Summary

Introduces Syms Covington and recommends him for employment in Australia.

Summary

CD’s servant [Syms Covington] will work his passage to Australia.

Returns a curious stone, of which he hopes to publish an account. [See Volcanic islands, p. 38.]

Summary

Has not yet had time to read CD’s Journal of researches attentively. He is sure there is no expression referring to himself personally that he could wish were not in it.

Summary

CD has heard from the Treasury; they will pay the account [for the Zoology] as soon as Smith, Elder & Co. like.

Summary

Acknowledges receipt of Journal of researches.

Summary

Thanks CD effusively [for Journal of researches] – "the most delightful book in my collection".

Summary

Thanks CD for Journal of researches. Praises its "want of pretension"; "the Geology seems … to be excellent – and a good part of it new".

Summary

Acknowledges Journal of researches.

Summary

Robert Brown has mistreated Capt. P. P. King by holding back for nine years the plants collected on King’s voyage of the Adventure and Beagle.

Summary

CD is led to believe there are no true permanently inbreeding, sexually reproducing beings. Thanks for replies to breeding questions.

Asks for clarification of Hippeastrum crosses: is selfing or crossing with individual of same species intended and was increased fertility due to constitution of foreign parent or due to the pollen coming from another plant? Has WH known any hybrid or mongrel to revert or to vary in a manner unlikely to be effect of soil?

Sends Journal of researches.

Summary

Rejects necessity of outbreeding and any general law of reversion.

Describes further experiments with Hippeastrum showing greater fertility with foreign pollen than with individual’s own pollen or with pollen from another individual of same species.

Does not believe CD’s questions about reversion can be answered in present state of knowledge.

Summary

Returns proof sheets and requests revises. Gives his opinion of Mr Walkers’s work.

Summary

A newly-elected Fellow sends a signed obligation and subscription to CD as Secretary of the Geological Society of London.

Summary

Transmits, as on former occasions, the Smith, Elder & Co. account for the now published third number of the third part of the Zoology.

Summary

Acknowledges Journal of researches and in return sends the first volume of his History of British birds [1839–43].

Summary

Detailed evidence for and against geological elevation along coast of the Indian subcontinent, South Asia, and Arabia. Extensive references to geological literature about these areas.

Describes coral sand-dune and salt-marsh formation.

Summary

Acknowledges receipt of CD’s gift of the Journal of researches. Praises CD’s "ingenious" views.

Summary

Asks for details of Smyth’s Island discovered by WHS – particularly whether the islets form a ring surrounding a lagoon. [See Coral reefs, p. 158].

Summary

Gives his opinion of a MS on geology. It is not really a scientific work. It might sell well, but CD’s opinion on success of sale is worthless.

Summary

Thanks CD for his Journal of researches, "one of the best scientific travelworks of this time", which CFAH intends to translate into German.