Summary

Asks to call on RC.

Summary

Supposition that glaciers made Glen Roy is a dream. Has received three letters from CD on river terraces. Reports on trip to terraces at Belleville. Comparison with Glen Roy.

Summary

Comments on David Milne’s paper ["On the parallel roads of Lochaber" (1847), Trans. R. Soc. Edinburgh 16 (1849): 395–418]. CD still believes in marine origin. Rejects barrier of detritus at mouth of Glen Roy. If roads were formed by lake, it must have been ice-lake.

Comments on evidence of glaciers and icebergs in North Wales. Thinks pass caused by tidal channel, not river. Suggests that RC make altitude measurements at various points.

Summary

Has letter from CD asking for copy of DM-H’s paper ["On the parallel roads of Lochaber" (1847), Trans. R. Soc. Edinburgh 16 (1849): 395–418]. RC still has suspicions and looks forward to further testing of Glen Roy mystery.

Summary

Discusses David Milne’s Glen Roy paper ["On the parallel roads of Lochaber", Trans. R. Soc. Edinburgh 16 (1849): 395–418]. Rejects Milne’s theory that outlet of Glen Roy is blocked by detritus. Impressed by Milne’s discovery of an outlet at the level of the second shelf. Believes this strengthens theory that lakes were formed by glacier blocking Glen Roy. Offers arguments against glacier theory.

Summary

Discusses enclosed figures on elevation of terraces in several Scottish glens as surveyed by William Kemp and David Stevenson. Comments on Robert Chambers’ view of the terraces. Mentions a letter on the terraces, originally written for publication, which he has asked Robert Jameson [editor of the Edinburgh New Philos. J.] to destroy.

Summary

Thanks for H. C. Watson’s interesting letter. Disagrees with him on intermediate varieties.

CD has read latest numbers of JDH’s The botany of the Antarctic voyage [pt I, Flora Antarctica (1844–7)]; notes several sentences against "us Transmutationists".

Summary

Congratulates RC on his work on Scottish sea-margins [Ancient sea-margins (1848)].

Discusses Glen Roy; Milne staggered him in favour of the glacier view, but now his opinion has reverted.

Summary

He encloses an unidentified paper received from R. I. Murchison the previous day.

Is unable to provide information about Dr Du Gard.

Appreciates the maps of Glen Roy sent by WB. Would welcome the opinions of WB and Louis Agassiz concerning the parallel roads but cannot give up the idea of their marine origin.

Summary

Lieut. F. W. Hutton’s original review [Geologist 4 (1861): 132–6, 183–8] understands that mutability cannot be directly proved.

CD met Bentham at Linnean Society and asked him to write up his views on mutability.

Opinion of Owen.

Conversation with Lyell on antiquity of man.

Summary

Thanks Mrs Lyell for barnacle specimens.

Mentions Agassiz’s classification of saurians.

Discusses letter from Chambers on "roads" in Scottish glens; views of Agassiz and Buckland on the glens.

Is reading Hugh Miller [First impressions of England and its people (1847)].

Summary

A letter from CD’s admirers in the Netherlands, sent with an album of their photographs, in celebration of his sixty-eighth birthday.

Presents an account of early efforts in the Netherlands in the direction of developmental theories, and evidence of the support and enthusiastic reception given CD’s theory.

Summary

CD is pleased by BP’s appreciative opinion of Origin. He never intended to claim that he originated the doctrine that species have not been independently created. The only novelty in his work is the attempt to explain how species became modified and how the theory of descent explains large classes of facts. If he has taken anything from BP, he has done so unconsciously. Gives names of those he would have mentioned in any account of authors who maintained that species have not been separately created.

CD greatly admires BP’s Philosophy of creation.

Summary

Comments on JDD’s book [Geology (1849)]. Is sending copies of various geological papers. Their agreements and differences on coral reefs, volcanic geology, denudation, and subsidence.

Comments on Robert Chambers’ book [Ancient sea-margins (1848)].

Asks to borrow cirripede specimens.

Summary

Comments on Ann Susan Horner’s escape in a dangerous incident at sea.

Compares addresses by William Buckland and CL, delivered at recent meeting of the Geological Society.

Discusses the views on Glen Roy in Chambers’ Ancient sea-margins [1848].

Speculates that Chambers wrote Vestiges [of creation (1844)].