Summary

On publishing details for various CD books.

Has no corrections for new issue of Descent [2d ed.].

Questions amount of cheque for profits.

Summary

Two thousand more copies of Origin to be printed. Has CD any corrections to make?

Type for Cross and self-fertilisation, Orchids, and Forms of flowers must now be broken up. If CD does not object, Murray will have stereotypes made of the three works. Asks for any corrections CD may want embodied.

Summary

Answers CD’s query about payment made to him [for Descent and Forms of flowers] and explains the basis on which it was made. Because of CD’s wish to be paid before editions are sold off, profits must be estimated. If he were willing to accept annual statements of sales, payments based on them, and final accounting when all were sold, there would be no uncertainty. This is JM’s usual practice.

Summary

Sends letter from Fritz Müller [11191] containing observations on plants and insects of South Brazil, with prefatory comments.

Summary

Thinks EH’s translation of Cross and self-fertilisation [1877] is excellent.

Would like him to do Forms of flowers, but Reinwald is afraid to have it translated in the present political state of France.

Summary

JDH cannot attend at the bestowal of CD’s honorary doctorate at Cambridge.

O. C. Marsh is rash to suggest all vertebrate types originated in America.

Summary

Sends CD his share of profits on Descent and Forms of flowers.

Wants to reprint Cross and self-fertilisation because supply of copies is entirely exhausted.

Congratulates CD on his Cambridge honour [LL.D.].

Summary

Requests seeds for study of movement in cotyledons. Would love to study Welwitschia cotyledons.

Son William is to be married 28 November.

Summary

Encloses flowers. Long-styled form may be a sport.

Summary

Having a splendid time at awarding of LL.D.

Thanks for bananas.

Summary

Wants HD to observe earthworm activity at Roman antiquities of Chedworth and Cirencester.

Summary

Asks exact number of copies of recent printing of Origin.

Approves stereotyping Orchids,

but fears he cannot approve of stereotyping Cross and self-fertilisation and Forms of flowers. It is too soon for the latter, and he is too busy to correct the former.

Summary

Answers CD’s query about number of copies of Origin recently printed. Order to print 2000, rather than 1000, was given after JM’s annual sales showed demand was keeping up.

Cross and self-fertilisation will be stereotyped after CD’s corrections have been made.

Printer will be asked to keep type of Forms of flowers standing, for the present.

Summary

Thanks for accounts which make everything intelligible to him. Since he was glad to have Orchids published at one-half of profits for himself, he believes it would be very shabby to accept JM’s new offer of two-thirds profits. Thinks it would be fairer to both to change to JM’s usual practice with authors [i.e., annual statements of sales, payments based on them, and final accounting when all copies have been sold].

Summary

CD and Frank working hard on cotyledonary movement.

CD suggests technique for growing Welwitschia.

Approves of J. D. Dana and of O. Heer.

Summary

Asks GHD to determine whether there are worm-castings in cloisters of [Neville?] Court.

Enjoyed his visit to Cambridge. Asks for newspaper account of the LL.D.

Summary

Asks CD if he would like to sign GHD’s Royal Society proposal for membership.

Summary

Will look for worm-castings in the cloisters,

and will send CD items from the Cambridge papers on the honorary degree.

Has hit on a possible fallacy in W. Thomson’s theory of secular cooling of the earth.

Summary

Suggests revisions in JDH’s 1877 Presidential Address to the Royal Society [Proc. R. Soc. Lond. (1877): 427–46].

Summary

Neptunia seeds germinated by applying great heat. CD wants advice of Kew gardener, R. I. Lynch, on how to proceed.

Printed public oration for CD’s Cambridge doctorate enclosed.