Summary

Feels he has no choice but to comply with the request of Council that he remain in office. Is reluctant to do so as his health has caused him to miss meetings and he has never once attended without suffering the next day. Cannot hold office beyond next anniversary meeting.

Summary

CD has read WK’s abstract in the Scotsman, 15 February 1840, p. 3, and asks for further details.

Summary

Acknowledges TW’s letter supplying him with William Kemp’s address.

Summary

Informs correspondent that he wrote to William Walton all that he knew about the guanaco.

Present state of his health prevents his acceptance of invitation to attend the meeting of the Society.

Summary

The fourth number of part one of the Zoology has now been published. The Smith, Elder & Co. account is submitted.

Summary

Cancelled. Same as To Robert FitzRoy   [20 February 1840]. Dated 21 [May 1840], in first edition of the printed Calendar, but cancelled before the second edition.

Summary

Asks if he can bring his guests, J. C. L. and Mme [Simonde de] Sismondi and [Fanny] Allen, to CB’s parties.

Summary

Writes to find whether the date of the event [JMH’s marriage?] has been fixed.

Has been unwell and does not yet feel up to work.

Summary

Family news.

CD’s health is improving, but he has scarcely put pen to paper in the last half-year, and everything in the publishing line is going backwards.

Summary

Describes an orange tree with curious "horned" fruit; sends specimen. Asks if the horns represent "metamorphoses of some organ into the fruit orange".

Summary

Questions GNS on remains found in caves on Caldy Island. [CD’s pencilled queries sent via Frances Allen].

Summary

Sends his paper on earthquakes [(1840), Collected papers 1: 53–86]. Now sets less value on theoretical reasoning in geology than when he wrote it.

Summary

Feels he cannot keep the gift of Gould’s "magnificent work" or take out a subscription now that he is a married man.

Summary

Recommends that Consul Chatfield’s communication on an earthquake in San Salvador [read 5 Feb 1840; Proc. Geol. Soc. Lond. 3 (1840): 179] not be published in Transactions.

Summary

Sorry that ill health prevented sooner reply. Letter about caves at Caldy was already read by Buckland. Will examine birds’ beaks when better and present to Geological Society of London in Smith’s name.

Summary

Thanks GRG for his gift [A list of the genera of birds (1840)] and trusts that now GRG will be able to finish John Gould’s MS for Zoology.

Summary

The second number of part four of the Zoology has now been published. The account of Smith, Elder & Co. is presented.

Summary

Remarks that each of two species of Fagus separated by 1000 miles has a fungus that grows on it; the fungus species are probably closely allied.

Summary

Acknowledges election as Honorary Member of Shropshire and North Wales Natural History and Antiquarian Society.

Summary

Illness has long delayed CD’s thanks for WCR’s meteorological pamphlets and geological reports. Mentions a reference to whirlwinds leaving rotary patterns in desert sand.