The Life and Letters-2 [73]
work done. I could not stomach debacles or lacustrine beds. It is grand. I remember Falconer told me that he thought some of the remains in the Devonshire caverns were pre-glacial, and this, I presume, is now your conclusion for the older celts with hyena and hippopotamus. It is grand. What a fine long pedigree you have given the human race!
I am sure I never thought of parallel roads having been accumulated during subsidence. I think I see some difficulties on this view, though, at first reading your note, I jumped at the idea. But I will think over all I saw there. I am (stomacho volente) coming up to London on Tuesday to work on cocks and hens, and on Wednesday morning, about a quarter before ten, I will call on you (unless I hear to the contrary), for I long to see you. I congratulate you on your grand work.
Ever yours, C. DARWIN.
P.S.--Tell Lady Lyell that I was unable to digest the funereal ceremonies of the ants, notwithstanding that Erasmus has often told me that I should find some day that they have their bishops. After a battle I have always seen the ants carry away the dead for food. Ants display the utmost economy, and always carry away a dead fellow-creature as food. But I have just forwarded two most extraordinary letters to Busk, from a backwoodsman in Texas, who has evidently watched ants carefully, and declares most positively that they plant and cultivate a kind of grass for store food, and plant other bushes for shelter! I do not know what to think, except that the old gentleman is not fibbing intentionally. I have left the responsibility with Busk whether or no to read the letters. (I.e. to read them before the Linnean Society.)
CHARLES DARWIN TO THOMAS DAVIDSON. (Thomas Davidson, F.R.S., born in Edinburgh, May 17, 1817; died 1885. His researches were chiefly connected with the sciences of geology and palaeontology, and were directed especially to the elucidation of the characters, classification, history, geological and geographical distribution of recent and fossil Brachiopoda. On this subject he brought out an important work, 'British Fossil Brachiopoda,' 5 vols. 4to. (Cooper, 'Men of the Time,' 1884.)) Down, April 26, 1861.
My dear Sir,
I hope that you will excuse me for venturing to make a suggestion to you which I am perfectly well aware it is a very remote chance that you would adopt. I do not know whether you have read my 'Origin of Species'; in that book I have made the remark, which I apprehend will be universally admitted, that AS A WHOLE, the fauna of any formation is intermediate in character between that of the formations above and below. But several really good judges have remarked to me how desirable it would be that this should be exemplified and worked out in some detail and with some single group of beings. Now every one will admit that no one in the world could do this better than you with Brachiopods. The result might turn out very unfavourable to the views which I hold; if so, so much the better for those who are opposed to me. ("Mr. Davidson is not at all a full believer in great changes of species, which will make his work all the more valuable.-- C. Darwin to R. Chambers (April 30, 1861).) But I am inclined to suspect that on the whole it would be favourable to the notion of descent with modification; for about a year ago, Mr. Salter (John William Salter; 1820- 1869. He entered the service of the Geological Survey in 1846, and ultimately became its Palaeontologist, on the retirement of Edward Forbes, and gave up the office in 1863. He was associated with several well-known naturalists in their work--with Sedgwick, Murchison, Lyell, Ramsay, and Huxley. There are sixty entries under his name in the Royal Society Catalogue. The above facts are taken from an obituary notice of Mr. Salter in the 'Geological Magazine,' 1869.) in the Museum in Jermyn Street, glued on a board some Spirifers, etc., from three palaeozoic stages, and arranged them in single and branching lines, with horizontal lines marking the formations (like the diagram
I am sure I never thought of parallel roads having been accumulated during subsidence. I think I see some difficulties on this view, though, at first reading your note, I jumped at the idea. But I will think over all I saw there. I am (stomacho volente) coming up to London on Tuesday to work on cocks and hens, and on Wednesday morning, about a quarter before ten, I will call on you (unless I hear to the contrary), for I long to see you. I congratulate you on your grand work.
Ever yours, C. DARWIN.
P.S.--Tell Lady Lyell that I was unable to digest the funereal ceremonies of the ants, notwithstanding that Erasmus has often told me that I should find some day that they have their bishops. After a battle I have always seen the ants carry away the dead for food. Ants display the utmost economy, and always carry away a dead fellow-creature as food. But I have just forwarded two most extraordinary letters to Busk, from a backwoodsman in Texas, who has evidently watched ants carefully, and declares most positively that they plant and cultivate a kind of grass for store food, and plant other bushes for shelter! I do not know what to think, except that the old gentleman is not fibbing intentionally. I have left the responsibility with Busk whether or no to read the letters. (I.e. to read them before the Linnean Society.)
CHARLES DARWIN TO THOMAS DAVIDSON. (Thomas Davidson, F.R.S., born in Edinburgh, May 17, 1817; died 1885. His researches were chiefly connected with the sciences of geology and palaeontology, and were directed especially to the elucidation of the characters, classification, history, geological and geographical distribution of recent and fossil Brachiopoda. On this subject he brought out an important work, 'British Fossil Brachiopoda,' 5 vols. 4to. (Cooper, 'Men of the Time,' 1884.)) Down, April 26, 1861.
My dear Sir,
I hope that you will excuse me for venturing to make a suggestion to you which I am perfectly well aware it is a very remote chance that you would adopt. I do not know whether you have read my 'Origin of Species'; in that book I have made the remark, which I apprehend will be universally admitted, that AS A WHOLE, the fauna of any formation is intermediate in character between that of the formations above and below. But several really good judges have remarked to me how desirable it would be that this should be exemplified and worked out in some detail and with some single group of beings. Now every one will admit that no one in the world could do this better than you with Brachiopods. The result might turn out very unfavourable to the views which I hold; if so, so much the better for those who are opposed to me. ("Mr. Davidson is not at all a full believer in great changes of species, which will make his work all the more valuable.-- C. Darwin to R. Chambers (April 30, 1861).) But I am inclined to suspect that on the whole it would be favourable to the notion of descent with modification; for about a year ago, Mr. Salter (John William Salter; 1820- 1869. He entered the service of the Geological Survey in 1846, and ultimately became its Palaeontologist, on the retirement of Edward Forbes, and gave up the office in 1863. He was associated with several well-known naturalists in their work--with Sedgwick, Murchison, Lyell, Ramsay, and Huxley. There are sixty entries under his name in the Royal Society Catalogue. The above facts are taken from an obituary notice of Mr. Salter in the 'Geological Magazine,' 1869.) in the Museum in Jermyn Street, glued on a board some Spirifers, etc., from three palaeozoic stages, and arranged them in single and branching lines, with horizontal lines marking the formations (like the diagram