Dear Sir

I received the sheets of your work in due time, but the printing is not getting as quick as I could wish;² firstly I was seriously ill about Christmas and now, being a member of the Relief-Committee for the dreadful distress in some of our Agricultural districts I have very much to travel; so, last week, I made more than a thousand miles by impraticable roads, having very often to drag my sledge together with the horse and this in a temperature between 20^o and 36^o below zero by Reaumur.³ The cold this winter is something quite extraordinary, and I was twice nearly frozen and had a very narrow escape. All this retarded the printing and translation, but still the first volume is nearly finished, and the whole second is ready in translation so that in two months the whole work will be finished. I am very glad of the immense success Your book met in England,⁴ I hope the same for my translation though a brilliant success in our country is to sell 3000 copies in about three years at least. I have some portraits of Naturalists but will send them when I have more.⁵ I will be quite certainly in July in London and hope to see you once more.

I beg to remember me to Mrs Darwin and the ladies of Your family⁶

My dear Sir | Yours sincerely | V. Kovalevsky

P.S. I dont think that the errors and corrections of the Second Edition are very substantial, so that I dare not to worry You about sheets, at all events if You should think it indispensable I should beg You to send them sous bande and not in covers.⁷