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America through Europe to India (this is one actual case with shells in
the Cretaceous period).
LETTER 16. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down [1845].
I ought to have written sooner to say that I am very willing to
subscribe 1 pound 1 shilling to the African man (though it be murder on
a small scale), and will send you a Post-office-order payable to Kew, if
you will be so good as to take charge of it. Thanks for your information
about the Antarctic Zoology; I got my numbers when in Town on Thursday:
would it be asking your publisher to take too much trouble to send your
Botany ["Flora Antarctica," by J.D. Hooker, 1844] to the Athenaeum Club?
he might send two or three numbers together. I am really ashamed to
think of your having given me such a valuable work; all I can say is
that I appreciate your present in two ways--as your gift, and for its
great use to my species-work. I am very glad to hear that you mean to
attack this subject some day. I wonder whether we shall ever be public
combatants; anyhow, I congratulate myself in a most unfair advantage of
you, viz., in having extracted more facts and views from you than from
any one other person. I daresay your explanation of polymorphism on
volcanic islands may be the right one; the reason I am curious about it
is, the fact of the birds on the Galapagos being in several instances
very fine-run species--that is, in comparing them, not so much one with
another, as with their analogues from the continent. I have somehow
felt, like you, that an alpine form of a plant is not a true variety;
and yet I cannot admit that the simple fact of the cause being
assignable ought to prevent its being called a variety; every variation
must have some cause, so that the difference would rest on our knowledge
in being able or not to assign the cause. Do you consider that a true
variety should be produced by causes acting through the parent? But even
taking this definition, are you sure that alpine forms are not inherited
from one, two, or three generations? Now, would not this be a curious
and valuable experiment (16/1. For an account of work of this character,
see papers by G. Bonnier in the "Revue Generale," Volume II., 1890;
"Ann. Sc. Nat." Volume XX.; "Revue Generale," Volume VII.), viz., to get
seeds of some alpine plant, a little more hairy, etc., etc., than its
lowland fellow, and raise seedlings at Kew: if this has not been done,
could you not get it done? Have you anybody in Scotland from whom you
could get the seeds?
I have been interested by your remarks on Senecia and Gnaphalium: would
it not be worth while (I should be very curious to hear the result) to
make a short list of the generally considered variable or polymorphous
genera, as Rosa, Salix, Rubus, etc., etc., and reflect whether such
genera are generally mundane, and more especially whether they have
distinct or identical (or closely allied) species in their different and
distant habitats.
Don't forget me, if you ever stumble on cases of the same species being
MORE or LESS variable in different countries.
With respect to the word "sterile" as used for male or polleniferous
flowers, it has always offended my ears dreadfully; on the same
principle that it would to hear a potent stallion, ram or bull called
sterile, because they did not bear, as well as beget, young.
With respect to your geological-map suggestion, I wish with all my
heart I could follow it; but just reflect on the number of measurements
requisite; why, at present it could not be done even in England, even
with the assumption of the land having simply risen any exact number of
feet. But subsidence in most cases has hopelessly complexed the problem:
see what Jordanhill-Smith (16/2. James Smith, of Jordan Hill, author of
a paper "On the Geology of Gibraltar" ("Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc." Volume
II., page 41, 1846).) says of the dance up and down, many times, which
Gibraltar has had all within the recent period. Such maps as Lyell
(16/3. "Principles of Geology," 1875, Volume I., Plate I, page 254.) has
published of sea and land at the beginning of the Tertiary period must
be excessively inaccurate: it assumes that every part on which Tertiary
beds have not been deposited, must have then been dry land,--a most
doubtful assumption.
I have been amused by Chambers v. Hooker on the K. Cabbage. I see in
the "Explanations" (the spirit of which, though not the facts, ought to
shame Sedgwick) that "Vestiges" considers all land-animals and plants to
have passed from marine forms; so Chambers is quite in accordance. Did
you hear Forbes, when here, giving the rather curious evidence (from a
similarity in error) that Chambers must be the author of the
"Vestiges": your case strikes me as some confirmation. I have written an
unreasonably long and dull letter, so farewell. (16/4. "Explanations: A
Sequel to the Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" was published
in 1845, after the appearance of the fourth edition of the "Vestiges,"
by way of reply to the criticisms on the original book. The "K.
cabbage" referred to at the beginning of the paragraph is Pringlea
antiscorbutica," the "Kerguelen Cabbage" described by Sir J.D. Hooker in
his "Flora Antarctica." What Chambers wrote on this subject we have not
discovered. The mention of Sedgwick is a reference to his severe review
of the "Vestiges" in the "Edinburgh Review," 1845, volume 82, page 1.
Darwin described it as savouring "of the dogmatism of the pulpit" ("Life
and Letters," I., page 344). Mr. Ireland's edition of the "Vestiges"
(1844), in which Robert Chambers was first authentically announced as
the author, contains (page xxix) an extract from a letter written by
Chambers in 1860, in which the following passage occurs, "The April
number of the 'Edinburgh Review"' (1860) makes all but a direct amende
for the abuse it poured upon my work a number of years ago." This is the
well-known review by Owen, to which references occur in the "Life and
Letters," II., page 300. The amende to the "Vestiges" is not so full
as the author felt it to be; but it was clearly in place in a paper
intended to belittle the "Origin"; it also gave the reviewer (page 511)
an opportunity for a hit at Sedgwick and his 1845 review.)
LETTER 17. TO L. BLOMEFIELD [JENYNS]. Down. February 14th [1845].
I have taken my leisure in thanking you for your last letter and
discussion, to me very interesting, on the increase of species. Since
your letter, I have met with a very similar view in Richardson, who
states that the young are driven away by the old into unfavourable
districts, and there mostly perish. When one meets with such unexpected
statistical returns on the increase and decrease and proportion of
deaths and births amongst mankind, and in this well-known country of
ours, one ought not to be in the least surprised at one's ignorance,
when, where, and how the endless increase of our robins and sparrows is
checked.
Thanks for your hints about terms of "mutation," etc.; I had some
suspicions that it was |