Summary

Thanks CL for comments [on Variation].

Thinks Pangenesis would be important step in biology if admitted as probable.

Introduction to French edition [of Origin] has injured the book.

Summary

Thanks for THH’s review of Origin in Macmillan’s Magazine ["Time and life: Mr Darwin’s Origin of Species", 1 (1859–60): 142–8]. Reception of natural selection will depend on whether it explains the recognised laws in the several fields of natural history.

Domestic variation.

Summary

Lyell is "half-hearted but whole-headed" for CD’s theory. George Bentham wholly converted.

Bates’s book delightful but has a Darwinistic bias.

Cameroon plants.

JDH defends Bates against J. E. Gray’s slanders.

Summary

Count Schouvaloff asserts that CD’s works are prohibited in Russia. Is he not mistaken?

Summary

CD elected correspondent of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.

Summary

Hopes to make good arrangement for publication of CD’s Variation.

Agassiz claims to have proved all of America was covered with unbroken ice during the glacial period.

Summary

BJS is looking forward to reading the life of Lyell [K. M. Lyell, Life, letters and journals of Sir Charles Lyell, 2 vols. (1881)].

Summary

Admits that occasional transport is not a well-established hypothesis but believes it more probable than continental extension as an explanation for the stocking of islands.

Summary

Has agreed to permit P. T. A. Talandier to translate the Origin.

Summary

Has made progress [on Variation]. Hopes it will go to press in the autumn. Lists his needs for cuts to be made – altogether 50.

Supposes Origin has ceased selling. Would be sorry to have labour of another edition. A new French edition is wanted.

Summary

Criticises at length the concept of submerged continents attaching islands to the mainland in the recent period. Notes drastic alteration of geography required, the dissimilar species on opposite shores of continents, and differences between volcanic islands and mountains of mainland areas. Admits sea-bed subsidence, but not enough to engulf continents. Denies that theory can explain island flora and fauna.

Considers Edward Forbes’s idea a check on study of dissemination of species.

Summary

Is sending CL an arrow-head. Says John Lubbock tells of vast numbers of flint tools in peat in France. Urges CL to conduct further research on the subject.

Comments on paper by J. S. Newberry concerning palaeozoic deposits in America [Am. J. Sci. 2d ser. 29 (1860): 208–18]

and on A. von Keyserling’s view of species change.

Mentions J. W. Salter’s chart arranging Spirifer.

Comments on Andrew Murray’s paper on the Origin ["On Mr Darwin’s theory of the origin of species", Proc. R. Soc. Edinburgh 4 (1860): 274–91].

A Manchester newspaper article says CD has proved "might is right".

Summary

Questions CD’s view in Origin that domestic dogs are not descended from a single stock. Occasional crossings of domestic stock with wild species could explain cases of reversion towards wild specific forms. CD’s views on hybridity do not then have to be contradicted in constructing an ancestral stock.

Summary

Thanks CL for Hooker’s letter.

Discussion of Hooker’s views on glacial action and temperature with specific reference to S. America.

His squabbles with Hooker on transport of seeds via water currents,

temperate plants, and preservation of tropical plants during cooler period.

Expresses interest in seeing Agassiz’s letter.

Summary

Preparation for his address with particular concern that JP approve the part relating to [Adam] Sedgwick. Urges JP to sit at dinner with him as a sign of approval of the award [of the Copley Medal].

Admits his own dismay regarding the efforts of the younger geologists and zoologists to obtain the Copley Medal for CD on the grounds of the Origin and his anxiety about the next year’s award.

Summary

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

Summary

Sends a letter concerning priority [of Patrick Matthew] for JDH to read and post.

Angered at Owen’s review.

Huxley’s Royal Institution lecture ends well.

Summary

Asks TD to carry out research on brachiopods to see whether the forms in one formation are intermediate between those above and below.

Describes unpublished study of spirifers by J. W. Salter.

Summary

L. Agassiz’s evidence [for glaciation of America] is very weak.

Thanks AG for arranging for American edition of Variation, but doubts that the book will be successful.

Has found no differences in pollen of Rhamnus so cannot conjecture whether it is dimorphic.

The common oxlip of England is certainly a hybrid between the primrose and the cowslip whereas Primula elatior is a good species.

Reports experiments on the relative vigour of seedlings from cross- and self-fertilised plants.

Summary

Comments on TVW’s book [On the variation of species with special reference to the Insecta (1856)].

On TVW’s Unitarianism. Predicts TVW will fall further away from Christianity.

[Letter sent by TVW to Charles Lyell.]