Summary

Falconer’s elephant paper.

Owen’s conduct.

Falconer’s view of CD’s theory: independence of natural selection and variation.

JDH on Tocqueville,

the principles of the Origin,

and the evils of American democracy.

Summary

British attitude towards America: not hate as Asa Gray thinks, but contempt.

Summary

JDH on Asa Gray’s sanguine view of the Civil War and slavery.

Wishes to discuss variation with CD, a subject that Huxley does not understand.

Summary

Suggests a memorial from Huxley, Murchison, and other geologists on the Gallegos fossils. He will speak privately to Duke of Somerset.

Summary

JDH battling with Lyell over treatment of species question in Antiquity of man. Distressed by Lyell’s raising false priority issue between JDH and CD. Falconer involved in a priority squabble.

Summary

John Lubbock’s lecture on man a success [Not. Proc. R. Inst. G. B. 4 (1863): 29–40].

JDH on the effect of the Civil War on Asa Gray.

JDH’s opinion of Lyell on glaciers is improving.

Summary

W. H. Harvey is dead. His loss to science.

Will get a copy of Crawfurd’s paper. It was such trash he tore his up.

His letter to Asa Gray was about his [JDH’s] proof that America will have an aristocracy from interbreeding of wealth, intellect, and beauty; and the lower classes, not having time for politics, will leave them to the aforementioned.

Summary

Refers to enclosure from Asa Gray

with whom he can talk calmly now that war is over. North had no right to resort to bloodshed.

Startled by CD’s attendance at Royal Society soirée.

Has asked E. B. Tylor to make up questions for consuls and missionaries, through whose wives a lot of most curious information [for Descent?] could be obtained.

Tying umbilical cord has always been a mystery to JDH.

John Crawfurd’s paper on cultivated plants is shocking twaddle ["On the migration of cultivated plants in reference to ethnology", J. Bot. Br. & Foreign 4 (1866): 317–32].

R. T. Lowe back from Madeira.

Summary

JDH working on the New Zealand flora.

Jules Planchon excited about CD’s Linum experiments.

T. F. Jamieson’s paper on glaciers gives great pleasure.

Summary

Lyell’s position on mutability.

Directions for care of hothouse plants.

Falconer hostile to Lyell’s book.

JDH’s Wedgwood ware collection.

Summary

Evidence of tropical floras continuous since Tertiary cannot fit CD’s position on intermittent cold periods.

Agrees with CD on reversion and latency.

Summary

Huxley’s lectures [Man’s place in nature (1863)]; he would be a scientific H. T. Buckle, if he were more careful.

Asks CD what the evidence is for inheritance of acquired characteristics.

Summary

Reports on personalities at the Bath meeting of BAAS [Sept 1864].

Summary

The die is cast on Ayrton affair. Lord Derby has called for all of the correspondence, as a result of pressure by men of science on JDH’s behalf.

Has just had a Greenland collection, which supports his views altogether; "I am ready to do fight for these with you."

Summary

JDH pursues the coffee plantation job for Scott.

Wrote 14 letters today. JDH’s work load.

Summary

Attacks by Falconer [Athenæum 4 Apr 1863, pp. 459–60] and Joseph Prestwich on Lyell.

W. B. Carpenter fails to attack Owen.

Welwitschia male cones with useless ovules marvellous example of lost function and retained structure.

JDH evaluates his sons.

Summary

Anxious to see Haast’s letter.

JDH’s views on Poles and Franco-Prussian conflict.

Summary

CD’s photograph looks like J. R. Herbert’s Moses in the fresco in the House of Lords.

JDH is delighted about oxlip, but hybridity does not explain some large patches that are uniform and do not vary towards either cowslip or primrose.

Encloses letter from W. H. Harvey discussing Myosotis sylvatica and the common dandelion.

Summary

JDH back from his honeymoon.

Finds he has gout, as his father and grandfather had.

Summary

JDH busy reforming Kew’s operations.

Falconer may "fall foul" of Huxley’s anger over his attacks on Lyell.

Has heard of a coffee plantation post for Scott.