Volume Ii Part 25 (2/2)
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 lat.i.tude 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, Sat.u.r.day [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 circ.u.mstances.
They have been sent to me by Mr. W. Kemp, of Galas.h.i.+els, 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, pa.s.sed 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 acc.u.mulated 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 gra.s.s in 1840. In 1855, on the soil being dug in several places, Charlock (Bra.s.sica 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 s.p.a.ce (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. Es...o...b.. (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 a.s.sociation (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 Es...o...b... See also C. de Candolle ”On Latent Life in Seeds,”
”Brit. a.s.soc. Report,” 1896, page 1023 and F. Es...o...b.., ”Science Progress,” Volume I., N.S., page 585, 1897.)
LETTER 578. TO J.S. HENSLOW. Down, Sat.u.r.day [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 astonis.h.i.+ng 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 s.p.a.ce 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 was.h.i.+ng would do I know not; a gold-washer would succeed, I daresay.
LETTER 580. TO W.J. HOOKER.
Testimonial from Charles Darwin, Esq., M.A., F.R.S. and G.S., late Naturalist to Captain Fitz-Roy's Voyage.
Down House, Farnborough, August 25th, 1845.
I have heard with much interest that your son, Dr. Hooker, is a candidate for the Botanical Chair at Edinburgh. From my former attendance at that University, I am aware how important a post it is for the advancement of science, and I am therefore the more anxious for your son's success, from my firm belief that no one will fulfil its duties with greater zeal or ability. Since his return from the famous Antarctic expedition, I have had, as you are aware, much communication with him, with respect to the collections brought home by myself, and on other scientific subjects; and I cannot express too strongly my admiration at the accuracy of his varied knowledge, and at his powers of generalisation. From Dr. Hooker's disposition, no one, in my opinion, is more fitted to communicate to beginners a strong taste for those pursuits to which he is himself so ardently devoted. For the sake of the advancement of Botany in all its branches, your son has my warmest wishes for his success.
LETTER 581. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, Thursday [June 11th, 1847].
Many thanks for your kindness about the lodgings--it will be of great use to me. (581/1. The British a.s.sociation met at Oxford in 1847.) Please let me know the address if Mr. Jacobson succeeds, for I think I shall go on the 22nd and write previously to my lodgings. I have since had a tempting invitation from Daubeny to meet Henslow, etc., but upon the whole, I believe, lodgings will answer best, for then I shall have a secure solitary retreat to rest in.
<script>