Summary

Must look after his wife, so is unable to come to visit.

Summary

Admires RP’s volume [Introduction to zoology, pt 1 (1846)]; he has condensed a great deal of accurate information. CD hopes some good naturalists will spring up as a result.

Summary

Thanks for H. C. Watson’s interesting letter. Disagrees with him on intermediate varieties.

CD has read latest numbers of JDH’s The botany of the Antarctic voyage [pt I, Flora Antarctica (1844–7)]; notes several sentences against "us Transmutationists".

Summary

Comments on manuscript [? "On slaty cleavage", J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 5 (1849): 111–29]. Discusses phenomenon of cleavage. Will write to J. D. Forbes about DS’s paper.

Summary

[Extract of letter to WJH from T. E. Cantor] on zoological distribution in the Malay Peninsula.

Summary

Delighted that Brongniart thinks Sigillaria aquatic, and that E. W. Binney thinks coal is a sort of submarine peat. Thinks coal-plants will prove to be aquatic, though JDH will sneer at this.

Has acquired a new microscope.

Summary

CD defends his position on submarine coal formation and coal-plants against JDH’s strong objections.

Summary

Thinks JDH should arrange his facts against the aquatic formation of coal.

Summary

CD would like to call on JDH.

Summary

Discusses accounts.

Cannot visit Alford [farm] this summer.

Summary

Thanks for JS’s note concerning a proposal [concerning some aspect of education of poor children?] which CD has to decline because of his poor health and his work in Natural History.

Summary

Will call on JDH on Thursday, if convenient.

Summary

Has heard JDH does not return until tomorrow, so will not be able to see him at Kew but hopes to do so at Oxford meeting of BAAS.

Bunbury and Falconer strongly against idea of coal being submarine.

Summary

Comments on correspondence between CL and Whewell [concerning university reform].

Criticises S. G. Morton’s "Hybridity in animals" [Am. J. Sci. 2d ser. 3 (1847): 39–50, 203–12].

Summary

Encloses quasi-hybrid Laburnum.

Suggests a new view of symmetry of flowers.

Will discuss coal and species sketch at Oxford [BAAS meeting (1847)].

Summary

Gives further details on peculiar Laburnum.

Can JDH lend him a full treatise on grafting?

Summary

Encloses another specimen of the "bilateral" Laburnum flower.

Summary

JDH’s aunt cannot find lodgings for CD.

Similarities between floras of Tierra del Fuego, Van Diemen’s Land, and New Zealand; does not feel migration sufficient explanation.

Summary

CD will take a room in Magdalen Hall at Oxford; thanks JDH’s aunt for trouble.

Summary

JDH’s books have arrived.

Glad to hear of new plants from Van Diemen’s Land and New Zealand.