Summary

Answers CD’s queries arising from Flora Antarctica.

Would like CD to come to town and go over Galapagos plants with him.

Summary

Lyell, de facto, first to stress importance of geological changes for geographical distribution.

Asa Gray has given CD too much credit for theories of geographical distribution.

Reaction to hostile criticism

and debt to Lyell, Huxley, JDH, and W. B. Carpenter.

Summary

CD wishes he could sympathise with Asa Gray’s politics.

Orchids to appear soon.

Pre-glacial Arctic distribution.

Work on floral dimorphism.

High opinion of Buckle as a writer.

Summary

Pleased at CD’s opinion of his Arctic plants paper. CD has caught great blunder.

Lack of Arctic–Asiatic species in mountains of tropical Asia does not trouble him. Species seem to indicate some "current of migration" from Europe and W. Asia southeastward to Ceylon – an awful staggerer to bridge migrations.

Summary

Admires JDH’s paper on Arctic plants ["Distribution of Arctic plants", Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 23 (1862): 251–348]. Such papers compel people to reflect on modification of species;

JDH will be driven to a cooled globe.

Serious erratum in paper.

New and original evidence in case of Greenland. Its flora requires accidental means of transport by ice and currents.

Summary

CD partly right. JDH was calling "stratification" what CD calls "foliation". Answers CD’s question on cleavage foliation in Himalayas. Glacial action.

Charmed by CD’s Admiralty instructions on geology [in Manual of scientific enquiry (1849), Collected papers 1: 227–50], but complains he does not give prices of books and instruments he recommends.

Summary

JDH going to visit W. H. Harvey in Ireland.

New curator at Kew.

Summary

JDH on John Scott.

Curious about the rationale of pollen prepotence.

Working on variation in New Zealand flora.

Summary

Will get name of grass [see 6243] from Gen. William Munro.

Has heard from Charles Wheatstone that CD has Prussian Order of Merit. Rejoices because it is the only distinction worth a fig.

Went to Handel festival; heard Messiah.

Went to poor old N. B. Ward’s funeral.

Summary

Hookers and Lyells will visit Lubbocks so he cannot see CD in London.

Will CD sit for Woolner?

Summary

Recommends J. W. Kayes’ book [History of the Sepoy War, vol. 1 (1864)].

Wife improving.

Glad CD liked Huxley’s letter.

Not an admirer of Kingsley.

Summary

All overworked at Kew.

Burchell collections enormous.

Lyell has sent MS of Principles p. 111 on changes of temperature. JDH thinks Lyell blunders and is out of his depth.

Charmed with E. B. Tylor’s book on man [Early history of mankind (1865)],

disappointed in Lubbock’s [Prehistoric times (1865)].

Summary

Request for climbing plants.

Summary

Does CD want Masdevallia?

Sends addresses of persons in S. America who would send Melastomataceae seeds.

Has ordered Matthieu Bonafous on maize [Histoire naturelle du maïs (1836)].

Summary

Returns two volumes of Felix Holt [George Eliot (1866)]

and the Coddington [lens].

John Smith will send Drosera.

Nation reports that Louis Agassiz holds that the Amazon Valley was formed since the glacial epoch.

Summary

Outlines address to York BAAS meeting on history of geographical distribution. Organising theme: advancement in this science based on ideas enunciated by scientific voyagers. Asks CD’s advice.

Summary

JDH back from his honeymoon.

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

Summary

Henslow’s long suffering.

Donald Beaton’s articles in Cottage Gardener clever but not to be trusted.

Summary

JDH looking for Hoya for CD.

Hookers tried to visit Down on foot, but weather was too inclement.

Summary

The translation of Humboldt’s Kosmos [Cosmos (1846–58)] is delayed.

Gives instances of peculiar genera with several good species in very small islands. Scarcity of insects on islands.

JDH cannot prove that there is much hybridising, but does not see why there should not be. "Bother variation, development & all such subjects, it is reasoning in a circle I believe after all."