Summary

Thanks THH for the delightful evening he gave Frank [Darwin].

Summary

AJ, a collector, would like a few lines from CD and an autographed photograph.

Summary

Is "almost certain" plant is Menispermum canadense.

Summary

CD’s health remains bad and as he grows older he becomes weaker.

Summary

Tells of shooting wood-pigeons that had in their crops acorns that did not grow locally.

[Fragment of letter glued to 2197.]

Summary

Pigeons in Egypt alight on trees rather than on the mud hovels of the natives [see Variation 1: 181].

[Two fragments glued to 2196.]

Summary

Prepared to think world infinitely old, but not that life originated with a single cell. Questions whether geological evidence supports gradual progress in organisation. HW thought scientific opinion during Vestiges debate was against this hypothesis. Argues that presence of same senses in lower animals and vertebrates does not imply descent; assumes resemblance is due to living in same world and thus having organs for the same purposes. Wants CD to know how others may see these questions.

Summary

Suggests it would be easier and cheaper if he were given one or two pages in preface [to Journal of researches] for two or three important errors. Would like to take out one sentence if present preface is not stereotyped. Table of contents is shabby.

Summary

Habits of ducks when sleeping on water.

Summary

Asserts that if his views [in the Origin] are in the main right, palaeontology does not give a fair picture of the forms that have peopled the earth, and [fossil] collections are a mere chance gathering of a few forms.

Summary

Agassiz denounces Origin as "atheistical";

AG is currently reviewing it [in Am. J. Sci. 2d ser. 29 (1860): 153–84].

Jeffries Wyman praises it, though not a convert.

Summary

CD asks how soon JM will go to press with Journal [of researches]; thinks he had better look it over to see if progress of science has made any correction necessary.

P.S. Asa Gray has written that Origin has caused great excitement in U. S. Agassiz has denounced it.

Summary

Will keep THH’s secret [of authorship of Times review of Origin]. It has made deep impression.

J. D. Dana’s illness.

Daily News accuses him of plagiarising Vestiges.

Summary

Returning Thomas George Bonney’s certificate, which it was a pleasure to sign.

Delighted that JH is interested in his book [Origin?]

Summary

Thanks CD for the Origin. WW is not yet a convert but there is so much "of thought and of fact" in what CD has written that "it is not to be contradicted without careful selection of the ground and manner of the dissent".

Summary

High praise and detailed comments on JDH’s introductory essay to Flora Tasmaniae, which CD has now finished reading.

Disagrees on power of transoceanic migration. Advocates glacial transport of plants.

CD’s response to reviews of Origin in Saturday Review [8 (1859): 775–6] and John Lindley’s in Gardeners’ Chronicle [but see 2651].

Summary

Notes by HCW on the Origin dealing especially with divergence and convergence. Believes there is some natural tendency to converge into groups in opposition to divergence generated by natural selection.

Summary

Praises CL’s work on human species.

A critical review of Origin in Saturday Review [24 Dec 1859].

A letter from J. G. Jeffreys criticises CD’s geological statements.

A note from William Whewell concerning Origin.

Summary

Has read Origin and considers it one of the most valuable contributions to present-day natural history. Believes, however, that there are difficulties in the extensive generalisation that all taxonomic groups are related by descent. Does not understand how Genesis is to be read unless at least the human species was created independently of other animals. Cannot bring himself to the idea that man’s reasoning and moral sense could have been obtained from "irrational progenitors": the "Divine Image" is the unsurmountable distinction between man and brutes. [See 2644.]

Summary

Remembers reading Smith’s memoir in Geological Transactions on the anomalous nature of Ventriuculidae. Asks for a copy.