More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume I [229]
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
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