Darwin Correspondence Project

Down Farnborough Kent

July 21st—

My dear Dr Gray

I must write one line to thank you for your letter of the 30th ulto, & for the extremely kind manner in which you have acceded to my request (which I assure you I long hesitated whether I would make) about marking the close species. I do not quite understand from Hooker's note, whether the sheets have arrived, but I fancy not; but I shall hear again in two or three days. Hooker read over your letter, & seems to have been as much struck with it as I have been,—as showing in a most striking manner the geographical affinities of species, & the difficulty of ascertaining what are species.— Your discussion on connecting & separating forms seems to me so philosophical, that I much hope that someday you will be as good as your word & write an “Essay on Species”.

I hope, also, before end of year to hear that you have found time to write on the geographical distribution of the U.S. plants; & if my letter caused you to do this some year or two before you otherwise would have done it, I shall congratulate myself in private, at having done good Botanical work.

Pray believe me with cordial thanks | Yours very sincerely | Charles Darwin

Some of my immersed seeds have come up after 82 & 85 days immersion, viz Radishes Beet, Atriplex, Capsicum, Oats, Cucurbita, Rhubarb, Lettuce, Carrotts, Celery, & Onions.—