Summary

Has sent off paper to the Royal Society

and begun work on a new problem which he feels contains the meaning of Bode’s Law, concerning the mean distances of the planets from the sun. There are mathematical difficulties, however, which he may be unable to surmount.

Will get to work on the pendulum next week.

Summary

Writes of the weather,

his reading of Huxley’s Crayfish [1880],

and domestic matters.

Summary

Sends seeds of Megarrhiza and gives details of species.

Summary

Hopes to finish his report tomorrow; last year’s crosses were failures.

Summary

Sends pheasant tail coverts, which he believes are unusual in pattern, resembling those of a peacock.

Summary

Sends details of Netter 1879 (Abraham Netter. 1879. De l’intuition dans les découvertes et inventions. Strasbourg: Treuttel & Wurtz.)

Summary

A letter of resignation from the Down Schools Committee. He will send a cheque for balance in hand when he is informed as to whom it is to be sent.

Summary

Wishes to see some small appointment found for A. R. Wallace, whose present labours are trying.

Summary

German edition of Erasmus Darwin delayed because Murray has not sent phototypes and galvanographs.

Two of CD’s articles from Nature to appear in April Kosmos ["Sexual colours in butterflies", Collected papers 2: 220–2, Kosmos 7 (1880): 72–4;

"Fertility of hybrids from the Chinese goose", Collected papers 2: 219–20, Kosmos 7 (1880): 77–8].

Moritz Wagner will begin a series criticising natural selection.

Summary

Offended by F. V. Dickins’ review [Nature 21 (1880): 350] of his Omori mound paper. Asks CD to have it reviewed elsewhere and encloses a letter to Nature he wants CD to forward. [See 12571.]

Summary

Is impressed by the scale of Torbitt’s experiments. Discusses financial assistance. If Torbitt’s work succeeds, they will be amply repaid.

Summary

Informs CD that the letter CCG received from him has been framed to be hung in the Kentucky State House.

Summary

Germination and root of Ipomoea.

Summary

Is keeping down his expenditure; has some landowners growing potatoes for him.

Summary

Sends a poem he has composed in honour of CD.

Summary

Describes studies with Ernst Haeckel

and research on psychology of lower animals.

Sends book [Der thierische Wille (1880)] and describes his views on the subject.

Summary

Impoverished German doctor asks for money.

Summary

Encloses a letter from Volney Rattan of California.

Summary

Thanks for cheque.

Wants to see CD.

Summary

Is beginning Geikie’s Ice age. Describes flints found on the common. Comments on exciting election.