My dear Hooker

I am particularly obliged to you for having informed me of Dieffenbach’s arrival: other business compelled me to go to town & I called at the Geograph. Soc to enquire after him & by good luck there met him: he seems really sorry for the trouble his publisher has caused me, & he declares he will return through Brunswick on purpose.—

Many thanks for your information about books &c: how can you ask whether it bores me: I assure you deliberately that I consider all the assistance, which you have given me, is more than that I have received from anyone else, & is beyond valuing in my eyes.

When you tell me not to buy Kingdons trans. of Decand: veg: organ: do you mean you can sometime lend it me.² I will order Jussieu:³ I hope you will not forget the French pamphlet on variation. & I sh^d like to see the iceberg-paper in Boston Journal.⁴ I have got Couthouy’s paper on Coral-Reefs.⁵

Your ideas on the formation of the flat icebergs appears to me quite new & very probable; I have occasionally wondered at their flatness, but never thought about their origin: on your view there ought to be, I should think, horizontal stratification. Goodsir, I have been very glad to hear, is going on the Arctic Expedition, as Naturalist.⁶ At Forbes request,⁷ I have sent him some suggestions (so will not trouble your friend) on icebergs, boulders &c &c

By the way, let me say, whilst I think of it, I saw C. Streletski the other day & found that Morris is describing for him the plants, in the tuff from Van Dieman land, & I said, that I had no doubt that you would put the few specimens, which I gave you, into his hands if he so liked.⁸

What a very curious fact is the discovery of the Cyttaria in Van Diemens land—the means of distribution in such cases, is indeed a non-plusser; & if one was forced to believe that the land & water had held even nearly the same relative positions, since the first existence of our present species, it would be a complete poser: it is indeed a most perplexing subject. I shall be very curious to know at some future day, the result of your examination of the species of T. del Fuego & the Cordillera: I have been reading parts of d’Urvilles sketch of the Flora of the Falkland Is^ds. ⁹ & I see, he makes a good many species identical with Europæan.

I fear your Edinburgh lectures must interfere for a time with your Antarctic Flora; though you seem, as yet, to have taken your lectures very coolly. I sh^d think the “modest assurance” to lecture from notes, instead of from a fully-written paper, would soon come to any one well understanding his subject: do not you think it is much pleasanter to hear a speaking than a reading lecturer. I heartily wish you well through them.

I must go to breakfast so farewell my dear Hooker. | Ever yours | C. Darwin

Whenever an Abstract of your paper on the Galapagos plants appears, I hope you will try & get me a copy.—

The enclosed little lichens, came from near summit of most barren isl^d of San Lorenzo off Lima: what on earth made me think them worth collecting I know not—please throw them away.

I have by this mornings post just heard from Murray, that he agrees to publish my Journal in the Colonial Library.¹⁰ Did you make any comments criticisms or corrections on the margin of your copy of my Journal: if so, will you kindly lend me your copy & never mind if any of your criticisms are severe or short & few. I shall have to shorten my Journal a little.

I am determined not to give you much trouble or ask many questions now you are busy, but I must beg sometime for a single sentence about the Galapagos plants. viz what per-centage are (as far as is known) peculiar to the Archipelago? you have already told me that the plants have a S. American physionomy. And how far the collections bear out or contradict the notion of the different islands, having in some instances representative & different species.

Will you tell me, may I not leave out, without any loss, the little & imperfect account (p. 14–16) in my Journal of the oceanic confervæ? But I am breaking my vow of not giving you trouble, now that you must be so very busy.—