Dear Sir

I have only this morning received your very obliging communication.—¹ I assure you I have seldom been more gratified than at the distinction you have conferred on my Journal by translating it. I have some fears whether M^r Colburn will permit the use of the Plate & I am sure he will not gratis, but I have asked him to affix some price to it, & if that price be moderate, I will willingly pay it & transmit the plate for your use.—²

I will commence looking through my Journal & will send you on thin paper a few corrections.—³ I transmit for your acceptance a copy of a small work on Coral-Reefs;⁴ perhaps you will be good enough to insert a note to the effect that the chapter in my Journal is only a rough sketch of the facts & details given in full in this work.— Would you like to have the use of the woodcuts, from my Coral-volume to illustrate that chapter; I could lend them you for no charge.— I also transmit copies of some papers; perhaps you will be so good as just to refer to the existence of two of them in notes—one to the account of the Concepcion earthquake⁵ —& the other to the chapter, in which I treat of erratic boulders & glaciers.— ⁶

Will you inform me pretty soon, whether you would like some of the woodcuts out of my coral-volume—& whether you intend to print any part of the Appendix.— I would in that case wish the manner I speak of Agassiz altered, as I am ashamed of it, though convinced that his extension of the glacier-theory is preposterous, though now fully aware what good service he has done in this department of Geology.—⁷ Would it be worth while for you to refer to Prof. Owens descriptions of the extraordinary fossils which I discovered in S. America.—⁸ I daresay there is a copy of the Zoology of the Beagle’s Voyage in Berlin & the first Part contains descriptions of these fossils— I do not think it would take you long just to give a short sketch of these monsters, & I think such a sketch would have some general interest.— I will endeavour not to make my corrections more bulky than I can help, & I daresay if put in the form of a few notes, they would be the least trouble to yourself.— I hope that you as editor, with your extensive knowledge will add some criticisms or notes, which would add value & interest to the work.

I have not yet read your work on New Zealand, though I have had it for some time on my list, having ⁠⟨⁠been⁠⟩⁠ exceedingly interested by some extracts which ap⁠⟨⁠peared⁠⟩⁠ in the Gardeners Chronicle;—⁹ I regret I saw ⁠⟨⁠so⁠⟩⁠ little of you before your long voyage:¹⁰ I ⁠⟨⁠was⁠⟩⁠ at that time much out of health, which is yet so far from reestablished & has interrupted the prospects of my life, which I had anxiously hoped in a humble way to have devoted to science.—

It is most gratifying to me that your eminent countrymen Liebig & the great Humboldt (to whose works I am indebted for my first wish to travel) should approve of my volume.—¹¹

You will see my address at the head of this letter—& when you have leisure, I hope you will answer the foregoing queries: I will inform you of the result of my application to Colburn immediately that I receive his answer.—

Pray believe me dear Sir with much respect. | Yours very faithfully | C. Darwin

P.S. I have been for some years employed in collecting facts in connection with the question of the difference between varieties or races & species. This led me to print two or three years since some rather crude “Questions”—¹² Should you have an unoccupied half hour at any time, would you oblige me by reading them over, & make any remarks or answers (if such occur to you) on the margin & return the paper to me. I sh^d feel greatly indebted, as “Species” is a subject, which I intend sometime to publish on.—