Summary

Knows Dawkins interested in cave animals; has just heard from a Lloyd of Rhaggatt that a fissure has opened full of bones and teeth. Will send some.

Summary

His bad health continues.

Thirty-two plants have come up from the earth attached to partridge’s foot.

Origin to be published in Italian.

Owen was wrong: Origin will not be forgotten in ten years.

Summary

Is having a trough made to try experiments [on ripple-marks].

Summary

Asks CD to sign papers for Royal Society candidacy of W. B. Clarke.

Summary

Is glad and proud to honour the memory of Adam Sedgwick [d. 1873].

Summary

Concern about futures of Willy [Hooker] and Horace [Darwin].

Henrietta [Darwin] back from Cannes.

CD has been to Cambridge to visit Frank [Darwin]. Saw Sedgwick, who took him to the [Geological] Museum and utterly exhausted him. Humiliating to be "killed by a man of 86".

Saw Alfred Newton.

CD has been working away on man, to much greater length (as usual) than expected,

and on cross- and self-fertilisation.

Does JDH happen to have seeds of Canna warszewiczii matured in some hot country?

Sympathises with JDH on Dawson’s paper – amusing that Dawson hashes up E. D. Cope’s and L. Agassiz’s views.

Summary

Thanks JSH for his defence [see 2794].

He is not hurt for long by what his attackers say. His conclusions were arrived at after long study. He has certainly erred, but not so much as "Sedgwick and Co." think.

Asks JSH to send names of plants that vary greatly in length of pistil.

Summary

Sends characters by which he can divide all primroses and cowslips into what he suspects will be male and female plants. Believes these forms are first step in formation of a dioecious plant.

Summary

Has read THH’s review of Sir Wyville Thomson’s [Introduction to the] Voyage of the "Challenger".

Sends a draft of a letter for Nature [Collected papers 2: 223–4]. He particularly asks THH to decide whether he should include a certain paragraph [see ML 1: 389].

Summary

A letter of recommendation for W. B. Dawkins in his application for the Woodwardian professorship of geology in the university of Cambridge.

Summary

Lieut. F. W. Hutton’s original review [Geologist 4 (1861): 132–6, 183–8] understands that mutability cannot be directly proved.

CD met Bentham at Linnean Society and asked him to write up his views on mutability.

Opinion of Owen.

Conversation with Lyell on antiquity of man.

Summary

Thanks ES in connection with award [of Copley Medal].

Summary

Sends four wrist bands, and advice on putting them on. George is well. Can easily get worm castings. Lilly and Mlle Wild arrived in a storm to stay the night. Is much amused by Sedgwick’s ferocious letter about Vestiges.

Summary

Returns Asa Gray’s letter. Disappointed with Gray. Comments on America. British–American relations.

Summary

Sorry that his health prevents him attending a meeting to honour Adam Sedgwick.

Summary

Thanks for Geological survey of North Wales [1866]. Longs to return to the mountains with which he was once familiar, but did not understand.

Summary

Sorry to hear of AS’s poor health.

Would like to attend Aberdeen meeting [BAAS, 1859] but is unfit for so great an exertion. Has been told he has "suppressed gout".

Pleased that AS remembers their 1831 geological trip, which made CD appreciate the noble science of geology.

Summary

CD’s Copley Medal. The numbers were ten to eight in CD’s favour but the Cambridge men mustered strongly for Sedgwick.

Summary

Has just given a paper [on "Sand tubes"] at Cambridge Philosophical Society and exhibited some specimens. It went well, with Whewell and Sedgwick taking an active part.

Herschel thinks 6000–odd years since the creation not nearly long enough to explain the separations from a single stock.

Summary

Thinks JDH’s explanation of polymorphism on volcanic islands is probably correct.

Proposes experimental test to see whether alpine form of a plant is inherited like a true variety.