Summary

Invites JT to come to Down with the Asa Grays and Hookers.

Summary

Asks JT to distribute some circulars about the work of Gustavus Hinrichs of Iowa, whom CD wishes to help.

Admires JT’s Norwich address [to Mathematics and Physics Section, BAAS meeting, Rep. BAAS 38: 1–6] and his Fortnightly Review paper on scientific discovery [7 (1867): 645–60].

Summary

Gustavus Hinrichs is also a [not highly regarded] correspondent of JT’s; he will put GH’s papers on the table at Royal Institution to ease CD’s conscience.

Dined with the Asa Grays at Hooker’s. Told Mrs Gray that CD’s ill health was a benefit because it caused him to ponder a great deal.

Summary

Sends a page to be sent on to Charles William Nunn.

Offers sympathy for the illness of THH’s son, Henry (Harry) Huxley.

Wishes he could have attended the British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting at Norwich.

Summary

Thanks BDW for extracts about "drumming" [of male Cicada to attract females].

Asa Gray and Hooker doubt that 13–year and 17–year Cicada forms should be considered distinct species. CD is inclined to agree with them.

Suggests observations be made of ratio of females to males in the rarer form.

Summary

Explains "Pantogen".

Summarises his papers.

Asks for help in finding a publisher.

Criticises d’Archiac’s review of Origin [in Paléontologie stratigraphique 2 (1864)].

Summary

Suggests THF write a paper on violets. Asa Gray, once a sceptic, now declares he is convinced whole structure of a flower is adapted for a cross with another individual.

Urges THF not to give up Pangenesis lightly. "It has thrown light on my mind in regard [to] a great series of complex phenomena."

Summary

Acknowledges letter of 31 August and various works. Regrets he is unable to help GH with his works but will seek to interest Tyndall. Discourages GH on prospect of publication of his new book in England.

Summary

Reports on Norwich address [Rep. BAAS 38 (1868): lviii–lxxv]. Left out some things, i.e., Asa Gray’s being superseded.

Tyndall says CD and JDH are types of "unconscious merit".

Summary

The newspapers’ pother about his mild theology.

Tyndall’s reference to JDH and CD as the two "modestest" men in science.

Huxley offended the clergy twice without cause or warrant.

William Hooker ill.

Astronomers do not like JDH’s reference to them.

Summary

Pleased at success of JDH’s address. Has read several press reports.

Spectator pitches into JDH about theology ["Dr Hooker on the evidences", 22 Aug 1868, pp. 986–7].

Feels JDH has "immensely advanced the belief in evolution of species".

Summary

Rejoices over news of Variation sales.

Pall Mall Gazette review [7 (1868): 555, 636, 652] is undoubtedly by G. H. Lewes [see 5951].

Dinner at Lyells’.

Dean Stanley favours a monument to Faraday in Westminster Abbey.

Perceval Wright is back from Seychelles and reports on plants he collected.

Summary

Now quite understands Pangenesis. Satisfaction given by it, as CD says, may depend on one’s mental constitution. In all cases of descent JDH has always thought "all the properties of the parents are transmitted in the one cell and were diffused to every part of the future offspring".

Tyndall believes he feels atoms as firmly as St Paul believed he saw Christ.

Summary

Thanks for plant names.

H. C. Watson a renegade about natural selection. Discusses HCW’s views.

F. Müller’s letter enclosed.

Friedrich Hildebrand’s experiments are splendid for Pangenesis [Die Geschlechter-Vertheilung bei den Pflanzen (1867)].

Summary

The grass [see 6243] is Sporobolus elongatus, common in the tropics.

Visit to Oxford with X Club.

On his forthcoming address.

Summary

Discusses three "laws of race preservation" which are evolving: (1) natural selection; (2) the sociological law of sympathetic selection, or indiscriminate survival; (3) moral law – social selection or the "Birth of the Fittest".

Summary

So JDH did write the Gardeners’ Chronicle review [of Orchids]! CD guessed it from the little slap at R. Brown.

Dawson’s lecture has nothing new. Absurd to assume Greenland under water during whole of glacial period. Suggests absence of certain plants in Greenland due to seeds not surviving in sea-water. Suggests an experiment on vitality in sea-water of plants that might be in Greenland. Is more willing to admit a Norway–Greenland land connection than most other cases.

Urges JDH to warn Tyndall on his glacial theory of valleys in Switzerland.

Is working on cultivated plants.

Summary

Further comments on Jamieson’s theory of the formation of the roads of Glen Roy; paper by Jamieson dealing with glaciation in Scotland ["On the ice-worn rocks of Scotland", Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 18 (1862): 164–84].

Comments on paper by A. C. Ramsay on the glacial formation of lakes ["On the glacial origin of certain lakes", Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 18 (1862): 185–204].

Criticises remarks by John Tyndall on glacial formation of Swiss valleys.