Volume I Part 43 (1/2)

I find horses of various colours often have a spinal band or stripe of different and darker tint than the rest of the body; rarely transverse bars on the legs, generally on the under-side of the front legs, still more rarely a very faint transverse shoulder-stripe like an ass

Is there any breed of Delamere forest ponies? I have found out little about ponies in these respects Sir P Egerton has, I believe, sohbred chestnut horses; have any of them the spinal stripe?

Mouse-coloured ponies, or rather s bars So have dun horses (by dun I mean real colour of cream mixed with brown, bay, or chestnut) So have soot a case of spinal stripe in chestnut, race horse, or in quite heavy cart-horse Any fact of this nature of such stripes in horses would be MOST useful to s of the donkey, and I have collected so in various crossed equine anie eons about the wing bars I SUSPECT it will throw light on the colour of the primeval horse So do help me if occasion turns upMy health has been lately very bad froht's hydropathy My work is everlasting Farewell

My dear Fox, I trust you are well Farewell, C DARWIN

CHARLES DARWIN TO JD HOOKER Moor Park, Farnham [April 26th, 1858]

I have just had the innermost cockles of my heart rejoiced by a letter from Lyell I said to him (or he to me) that I believed fros must have been stranded there; and that I expected erratic boulders would be detected eot Lyell to write to Hartung to ask, and now H says e boulders (and some polished) of mica-schist, quartz, sandstone, etc, some embedded, and some 40 and 50 feet above the level of the sea, so that he had inferred that they had not been brought as ballast Is this not beautiful?

The water-cure has done ood-bye

My dear friend, yours, CD

CHARLES DARWIN TO C LYELL Moor Park, Farnham, April 26th [1858]

My dear Lyell,

I have coot, froed to you for sendingletter The erratic boulders are splendid It is a grand case of floating ice versus glaciers He ought to have compared the northern and southern shores of the islands

It is e chapter on the subject, collecting briefly all the geological evidence of glacial action in different parts of the world, and then at great length (on the theory of species changing) I have discussed the ration and modification of plants and anie part of the world To ht on the whole subject of distribution, if combined with the modification of species Indeed, I venture to speak with soo, kindly read over eneral conclusion, I was delighted to hear a week or two ago that he was inclined to coe during the glacial period I had a letter from Thompson, of Calcutta, the other day, which helpsout for me what heat our te a subject for a note; and I have written thus only because Hartung's note has set the whole subject afloat in ain But I rite no , bathe much, walk much, eat much, and read much novels

Farewell, with many thanks, and very kind remembrance to Lady Lyell

Ever yours, C DARWIN

CHARLES DARWIN TO MRS DARWIN Moor Park, Wednesday, April [1858]

The weather is quite delicious Yesterday, after writing to you, I strolled a little beyond the glade for an hour and a half, and enjoyed rand Scotch firs, the brown of the catkins of the old birches, with their white stereen from the larches made an excessively pretty view At last I fell fast asleep on the grass, and aith a chorus of birds singing aroundup the trees, and so, and it was as pleasant and rural a scene as ever I saw, and I did not care one penny how any of the beasts or birds had been forht, and then went and read the Chief Justice's suht Bernard (Simon Bernard was tried in April 1858 as an accessory to Orsini's attempt on the life of the Euilty, and then read a bit of my novel, which is feminine, virtuous, clerical, philanthropical, and all that sort of thing, but very decidedly flat I say fenorant about money matters, and not much of a lady--for she makes her h we have soarian; a thorough gentleman, formerly attache at Paris, and then in the Austrian cavalry, and now a pardoned exile, with broken health He does not seem to like Kossuth, but says, he is certain [he is] a sincere patriot, most clever and eloquent, but weak, with no determination of character

CHAPTER 1 XIII -- THE WRITING OF THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES'

JUNE 18, 1858, TO NOVEMBER, 1859

[The letters given in the present chapter tell their story with sufficient clearness, and need but a feords of explanation Mr

Wallace's Essay, referred to in the first letter, bore the sub-title, 'On the Tendency of Varieties to depart indefinitely froinal Type,' was published in the Linnean Society's Journal (1858, volue 53) as part of the joint paper of ”Messrs C Darwin and A

Wallace,” of which the full title was 'On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection'