Summary

Thanks MATW for the results of her experiments on the inheritance of caterpillar peculiarities and would be grateful for any further observations on differences in structure or habits between silkworm breeds, or peculiarities in inheritance.

Summary

The entire family will set out for Malvern for six to eight weeks’ trial of J. M. Gully’s water-cure.

Family news.

Summary

Continues prior letter of this date. Has received CD’s [1202]. Thanks CD for saving his correspondence.

Sent "a yarn about species" in October mail.

Some "puerile" JDH letters printed in Athenæum.

Requests CD extract anything valuable from his letters to CD and Lyell for Athenæum.

CD’s complemental males in barnacles wonderful.

Warns CD to drop his battle about perpetuity of names in species descriptions.

Summary

CD thinks great dam across Yangma valley is a lateral glacial moraine.

Reports on Birmingham BAAS meeting.

Details of water-cure.

Barnacles becoming tedious; careful description shows slight differences constitute varieties, not species.

Lamination of gneiss.

Summary

Comments on JDD’s book [Geology (1849)]. Is sending copies of various geological papers. Their agreements and differences on coral reefs, volcanic geology, denudation, and subsidence.

Comments on Robert Chambers’ book [Ancient sea-margins (1848)].

Asks to borrow cirripede specimens.

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

Pleasure at receiving CD’s scientific letters to JDH and Hodgson.

The H. Wedgwoods’ pecuniary loss.

Condolences at CD’s father’s death.

Rajah harasses JDH’s work. Lack of supplies, rain, malarial valleys, and landslips make going difficult. Cannot get into Tibet.

"Twenty species [of plants] here [Camp Sikkim] to one there [Tierra del Fuego?] always are asking me the vexed question, ""where do we come from?""."

From observation of terraces descending to steppes and plains of India, he thinks that the Himalayas were once a grand fiord coast.

Has information CD requested on Yangsma valley. JDH’s detailed hypothesis of origin of dam there. Does not agree with CD’s interpretation.

Summary

Comments on AC’s experiments on Phlox and Mimulus.

Summary

Encloses a letter to be forwarded to Sven Lovén, asking for a specimen of a remarkable cirripede. Still anxious to receive JGF’s specimens.

Summary

Physical description of Sikkim mountains.

Travelling through Kinchin snows.

Transported boulders.

Summary

Discusses effect of subsidence and elevation on deposits. Cites examples along coasts of South America and Wales. Proposes theory to explain thickness of deposits in south Wales.

Asks CL’s opinion of his theory of "craters of elevation" described in Volcanic islands.

Mentions CL’s comparison of Mississippi beds to the Pampas.

Comments on Poulett Scrope’s views on the separation of basalt and trachyte.

Describes his cirripede work.

Summary

CD’s health and his father’s death have delayed his answer. Describes J. M. Gully’s water-cure.

JDH’s Galapagos papers [Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 20 (1851): 163–233] have excellent discussion of geographical distribution, but why no general treatment of affinities?

CD’s views on clay-slate laminae.

Turmoil in Royal Society between naturalists and physicists.

Summary

Asks to borrow specimen of Pollicipes from the Chalk.

Summary

Regrets that state of his health prevents acceptance of invitation [to be present at inauguration of J. S. Henslow as President of Ipswich Museum in Dec 1850].

Summary

Mentions illness of Emma Darwin.

Comments on CL’s Second visit to the United States [1849].

His water treatment by J. M. Gully.

CD’s contribution ["Geology"] to J. W. Herschel’s Manual of scientific enquiry [(1849), Collected papers 1: 227–50].