My Dear Father,

Unless you like Indian Railway Stock guaranteed 5 per Cent by Indian Gov^t. (of which Great Indian Peninsular R^y. now pays 6 per cent, & is regularly rising in value every half year).² I should recommend what is called “Indian Enfaced Rupee paper” 5$\frac{1}{2}$ per cent at about 109, which is an Indian Gov^t. Loan, and is thought very well of; Indian Bonds are the same sort of thing, but have not a permanent rate of interest, for instance they now have reduced them to 4 per Cent, & if money continues as cheap as at present they probably will reduce to 3 per Cent.

I should prefer G. Indian Peninsular R^y. Stock, as the guarantee is just the same, & the only difference in security between that & the Rupee paper Loans is that if the Railways all got smashed up in a rising; & the Gov^t. still held on, they would pay the interest on their own loans before the Guaranteed R. Interest.

If you do not like India, the next best investments of a safe kind are such things as Victoria Gov^t. or Cape of Good Hope Gov^t. Bonds paying about 5 Per Cent; but they do not obey Uncle Langton’s rule as a remedy for the decreasing value of gold, namely a guaranteed interest & share of extra profits.³

I went over last week to the opening of the Blackmore Museum at Salisbury, it is a most splendid collection of Antiquity of Man relics given together with the building to Salisbury, I dare say you have heard of it.⁴

M^r Blackmore is a friend of a M^r Lumbe at whose house at Buenos Ayres you stayed, & it was a funny chance that just two days before I saw M^r Blackmore he had received a letter from M^r Lumbe enclosing an old one of yours written from the Beagle.⁵ M^r Lumbe gives an account of a gigantic fossil Man, & he is going to send full particulars to Blackmore who will forward them to you.

Your affect son WED.