Summary

Indicates portions of Island life that will interest CD. Explanation of the geological climate is the foundation stone of the book.

Hooker’s approval of the theory of Australian and New Zealand floras.

Summary

Praise for Movement in plants, lately arrived.

Praise for Wallace’s Island life

and astonishment that he could be a spiritualist.

Differs with Wallace on age of SW. Australian flora. JDH ascribes its peculiarities to isolation by an inland sea.

Summary

Admires Wallace’s Island life.

Criticises: 1. His view of similar plants on distant mountains – CD prefers previous low-land connections to Wallace’s summit–summit dispersal;

2. Source of warmth for ancient Arctic climate;

3. Origin of S. Australian flora.

CD’s favourite cases in Movement in plants.

Summary

High praise for Island life; ARW’s "best book". Encloses notes of comments and criticism. Hooker pleased by dedication.

Summary

Response to CD’s notes [on Island life]:

1. On relation of paucity of fossils to coldness of water;

2. Cessation of the glacial period;

3. Rate of deposit and geological time;

4. The importance of preoccupation (by plants) in relation to plants arriving later.

Charge of speculative explanations is just.

Defends plausibility of migration of plants from mountain to mountain.

Summary

Although he cannot use the Neapolitan work, his respect for the service to science rendered by the Zoological Station at Naples leads him to subscribe.

Summary

Sends birthday greetings

and the good news of a subvention for the Zoological Station received from the German government. There are now 20 naturalists working at the Station.

Summary

Can Alphonse de Candolle see CD?

Asa Gray at Kew; will meet JDH in Italy in December.

Summary

Thanks CD for receiving the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union’s deputation.

Summary

Gratified by CD’s praise.

Describes plan of his new book [Island life (1880)].

Efforts to secure a post.

Summary

Thanks for agreeing to propose Frank as F.R.S.

Would have enjoyed discussing Island life.

Summary

Has spoken to Wallace to see if reluctant to accept a Government pension. He would accept if CD and Huxley believe it justified. Encloses details of Wallace’s efforts to obtain a position as naturalist and his claims for a pension.

Summary

F. V. Dickins feels hurt at CD’s censure of him over the Omori shell mound controversy [see Collected papers 2: 222–3]. Dickins is well educated in science and long familiar with Japan, having been editor of the Japan Mail. In Japan, E. S. Morse is considered a charlatan, and American scientists, e.g., A. Agassiz, have a low opinion of him.

Summary

Writes of the weather,

his reading of Huxley’s Crayfish [1880],

and domestic matters.

Summary

Argues against volcanic origin of coral islands and for the submergence of continents. Cites Judd’s argument on the volcanoes of the moon.

Summary

Plants in Venezuelan plains.

Observations on Turnera: heterostyly, leaf-base glands’ secretion eaten by ants.

Observations on role of leaf secretions in fertilisation of Marcgravia and Passiflora.

Summary

Discusses animals’ ability to learn to recognise danger, especially poisonous herbs.

Summary

Comments on TMR’s "Oceanic islands" [Geol. Mag. 8 (1881): 75–7]. Fact that oceanic islands are all volcanic argues for view that no continent ever occupied the oceans. Chalk seemed best evidence of ocean having existed where continent now stands. CD leans to view that continents have occupied present positions since Cambrian.