Summary

Offers condolences on the death of CL’s wife.

Summary

Thanks CL for loan of [Matthew Fontaine?] Maury’s map.

Discusses possibility of submerged continental extension including Madeira, Canaries, and Azores.

Mentions icebergs as carriers of European plants.

Hooker’s work on Antarctic flora.

Comments on coolness of tropics in glacial period and consequent migrations. Hooker’s views on this.

Summary

Additional response, at length, to CL’s criticisms of natural selection. Comments on failure of rodents to develop in Australia. Argues that most species become extinct and do not develop. Discusses variability, especially variability of rudimentary organs. Extinction among ammonites. Survival of Ornithorhynchus. Descent of marsupials and placentals. Emphasises embryological argument for descent of species.

Summary

Discusses the power of land covered with snow to radiate heat.

Criticises CL’s discussion of slavery [in Travels in North America (1845)]. A review of CL’s book is in Gardeners’ Chronicle.

Mentions John Lindley’s views on carbonic acid gas and extinction;

refers to the discussion of multiple and single creations in Humboldt’s Kosmos.

The origin of volcanic craters of elevation.

There is a popular demand for a new edition of Principles.

Praises palaeobotanical work of C. J. F. Bunbury.

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

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

Discusses S. S. Haldeman’s paper ["Enumeration of the recent freshwater Mollusca", Boston J. Nat. Hist. 4 (1844): 468–84].

Centres of species origin.

Describes his corrections of Origin.

Summary

Explains how melting of ice in Glen Spean could have successively freed two lower cols, thus establishing the water-levels that determined the two lower shelves in Glen Roy.

Plans to read a paper to the Linnean Society ["Sexual forms of Catasetum", Collected papers 2: 63–70].

Summary

Comments on letter from Jeffries Wyman.

Discusses reprinting reviews by Asa Gray.

Mentions views of W. S. Symonds on the geological record.

Discusses descent of turtles and tortoises.

The universality of variation.

Notes only a few species leave modified descendants.

Discusses Apteryx.

Variation among pigeons.

Comments on fertility among hybrids.

Does not agree that he makes natural selection do too much work.

Summary

Has resolved not to correct Owen’s misrepresentations in his review of Origin.

Discusses at length the theological implications of natural selection.

Summary

[On Antiquity of man] CD is "convinced that at times … you have … given up immutability". "A clear expression from you, if you could have given it, would have been potent with the public."

Objects to CL’s description of CD’s view "as a modification of Lamarck’s doctrine". Quotes Henrietta [Darwin]’s observations on this description.

Comments on CL’s controversy with Owen concerning the human brain.

The controversy between Falconer and CL.

The "wretched" review of CL [Antiquity of man, Athenæum 14 Feb 1863, pp. 219–21] and Huxley [Man’s place in nature].

Summary

Announces his engagement to Emma Wedgwood.

Summary

Replies to CL’s further comments [on Variation].

Discusses direct action of the environment as a cause of variation.

Summary

Sees Huxley’s deification of matter and force as a reaction to the way Paley likened the "Unknown Cause" to the mind of man so that new causes could be introduced. If you wish to retain free will which is inconsistent with constant law, Paley’s position is better. Free will is a recently introduced cause on our planet. It cannot be fully attributed to secondary causes.

What CD says about the variation in gestation of the hound is remarkable.

The astonishing fertile rabbit–hare hybrids encourage belief in Pallas’s theory of the multiple origin of dogs.

Does the regularity of gestation in man indicate a common stock?

Hooker’s observation of absence of forms peculiar to extra-Arctic Greenland indicates that the time since the beginning of the glacial period is brief in geological terms.

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

Discusses extinction of ammonites.

Discusses August Krohn’s cirripede research and Krohn’s correction of his own work.

Discusses origin of dog in connection with origin of man.

Comments on the guinea-pig in South America.

Notes K. E. von Baer’s view of species.

Mentions difficulty of crossing rabbit and hare.

Agrees with Hooker’s views on variation under cultivation and in nature.

Regrets use of term "natural selection", would now use "Natural Preservation".

Summary

Enumerates fossil mammals known in Secondary strata.

Lack of angiosperm plants in rocks older than Chalk is no reason to anticipate rarity of warm-blooded quadrupeds.

Summary

It is small comfort to be told you will be succeeded in lineal descent by angels when Lamarck and Darwin have made your ancestors without souls. However, can the progressive system not be seen as most consonant with a higher destiny if all spiritual natures advance? The link of common descent to inferior beings like idiots should be obvious. Infants die before they become responsible. Pope’s An essay on Man [1733] shows how man was "In doubt to deem himself a God or Beast", without speculation on his genealogy.

Summary

More comments on proofs [of CL’s Principles of geology, 10th ed.]. Discusses permanence of continents and other points.

Refers to passage describing evaporation of snow in Journal [of researches, pp. 277–8].

Cites astronomers’ views on increasing length of day.

Summary

Thanks him for interesting letter from a Mr Wood on heredity in fruit-trees.