My dear Sir

Pray accept my thanks for your coloured map of N.E. Australia:¹ it is the very thing I was wishing to have the other day, when I was reading your chapters on the Coral Reefs.—² I have not yet been able to get a copy of your work to go through with it, but I have read carefully all you say on Coral Reefs & been very greatly flattered & pleased.³ I admire your boldness about this being a reef-building age & Lyell & myself agreed there was much probability in it. I have always felt that my coral-reef book was too bold & speculative & therefore you will not easily imagine how gratified I am when anyone, who has had opportunities of observation, does not give his verdict against it. The Barrier is certainly a grand feature; but you must have found the coast geology with its everlasting granite very dull: I remember that I used to hate granitic districts. How I wish that fate & your Captain had led you to examine the scattered reefs between the Barrier & N. Caledonia; I have always felt much curiosity about them. I daresay you know M^r Crawfurd:⁴ he was speaking to me the other day with much pleasure & interest about the ethnographical part of your book & on this he must be a good judge—

Pray believe me, my dear Sir, Yours very sincerely | C. Darwin