Summary

Francis wants a copy of a book on "Shakespeare’s merry tales" to present to a friend in Würzburg.

Summary

Inquires concerning a possibility of searching old deeds about the Darwin family history.

Summary

CD thinks nothing had better be done about the deeds at present.

Henrietta thinks Erasmus Darwin almost too dull to publish.

Summary

Asks GHD to send name and address of tailor from whom he got the [LL.D.] gown to W. B. Richmond.

Summary

Sorry to hear of his illness.

On his visit to J. F. McLennan, GHD might tell him that CD thinks A. R. Wallace would work up McLennan’s materials conscientiously.

Summary

Nature [21 (1880): 382] has an item about tremors and earth movements in Japan.

Summary

The Colonel [J. L. Chester] is pleased [see 12509].

Jos[iah Wedgwood III] is dying.

Summary

Discusses GHD’s genealogical researches

and his health.

Summary

Some essays have arrived for GHD.

Summary

Advises GHD on what to write if he is asked for a reference for Alfred Wrigley.

Thanks GHD for information about trypsin.

Summary

Asks GHD to decipher a letter [in German] he has received with a book: The Bible in science.

Enjoyed his stay in Cambridge extremely.

Summary

Discusses how fruits of lime-trees arranged themselves in a ripple-like way on a flooded walk.

Summary

Glad GHD goes on with ripple-marks; if he makes out a theory of ripples, they might give important information about the most ancient deposits.

CD has been wonderfully glorified in the Times [review of Movement in plants, 20 Nov 1880].

Summary

Discusses GHD’s ripple theory. Asks him how they are formed.

Delighted to hear that light is dawning in GHD’s eyes on the planetary system.

Summary

Thanks to Times review, Murray needs 500 more copies [of Movement in plants].

Summary

The Kovalevskys have been to lunch.

Madame Kovalevsky is greatly interested in GHD’s papers.

Summary

Will GHD ask Lord R[ayleigh] whether "gas-men in testing light, exclude the diffused light".

Summary

[Ernst Krause’s] letter to Nature ["Unconscious memory – Mr Samuel Butler", 23 (1881): 288] has been dispatched.

Gladstone has dated Wallace’s pension from last July, "which is splendid".

Summary

Describes lecture at Royal Institution by J. S. Burdon Sanderson on movement of plants and animals; JSBS’s preliminary part was so long that he never got to the plants.

Comments on the triumph of the ladies in the voting at Cambridge.

Mentions F. Galton’s visit to Down, a call on the Huxleys, and a visit with the Duke of Argyll.

Tells a story about the absent-mindedness of Burdon Sanderson.

Summary

Discusses a letter [not found] from R. S. Ball that has quite delighted him.

Describes events at Patterdale.