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ALS signed “Ch. Darwin,” one page, 4.5 x 7.5, March 18th [1856]. Addressed from Down House in “Bromley, Kent,” a handwritten letter to English cryptogamist and clergyman Miles Joseph Berkeley: “I am very much obliged for your note of the 7th & kind permission to incorporate facts: I have now sent a little notice to the Linnean Soc. — Many thanks, also, for your remarks on the Peas — I send a few of the Peas, which produce the black or intensely purple pods.” Double-matted and framed with a presentation caption and portrait photograph to an overall size of 22 x 18. In fine condition, with a thin, light vertical stain. Accompanied by a full letter of authenticity from JSA.
Recorded by the Darwin Correspondence Project as Letter no. 1843A.
Written to the pioneering mycologist and cryptogamist Miles Joseph Berkeley, this letter relates to a series of botanical experiments undertaken as Darwin gathered evidence for the theories he would later present in On the Origin of Species (1859). Berkeley, often regarded as the founder of British mycology, assisted Darwin by testing the effects of prolonged immersion in seawater on seeds of various plants, research intended to determine whether seeds could survive long ocean voyages and thus help explain the geographic distribution of species. In this letter, Darwin thanks Berkeley for permission to incorporate the results into a paper he had just submitted to the Linnean Society, later published as ‘On the Action of Sea-Water on the Germination of Seeds.’
The correspondence also touches on Darwin's investigations into variation among cultivated peas. In an earlier exchange, Berkeley had suggested that unusual coloration observed in a neighbor's black-podded peas might result from ordinary variation rather than cross-fertilization, and requested samples for examination. Darwin's enclosure of several of the unusual peas reflects the collaborative exchange of observations and specimens that characterized his scientific work during the years leading up to the publication of Origin.
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