Dear M^r. Darwin

An accumulation of local work and of too much scribbling for my old eyes has prevented me from acknowledging sooner your kindness in sending me your biographical notice of your famous grandfather. It has revived ancient and pleasing recollections.¹ For when I was but a small boy “Darwin’s Botanic Garden” in my father’s library was one of my earliest favourites, after nursery rhymes ceased to suit in the progress of development.²

He was a most remarkable character. He should have lived however, not in the last, but rather in the present century; when he would have had at hand the scientific appliances for proving, and carrying into effect, his wonderful conceptions.

Among these,—it is comparatively a small matter however,—I was struck with the caution he gives against marriage with Heiresses. For some years ago I had occasion to caution, on the very grounds stated by him, the director of a great Assurance Company, of which I have long been physician, against accepting proposals of Assurance on the lives of Heiresses newly married, or about to be married. That is to say, heiresses who become so by the gradual extinction of their race. It is a fact that they generally die young, and not infrequently in their first accouchement.³

Winter has set in severely here at last, as in the South. But not till November 28^th. Till then the roads and fields were soft,—unaffected by our very slight morning frosts, generally due indeed to radiation.⁴ But the morning of the 28^th brought a “black” frost,⁵ which has grown ever since, till this morning at 9 a.m. my thermometer was at 15^o.

In the course of your meteorological observation has this prognostic ever occurred to you?— That if there be from four to seven days of enduring frost in the last week of October or first week of November,—sharp enough to harden the roads and fields,—there is afterwards an open winter⁶ till the end of January at least. I have never known here an exception to that rule, and have experienced very many confirmations of it. I am not so sure of the converse. But last winter, a severe one, followed the converse rule; for we had no frost of the slightest moment till November 14^th; and there was a similar case not long ago, although I do not recollect the year. This winter will prove another test; for I have carefully watched, and there has been no frost after sunrise till November 28^th,—till which day fields & roads were as soft as in September.

I am | Yours Truly | R. Christison

Charles Darwin | Esq.