Summary

Discusses belief in immortality and a personal God.

Describes his holiday in Southampton.

Comments on papers of John Wesley Judd.

Summary

Will subscribe £25 towards F. A. Dohrn’s Zoological Station at Naples.

Summary

Notes recent confirmation of CD’s views on subsidence in [island of] St Jago.

Describes Carboniferous strata discovered on Island of Mull by J. W. Judd. Contained evidence of Miocene sinking of volcanoes.

Summary

Comments on CL’s planned bequest to science. CD would do the same if he had fewer sons.

Summary

Discusses paper on volcanoes by J. W. Judd.

Comments on volcanoes of the S. American Cordillera.

Mentions paper by T. F. Jamieson ["Glacial period in N. Britain", Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 30 (1874): 317–18].

Summary

The coral-reef book has been invaluable [J. D. Dana, Corals and coral islands (1872); used by CD in Coral reefs, 2d ed. (1874)].

Thanks for Saturday Review.

Summary

Comments on Tyndall’s [Presidential] Address at Belfast meeting [of BAAS] and praise of CD’s work there. Mentions criticism of Belfast clergy.

CL saw some crustacean footprints while in Ireland.

Summary

Circular requesting recipients to sign an enclosed [missing] statement [relating to appeal for Naples Zoological Station] if they approve of it.

Summary

Is glad to have Descent cheaper and sold more largely, but would be sorry to see it printed like the Origin. "The closeness of the lines is the great fault." Fears book might be very thick. "I hear scores of people complaining of the heavy and thick books which you publish."

Summary

Discusses 2d edition of Descent. CD is inclined to a cheap edition and asks JM to consider a one-volume edition in double-column format.

Summary

New edition of Descent just off the press. Murray feels price must be 9s instead of 12s, if it is to sell. This will reduce profit to almost nil.

Summary

Russian Expression has sold nearly 2000 copies.

Plans to come to England to study collections of vertebrate fossils from the Chalk. This will complement his work in the south of France.

Summary

Reports on a séance. "The Lord have mercy on us all if we have to believe in such rubbish."

Asks JDH to vote for his nephew, Henry Parker, for Athenaeum membership.

Summary

Has received circulars, and contributions from Lyell and George Busk [for Naples biological station].

Summary

Returns and sends comments on Clarke Hawkshaw’s essay ‘The persistence of forms of life in the depths of the sea’.

Summary

Approves of proof [of subscription appeal for Dohrn’s Naples station]. Suggests names.

Summary

Has written to J. Murray to have account of the Zoological Station inserted in the Murray guidebook.

The circular about the Station has been printed; some have already signed.

Received R. Kossman’s paper on Anelasma ["Untersuchungen über die durch Parasitismus hervorgerufenen Umbildungen in der Familie der Pedunculata", Verh. Phys.-med. Ges. Würz. N. F. 5 (1874): 129–57]. The case is the most interesting ever recorded of gradation, i.e., from an animal with a stomach to one with roots like a plant.

Delighted he will examine the complemental males of Scalpellum.

Summary

Entirely sympathises with CD about Mivart’s attack on George. THH has had a letter from Mivart in which he pleads guilty, but THH has decided there is no patching the matter up. Advises against doing anything unless Mivart takes initiative.

Summary

Thanks CD for copy of Examiner.

Fear of communism is making CD’s theory popular among possessing classes.

Describes reception of Lyell’s Antiquity of man among German country people.

Summary

Has grown haricots in England following CD’s suggestion in the Origin that this had never been done.

Wishes to see CD.