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2689 DARWIN (CHARLES, 1809-1882). Naturalist and Author.

AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED TO MR. DOWIE.

1 page, 8vo. Beckenham, 7th August. £2 2s

"It seems to me a matter of regret, but I shall hear what Paget thinks. Perhaps as no new joints or nails has been formed, he will not consider it a true case."

2690 DARWIN (CHARLES).

AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED.

TO (SIR) RICHARD OWEN, NATURALIST

2 pp. 8vo., Down. N.D. £1 17s 6d

[To Richard Owen [21 April 1846]]

"I am very anxious to have ten minutes talk with you, chiefly about the mammiferg of the Plata. . . .

"I have commenced your British Fossils with very great interest."

2091 DARWIN (CHARLES).

LETTER SIGNED.

3 1/2 pp., 8vo. Down, Beckenham, 26th July, 1877. £1 1s

[unrecorded letter, 1877, see letter from Henry Nicholson Ellacombe 30 July [1877]]

Asking for the loan of a plant, "Schrankia," for experimental purposes, and as to its sensibility to touch; also stating:—

"It should have to fasten a leaf flat on a piece of cork for about 10 days; but this treatment does not usually injure leaves greatly."

[See Power of movement, p. 381.]

[A letter from Francis Darwin to Ellacombe was excerpted in Maggs Bros. Catalogue no. 427, 1922:

"A very long letter, of considerable importance, concerning the pumping of water by trees.
"The fact is, our knowledge of the way in which water yets to the top of a high tree is in a wretched condition, and is a disgrace to us Plant physiologists.
"There is a split among physiologists, one half of them believe that the water travels in the thickness of the cell walls of the wood. . . .
"The other view is the obvious and old one that the (water) travels in the hollows of the vessels, like water in a water pipe. . . .
"But the essence of it is giving importance to the medullary rags. These consist of cells with living protoplasm in them, and if we believe that they have a power of pumping water as the ceks of the root certainly have, we bring the problem out of its irrational condition at any rate." Etc., etc.]