Dear Sir,

Do you remember some one walking from Breckenridge to see you, and though ill you were so kind as to leave your room to see me—¹ well I am back again in America and about in the centre of the continent, and thinking that a note from so out of the way a place may not be uninteresting to you, as well as to remind you that you are not forgotten by one of your disciples; and also to know if I may be of use to the cause of Natural Science, and how I may devote myself to what I consisider the “Truth” in contradistinction to the hypothesis of Moses—²

I am camped on a block of land that I bought last year; in a small shantie with my cousin, situated at the corner of eight street and fourth avenue, of one third acre extent— we have grubbed it and sown grass seed— next week I am going to work at a lumber mill the other side of the town.

This is the chosen site for the terminus of the Northern Pacific Railway, and is a fast increasing city and very beautifully situated on two long boulder banks thrown up by the heavy seas of the Lake at the mouth of the River St Louis and on a gentle slope of granitic hills at the back.

Autumn has not yet colored the landscape by changing the poplars and birch green to orange and red but the maple shows sign of coming winter by tinting its keys red and a few leaves yellow, and the passenger pigeons are daily passing South round the lake end reminds me of the cold time coming.

The country all round is one vast forest except where water covers the ground—and there is very little life to be seen in it considering the immense extent of unoccupied country.— Oak Ash Birch Maple Poplar Bass Willow Tamrack³—Hemlock—Pine Cedar and Hazel are the principle woods— Of birds there are the Raven, Crow, Hawks Gulls—Woodpeckers—Starlings—Grouse Jay.— Some four kinds of small birds I have seen—a bluish bird and a Wren—and one with a whitish bill—but I have not been out with a gun to seek for specimens yet and have not been far in the country. There are the Red Squirrel and Grey and the Chipmunk or ground Squirrel—Bears are sometimes seen but seldom and in winter wolves and foxes—the musk rat and beavers are common in some parts—and also the minx⁴ skunk and others etc.

The Sting Nettle here has no stings on the leaf but all on the stalk and stem both of leaf and bloom—which is different from the British being more like a branched coronet   the New Zealand Nettle is quite a large shrub and though like yet different from either having large but few stings on them.⁵

The Passenger Pigeon must know where he is going to and for why— no doubt winter has already set in away to the Nor’wd, and the most northerly located Pigeons are the first to move South.

Before or during a Storm Ravens fly round and round on steady out spread wings every now and then turning right up on their sides and uttering their hoarse croaks; as I have seen here and in the Rocky Mountains.—

On the small lakes scattered about in the woods there are various species of ducks and divers, and in the waters pike and pickerel— in streams trout & cat fish—but I have not yet learned the various scarce organic forms of either vegetal or animal life of this part of the world.—

Cooper’s Rush or The flag rush or flat rush seems to be an universal plant. I have seen it in New Zealand all over the country where it is named by the Maories “Raupo” and used by them for side thatching their houses⁶—and here it is used for the very same purpose by the Ojibway Indians⁷—being made into a portable thatch so as to be hung round their lodges.— It is common in Britain and Tahiti and Honolulu and Australia

From the Maple the Ojibways get their sugar—they bore a hole and drive in a plug for a spout chop out a dish or double up a piece of birch bark—to catch the sap and then boil down and let cake— Of Birch Bark they make their Canoes and cover their lodges—of cedar the ribs and thwarts and gunwalls— And now I will come to what mostly occupies my thoughts and that is—

With the basis of a developed creation, a certainty of our individual existence, a remembrance of half of sorrow and half of pleasure of our past lives   What hope have you to give me of some sort of continuation of my own characteristics after this body is dead and rotten—

That I am related to the quadrumana and quadrupeda I feel quite sure yes even that my mind or soul if you like is some how developed from the lower mamalia—

All organic life is to me a subject of study and every one kind to me is a fact— Now life must be a something, and we know that mind exists— Why should not God be material and our souls also, and why can he not preserve to himself some few or many, of us his creatures, not made of nothing or created directly by will—but made of preexisting matter by law of developement—specifically as well as individually

Nothing could be such a miserable calamity to our race as the disbelief of an unseen world—not that by any means it can be proved—one way or the other

I am not a Christian. I am a philosopher— Jesus Christ is a myth—for no atonement is possible— a deed done is done for ever, and can not be cancelled— You wrote and caused to be printed your far famed work—Origin of Species—and God can not alter it— it is a deed done and no one can undo it.

At Central Park New York I saw the lion and it is spotted all up the inside of the legs⁸   I have asked many to account to me for those corns on horses legs and no one could   I long thought that they were the inside third toe of the tritoed ancestor of the horse and at Clifton I saw the Guanaca or Alpaca⁹ that it had them on outside as well as in which to me was proof sufficient but the seven neck vertebra in all the mammalia is to me uncontestable proof that we are all kin—or else that our Maker had a very queer whim in his head that he obstinately persisted in even when it was an obstacle in his work— Ours noses too all sorts of shapes gaping hiccoughs stretching—kissing a mother’s trying to bite her child for joy— Women’s cuteness in deed every thing about us testifies to the Great Truth—that we are a “developed Animal—both mind and body being descended from an animal not “worthy to be called man”— Not that my saying so constitutes it a truth—nor you nor Huxley¹⁰—no more than if I say 2x2=4 make that a truth, and so if you say there is no life for us in another state does that constitute the truth

We live or we do not—if we live—so are there many living though we see them not— it is possible that some may live and some not by the Will of a Great Being or Existence who has made us as we are by means of a long series of organisms with passions strong and wild which with our canine teeth we inherit from the carnivora and though a Darwinite, I yet hope that this God will do for me something bye and bye and even that he looks after me now as one of his chosen ones.

With Wallace I agree that in many cases the Glacial Periods have many times changed the organisms of this world alternately North and South¹¹—and is a reason why animals do not change in our times to those who ask that absurd question—

With best respects and kind wishes both to you and your son¹² hoping that your health is again good, and that we may meet again if not in these bodies in better ones in another State to talk over this wondrous little great world of ours

If you will send me a line or two I shall be very pleased and shall esteem it a great favor—from Your’s very sincerely | Henry A Head

c/o Post Office Duluth—Minnesota | United States