The Life and Letters-1 [204]
could do it with little trouble would be to bear in mind, whilst correcting your proof-sheets of the Manual, my question and put a cross or mark to the species, and whenever sending a parcel to Hooker to let me have such old sheets. But this would give you the trouble of remembering my question, and I can hardly hope or expect that you will do it. But I will just mention what I want; it is to have marked the "close species" in a Flora, so as to compare in DIFFERENT Floras whether the same genera have "close species," and for other purposes too vague to enumerate. I have attempted, by Hooker's help, to ascertain in a similar way whether the different species of the same genera in distant quarters of the globe are variable or present varieties. The definition I should give of a "CLOSE SPECIES" was one that YOU thought specifically distinct, but which you could conceive some other GOOD botanist might think only a race or variety; or, again, a species that you had trouble, though having opportunities of knowing it well, in discriminating from some other species. Supposing that you were inclined to be so very kind as to do this, and could (which I do not expect) spare the time, as I have said, a mere cross to each such species in any useless proof-sheets would give me the information desired, which, I may add, I know must be vague.
How can I apologise enough for all my presumption and the extreme length of this letter? The great good nature of your letter to me has been partly the cause, so that, as is too often the case in this world, you are punished for your good deeds. With hearty thanks, believe me,
Yours very truly and gratefully, CH. DARWIN.
CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, 18th [July, 1855].
...I think I am getting a MILD case about Charlock seed (In the "Gardeners' Chronicle", 1855, page 758, appeared a notice (half a column in length) by my father on the "Vitality of Seeds." The facts related refer to the "Sand-walk"; 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 I find a note dated July 2nd, 1874, in which my father 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.); but just as about salting, ill-luck to it, I cannot remember how many years you would allow that Charlock seed might live in the ground. Next time you write, show a bold face, and say in how many years, you think, Charlock seed would probably all be dead. 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.
You ask how far I go in attributing organisms to a common descent; I answer I know not; the way in which I intend treating the subject, is to show (AS FAR AS I CAN) the facts and arguments for and against the common descent of the species of the same genus; and then show how far the same arguments tell for or against forms, more and more widely different: and when we come to forms of different orders and classes, there remain only some such arguments as those which can perhaps be deduced from similar rudimentary structures, and very soon not an argument is left.
[The following extract from a letter to Mr. Fox [October, 1855 (In this year he published ('Phil. Mag.' x.) a paper 'On the power of icebergs to make rectilinear uniformly-directed grooves across a submarine undulatory surface.'") gives a brief mention of the last meeting of the British Association which he attended:] "I really have no news: the only thing we have done for a long time, was to go to Glasgow; but the fatigue was to me more than it was worth, and E. caught a bad cold. On our return we stayed a single day at Shrewsbury, and enjoyed seeing the old place. I saw a little of Sir Philip
How can I apologise enough for all my presumption and the extreme length of this letter? The great good nature of your letter to me has been partly the cause, so that, as is too often the case in this world, you are punished for your good deeds. With hearty thanks, believe me,
Yours very truly and gratefully, CH. DARWIN.
CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, 18th [July, 1855].
...I think I am getting a MILD case about Charlock seed (In the "Gardeners' Chronicle", 1855, page 758, appeared a notice (half a column in length) by my father on the "Vitality of Seeds." The facts related refer to the "Sand-walk"; 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 I find a note dated July 2nd, 1874, in which my father 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.); but just as about salting, ill-luck to it, I cannot remember how many years you would allow that Charlock seed might live in the ground. Next time you write, show a bold face, and say in how many years, you think, Charlock seed would probably all be dead. 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.
You ask how far I go in attributing organisms to a common descent; I answer I know not; the way in which I intend treating the subject, is to show (AS FAR AS I CAN) the facts and arguments for and against the common descent of the species of the same genus; and then show how far the same arguments tell for or against forms, more and more widely different: and when we come to forms of different orders and classes, there remain only some such arguments as those which can perhaps be deduced from similar rudimentary structures, and very soon not an argument is left.
[The following extract from a letter to Mr. Fox [October, 1855 (In this year he published ('Phil. Mag.' x.) a paper 'On the power of icebergs to make rectilinear uniformly-directed grooves across a submarine undulatory surface.'") gives a brief mention of the last meeting of the British Association which he attended:] "I really have no news: the only thing we have done for a long time, was to go to Glasgow; but the fatigue was to me more than it was worth, and E. caught a bad cold. On our return we stayed a single day at Shrewsbury, and enjoyed seeing the old place. I saw a little of Sir Philip