The Red Notebook

A few years ago, I added the mysterious phrase Nothing For any Purpose to the bottom of the Red Notebook blog’s sidebar. I’ve never bothered to explain it before, as it was intended to be my own private little joke—and to act as a reminder that it doesn’t matter if nothing useful comes out of this blog.

The phrase is, as if you couldn’t have guessed, a Darwin quote. It is to be found in—or, more correctly, on the back of—the original Red Notebook. I will let Darwin scholar Sandra Herbert explain:

The Red Notebook is one of a series of notebooks kept by Charles Darwin during and immediately following his service as naturalist to the 1831-1836 surveying voyage of H.M.S. Beagle. It forms part of the collection of Darwin manuscripts at Down House in Kent, Darwin’s former home, and, since 1929, a museum in his honour. The notebook came to Down House by arrangement with the Darwin family following Sir George Buckston Browne’s purchase of the house for use as a museum. It is a well-made but otherwise ordinary pocket notebook, measuring 67/16″ × 315/16″ (164 mm × 99 mm), leather bound with a metal latch, which still works, and, as the name suggests, red in colour, although the original brilliance has faded. The leather cover is embossed with a border design on both sides. The front cover of the notebook bears the initials ‘R.N.’, written on a rectangular piece of white paper. On the back cover is pasted a similar piece of paper with the identical initials and the additional phrase ‘Range of Sharks’, referring to an entry within the notebook. There is also an ominous epigram written in larger letters across the back of the notebook: ‘Nothing For any Purpose’. All of these inscriptions are written in brown ink in Darwin’s handwriting.

Darwin clearly thought that his own Red Notebook did not contain anything useful. What better tribute could I pay the great man than ensuring that my own red notebook is equally unproductive?

Fatal attack at 12.

Emma Darwin’s diary entry, 18th[sic] April, 1882

Thus, Emma Darwin recorded in her diary of 1882 the passing of one of the greatest minds the world has ever known. From the corrections made to subsequent diary entries, it would appear that Emma missed a day somewhere, which explains why her husband Charles’s death is incorrectly recorded as falling on Tuesday 18th April, 1882, rather than on Wednesday 19th.

As of today, you can read all of Emma Darwin’s diaries on the increasingly wonderful Darwin Online website.

This is exactly the sort of thing the internet was supposed to be for. Very well done, chaps!

I realised that the new Darwin Online website which was launched a few days back must be getting plenty of publicity when both my kid sister and my friend Stense (neither of whom are Darwin nerds) both tipped me off about it. Richard Dawkins unsurprisingly sings its praises in today’s Independent [article now locked behind paywall], and the BBC chose Darwin as its No.1 Face of the Week following the site’s launch.

So, this morning, I decided to put the new website to the test.

Last week, my Darwin News Radar picked up the following story:

BBC: Pupils help beat flower’s decline

A project to help save a rare spring flower found only in a part of East Anglia has got under way. Children from the primary school at Great Bardfield in Essex have started planting 400 oxlips at Pipers Meadow next to the River Pant… The flower is limited to an area of north west Essex, Suffolk and Cambs…

The plant—now known as the Bardfield oxlip—has a historic connection with Great Bardfield. In 1842 the Victorian botanist Henry Doubleday described the oxlips in Bardfield as “growing by the thousands”. He first recognised it as a true species and not simply the result of chance hybridity between Primroses and Cowslips.

He sent samples of the plants to Charles Darwin who carried out a number of cross-pollination experiments. Charles Darwin reported in 1869: “It is manifest that Oxlip Primula elatior is not a hybrid and that it differs fundamentally from the Common Oxlip (the Primrose / Cowslip hybrid)”.

I decided to see if I could find out more about the Bardfield Oxlip on Darwin Online. And there it was:

Darwin Online: The different forms of flowers on plants of the same species

PRIMULA ELATIOR, Jacq.
Bardfield Oxlip of English Authors.

This plant, as well as the last or Cowslip (P. veris, vel officinalis), and the Primrose (P. vulgaris, vel acaulis) have been considered by some botanists as varieties of the same species. But they are all three undoubtedly distinct, as will be shown in the next chapter. The present species resembles to a certain extent in general appearance the common oxlip, which is a hybrid between the cowslip and primrose. Primula elatior is found in England only in two or three of the eastern counties; and I was supplied with living plants by Mr. Doubleday, who, as I believe, first called attention to its existence in England. It is common in some parts of the Continent; and H. Müller has seen several kinds of humble-bees and other bees, and Bombylius, visiting the flowers in North Germany.

…and so on.

In fact, the archive holds dozens of documents that mention oxlips. Primula elatior, it turns out, is even mentioned in Chapter 2 of Origin of Species.

Darwin Online is a truly wonderful and important resource.

Woot! The Complete Works of Charles Darwin Online went live this morning. Stupendous work, chaps!

I’m sure I’ll be providing plenty of links to this wonderful resource in future.