My dear Lyell

I quite agree in admiration of Forbe’s Essay,¹ yet, on my life, I think, it has done in some respects as much mischief as good.² Those who believe in vast continental extensions will never investigate means of distribution. Good Heavens look at Heers map of Atlantis!!³ I thought his division & lines of travel of the British Plants very wild & with hardly any foundation. I quite agree with what you say of almost certainty of Glacial epoch having destroyed the Spanish Saxifrages &c in Ireland.—   I remember well discussing this with Hooker;⁴ & I suggested that a slightly different or more equable & humid climate might have allowed (with perhaps some extension of land) the plants in question to have grown along the entire western shores, between Spain & Ireland, & that subsequently they became extinct except at the present points under an oceanic climate. The point of Devonshire now has a touch of the same character.—

I demur in this particular case to Forbe’s transportal by ice: the subject has rather gone out of my mind, & it is not worth looking to my M.S. discussion on migration during the Glacial period,⁵ but I remember that the distribution of Mammalia & the very regular relation of the alpine plants to points due north (alluded to in Origin)⁶ seemed to indicate continuous land at close of Glacial period.—

Your chapters, to which you allude, must be very difficult, but I sh^d. think well worth much labour.—⁷ I fear your volume on Geolog. Hist. of Man will slip through your fingers.—⁸ (I do not think Hooker has criticised Forbes; H. C. Watson has abused him in the Cybele, but I do not remember that it was at all well done.—)⁹

I have not had heart to read Phillips yet,¹⁰ or a tremendous long hostile Review by Prof Bowen in 4^to. Mem. of American Acad. of Sciences.¹¹ (By the way I hear Agassiz is going to thunder against me in the next part of Contributions).— ¹² Thank you for telling me of the sale of the Origin, of which I had not heard.—¹³ There will be sometime,, I presume, a new Edition; & I especially want your advice on one point; & you know I think you the wisest of men, & I shall be absolutely guided by your advice.—   It has occurred to me that it would perhaps be good plan to put a set of notes (some 20 to 40 or 50) to Origin, which now has none, exclusively devoted to errors of my Reviewers.—   It has occurred to me that where a Reviewer has erred a common reader might err. Secondly it will show reader that he must not trust implicitly to Reviewers. Thirdly when any special fact has been attacked, I sh^d. like to defend it. I would show no sort of anger. I enclose a mere rough specimen, done without any care or accuracy, done from memory alone (to be torn up) just to show the sort of thing which has occurred to me.—   Will you do me the great kindness to consider this well. It seems to me it would have good effect & give some confidence to reader. It w^d. horrid bore going through all the Reviews.—

Yours affect | C. Darwin

(Etty goes on pretty well, but is terribly weak.)