest you took in some raspberry seeds,
mentioned, I remember, in one of your works, I hope you will not think me
troublesome in asking you to have these seeds carefully planted, and in
begging you so far to oblige me as to take the trouble to inform me of the
result. Dr. Daubeny has started for Spain, otherwise I would have sent him
some. Mr. Kemp is anxious to publish an account of his discovery himself,
so perhaps you will be so kind as to communicate the result to me, and not
to any periodical. The chance, though appearing so impossible, of
recovering a plant lost to any country if not to the world, appears to me
so very interesting, that I hope you will think it worth while to have
these seeds planted, and not returned to me.

LETTER 577. TO C. LYELL.
[September, 1843.]

An interesting fact has lately, as it were, passed through my hands. A Mr.
Kemp (almost a working man), who has written on "parallel roads," and has
corresponded with me (577/1. In a letter to Henslow, Darwin wrote: "If he
[Mr. Kemp] had not shown himself a most careful and ingenious observer, I
should have thought nothing of the case."), sent me in the spring some
seeds, with an account of the spot where they were found, namely, in a
layer at the bottom of a deep sand pit, near Melrose, above the level of
the river, and which sand pit he thinks must have been accumulated in a
lake, when the whole features of the valleys were different, ages ago;
since which whole barriers of rock, it appears, must have been worn down.
These seeds germinated freely, and I sent some to the Horticultural
Society, and Lindley writes to me that they turn out to be a common Rumex
and a species of Atriplex, which neither he nor Henslow (as I have since
heard) have ever seen, and certainly not a British plant! Does this not
look like a vivification of a fossil seed? It is not surprising, I think,
that seeds should last ten or twenty thousand [years], as they have lasted
two or three [thousand years] in the Druidical mounds, and have germinated.

When not building, I have been working at my volume on the volcanic islands
which we visited; it is almost ready for press...I hope you will read my
volume, for, if you don't, I cannot think of anyone else who will! We have
at last got our house and place tolerably comfortable, and I am well
satisfied with our anchorage for life. What an autumn we have had:
completely Chilian; here we have had not a drop of rain or a cloudy day for
a month. I am positively tired of the fine weather, and long for the sight
of mud almost as much as I did when in Peru.

(577/2. The vitality of seeds was a subject in which Darwin continued to
take an interest. In July, 1855 ("Life and Letters," II., page 65), he
wrote to Hooker: "A man told me the other day of, as I thought, a splendid
instance--and splendid it was, for according to his evidence the seed came
up alive out of the lower part of the London Clay! I disgusted him by
telling him that palms ought to have come up."

In the "Gardeners' Chronicle," 1855, page 758, appeared a notice (half a
column in length) by Darwin on the "Vitality of Seeds." The facts related
refer to the "Sand-walk" at Down; the wood was planted in 1846 on a piece
of pasture land laid down as grass in 1840. In 1855, on the soil being dug
in several places, Charlock (Brassica sinapistrum) sprang up freely. The
subject continued to interest him, and we find a note dated July 2nd, 1874,
in which Darwin recorded that forty-six plants of Charlock sprang up in
that year over a space (14 x 7 feet) which had been dug to a considerable
depth. In the course of the article in the "Gardeners' Chronicle," Darwin
remarks: "The power in seeds of retaining their vitality when buried in
damp soil may well be an element in preserving the species, and therefore
seeds may be specially endowed with this capacity; whereas the power of
retaining vitality in a dry artificial condition must be an indirect, and
in one sense accidental, quality in seeds of little or no use to the
species."

The point of view expressed in the letter to Lyell above given is of
interest in connection with the research of Horace Brown and F. Escombe
(577/3. "Proc. Roy. Soc." Volume LXII., page 160.) on the remarkable power
possessed by dry seeds of resistance to the temperature of liquid air. The
point of the experiment is that life continues at a temperature "below that
at which ordinary chemical reactions take place." A still more striking
demonstration of the fact has been made by Thiselton-Dyer and Dewar who
employed liquid hydrogen as a refrigerant. (577/4. Read before the
British Association (Dover), 1899, and published in the "Comptes rendus,"
1899, and in the "Proc. R. Soc." LXV., page 361, 1899.) The connection
between these facts and the dormancy of buried seeds is only indirect; but
inasmuch as the experiment proves the possibility of life surviving a
period in which no ordinary chemical change occurs, it is clear that they
help one to believe in greatly prolonged dormancy in conditions which tend
to check metabolism. For a discussion of the bearing of their results on
the life-problem, and for the literature of the subject, reference should
be made to the paper by Brown and Escombe. See also C. de Candolle "On
Latent Life in Seeds," "Brit. Assoc. Report," 1896, page 1023 and F.
Escombe, "Science Progress," Volume I., N.S., page 585, 1897.)

LETTER 578. TO J.S. HENSLOW.
Down, Saturday [November 5th, 1843].

I sent that weariful Atriplex to Babington, as I said I would, and he tells
me that he has reared a facsimile by sowing the seeds of A. angustifolia in
rich soil. He says he knows the A. hastata, and that it is very different.
Until your last note I had not heard that Mr. Kemp's seeds had produced two
Polygonums. He informs me he saw each plant bring up the husk of the
individual seed which he planted. I believe myself in his accuracy, but I
have written to advise him not to publish, for as he collected only two
kinds of seeds--and from them two Polygomuns, two species or varieties of
Atriplex and a Rumex have come up, any one would say (as you suggested)
that more probably all the seeds were in the soil, than that seeds, which
must have been buried for tens of thousands of years, should retain their
vitality. If the Atriplex had turned out new, the evidence would indeed
have been good. I regret this result of poor Mr. Kemp's seeds, especially
as I believed, from his statements and the appearance of the seeds, that
they did germinate, and I further have no doubt that their antiquity must
be immense. I am sorry also for the trouble you have had. I heard the
other day through a circuitous course how you are astonishing all the
clodhoppers in your whole part of the county: and [what is] far more
wonderful, as it was remarked to me, that you had not, in doing this,
aroused the envy of all the good surrounding sleeping parsons. What good
you must do to the present and all succeeding generations. (578/1. For an
account of Professor Henslow's management of his parish of Hitcham see
"Memoir of the Rev. John Stevens Henslow, M.A." by the Rev. Leonard Jenyns:
8vo, London, 1862.)

LETTER 579. TO J.D. HOOKER.
Down, November 14th [1855].

You well know how credulous I am, and therefore you will not be surprised
at my believing the Raspberry story (579/1. This probably refers to
Lindley's story of the germination of raspberry seeds taken from a barrow
1600 years old.): a very similar case is on record in Germany--viz., seeds
from a barrow; I have hardly zeal to translate it for the "Gardeners'
Chronicle." (579/2. "Vitality of Seeds," "Gardeners' Chronicle," November
17th, 1855, page 758.) I do not go the whole hog--viz., that sixty and two
thousand years are all the same, for I should imagine that some slight
chemical change was always going on in a seed. Is this not so? The
discussions have stirred me up to send my very small case of the charlock;
but as it required some space to give all details, perhaps Lindley will not
insert; and if he does, you, you worse than an unbelieving dog, will not, I
know, believe. The reason I do not care to try Mr. Bentham's plan is that
I think it would be very troublesome, and it would not, if I did not find
seed, convince me myself that none were in the earth, for I have found in
my salting experiments that the earth clings to the seeds, and the seeds
are very difficult to find. Whether washing would do I know not; a gold-
washer would succeed, I daresay.