Summary

GHD’s abstract from Nature [24 (1881): 231] has been published in Kosmos.

John Collier has finished his portrait of CD.

Summary

The General Post Office sent one penny in response to GHD’s complaint, and demanded a receipt, which CD has sent. CD will keep the penny.

Summary

Suggests that GHD employ W. M. Hacon as solicitor for selling E. A. Darwin’s house, rather than Mr Salt’s agents; he remembers that firm as full of odious people.

Summary

CD is sorry he bothered GHD about the solicitor, but he boils with indignation to this day when he remembers how rudely he was treated by Mr Salt’s firm in London [40 years earlier].

Summary

Is obliged to GHD for arranging everything.

Sorry about the proof-sheets.

Summary

Has been visiting Anthony Rich, who persists in his intention to leave his property to CD despite the large fortune left by Erasmus. It is now all the more necessary for CD to arrange his own will.

Summary

Tremendously interested by GHD’s news [about the Plumian Professorship at Cambridge]. Suggests he get William Thomson to write to the electors.

Summary

Last issue of Nature has made him "awfully proud". [See R. S. Ball, "A glimpse through the corridors of time", Nature 25 (1881): 79–82.]

Summary

Encloses a letter from a Mr Hill on some [unspecified] legal matter.

Summary

Asks GHD to send a copy of his "paper on the moon" [probably Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. 171 (1880): 713–891] to V. O. Kovalevsky.

Summary

Has sent last week’s Nature wth J. S. Newberry’s paper ["Hypothetical high tides", Nature 25 (1882): 357–8]. CD thinks Newberry is right. This week’s issue has a letter against Newberry by Charles Callaway ["Letters to the editor: hypothetical high tides", Nature 25 (1882): 385].

The Archbishop of Canterbury has launched a series by scientists in the Contemporary Review on what is known and what is theoretical in science. [The series appears to have begun with an article by Robert S. Ball, "The boundaries of astronomy", 41 (1882): 923–41]. CD was asked to participate, but refused.

Summary

Writes about their new billiard table.

Summary

Enquires about the relationship of English grains to French milligrammes.

Summary

Asks GHD what the chances are against squinting and non-squinting children coming alternately in a family of ten.

Summary

CD has come to think a name better than "Pangenesis" is needed. Asks GHD to get a suggestion from a classics scholar. "Cell-genesis wd be perfect if it cd be put into Greek."

Summary

Congratulations on GHD’s brilliant tripos success.

Summary

John Lubbock regrets GHD did not take the Eton post. JL thinks scientific masters will soon occupy places as high and as profitable as classical masters.

Summary

CD relays the advice of Sir W. R. Grove on the dismal prospects of a law career.

Summary

Asks GHD to look in William Thomson’s book [W. Thomson and P. G. Tait, Treatise on natural philosophy, vol. 1 (1867)] to see how many million years ago Thomson says earth’s crust solidified. CD is troubled by "brevity of the world", because pre-Silurian creatures must have lived during endless ages "else my views wd be wrong, which is impossible – Q.E.D.".

Summary

Returns and sends comments on Clarke Hawkshaw’s essay ‘The persistence of forms of life in the depths of the sea’.