Dear Sir,

It would not be fair in me to intrude when you are at rest in London, so that I would rather visit you after your return to Down, say on the 11^th. 18^th. or 25^th.²

For years I have been working at details of the great scheme you have sketched out and of course the more I get in to it, the more vast & intricate it becomes yet the more universally applicable seem the laws.

As I am not hampered by wordly exigencies, I do not devote myself to the drudgery of medical life and therefore have time for science. I am at present preparing a paper for the Royal Society on the Umbilical cord, and some of the conclusions to which I am led have so startled me that I merely hint at them in this preliminary note (to the R.S.).³ Thus the spiral form of the cord, which has been passed by as a mere anatomical curiosity seems to me to bear strongly on the evidence of the descent of man & here I want your advice & assistance. It has further led me to a hypothesis for the spiral growth of plants—and therefore the spiral growth of everything, which I wish to submit to your criticism

I shall endeavour not to weary you.

Please do not answer this note, save to fix one of these Sundays or some still later on, at Down.

Yours faithfully, | Lawson Tait