Summary

Thanks WTT-D for his present of Sachs’s book [Textbook of botany (1875)].

Summary

Thinks W. P. Garrison’s book [extracts from Journal of researches for juvenile readers] would serve as an advertisement for the Journal.

Disappointed at sale of Erasmus Darwin.

Summary

Has a letter from Haast on the spreading of European plants.

Summary

Thanks FEA for copy of a review of a book on evolution by "an ignorant lawyer".

Sends £5 for Index subscription.

Summary

Asks JM to forward letter [1525] to Francis Galton "the author of the very interesting volume" Murray recently published.

Summary

J. B. Innes is greatly obliged for JSH’s letter. JSH’s observation of chalk flints strikes CD as "very curious".

Summary

Explains more clearly what he is looking for in his work on poultry: relative variation at different ages, the effect of disuse on different parts, breeding between wild and domestic, and degree of fertility of "mongrels of very diverse races".

Summary

Comments on Spencer’s terms.

Summary

CD will attend to ELK’s suggestions, but there is plenty of time, because Dallas translates slowly and Murray will not publish the book before November.

Summary

Thanks for the diploma conferring on him an honorary doctorate of medicine from Leiden University.

Summary

Instructs EN to copy and post letter [2922].

Summary

Arrangements for a meeting.

Summary

His friend Trenham Reeks [Secretary of Museum of Practical Geology] would give Carlyle information and help. This note will serve as introduction.

Summary

Sends the Litchfields two drafts of a letter in reply to Samuel Butler’s letter to the Athenæum; hopes for their approval.

Summary

Agrees to EK’s proposals [for publishing Erasmus Darwin]. Will send sheets to Paris, but is not sure there will be a French translation.

Summary

Comments on David Milne’s paper ["On the parallel roads of Lochaber" (1847), Trans. R. Soc. Edinburgh 16 (1849): 395–418]. CD still believes in marine origin. Rejects barrier of detritus at mouth of Glen Roy. If roads were formed by lake, it must have been ice-lake.

Comments on evidence of glaciers and icebergs in North Wales. Thinks pass caused by tidal channel, not river. Suggests that RC make altitude measurements at various points.

Summary

Detailed response to reading of Bastian’s Beginnings of life [1872]. On the whole, it seems probable to CD that spontaneous generation is true.

Summary

Orchid homologies.

Sensitive responses in Catasetum.

Acropera becoming clear.

T. F. Jamieson impressed by JDH’s work on Himalayan glaciers.

Summary

Praises JDH’s Australian introduction.

Disputes JDH’s emphasis on SE. and SW. Australian flora.

Summary

Thanks him for his efforts. CD cared most about the letter to Thomas Okes [see Erasmus Darwin, pp. 14–15]. "Cannot think who the calumnious article cd have been about [in?] 1802."