Summary

Has got a cold, so will not go to Kew. Wrote to Hartnack about price of microscopes and describes own model. Told Hooker about Tisley Spiller’s microscope in Paris.

Summary

Asks GHD whether he can tell him what inclination a polished or waxy leaf ought to hold to the horizon in order to let vertical rain rebound off as much as possible.

Summary

Finds the negative information sent by EF of great interest [see 9094].

More on his own experiments and the perplexing results when using the sensitive litmus paper.

Summary

Sends notes on waxy secretion on leaves for F. M. Balfour; cannot procure any more Dionaea.

Summary

On bodies of varying elasticity bouncing off inclined planes [see 9096].

Summary

Sends some litmus paper for CD.

Summary

Feeding habits of the tobacco worm; it eats only five plants, all very different, but of same botanical family.

Summary

Hopes to get another species of Desmodium from Mr Rollisson.

Summary

Apologises for his ignorance in interpreting the results secured in his testing with blue litmus paper.

Summary

Sends Dionaea plant for experiment involving temperature.

Summary

Describes work on Nepenthes – more difficult than Drosera.

Has written to Dublin for a Drosophyllum.

Summary

Sends an essay ["Mikrogeologische Studien über das kleinste Leben der Meeres-Tiefgründe aller Zonen und dessen geologischen Einfluss", Abhandlungen der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (1873): 131-98.]

with expressions of admiration. CGE is confident their differences will not estrange them.

Remembers with gratitude the [Atlantic] dust that CD made available to him in 1844 [see 747].

Summary

Gratified that a man of JD’s experience agrees with him.

Would enjoy seeing him at Down but it could only be for a half-hour’s talk at most, because of his health.

Summary

CD gives his criticisms of GHD’s essay on religion and the moral sense. Urges him to delay publishing for some months and then to consider whether it is new and important enough to counterbalance the effects of its publication. J. S. Mill would never have influenced the age as he has done had he not refrained from expressing his religious convictions. Cites John Morley’s Life of Voltaire [1872]: direct attacks produce little effect; real good comes from slow and silent side attacks. "My advice is to pause, pause, pause."

Summary

Lists observations he would like FD to make on the dried species of Desmodium at Kew.

Summary

Lists plants in which he is interested, including Neptunia and Mimosa species.

Do any strictly tropical plants have glaucous leaves?

Asks for observations on irritable plants.

Summary

Neptunia is evidently a hopeless case.

Good news that fluid of Nepenthes is acid.

No discovery ever gave him more pleasure than proving a true act of digestion in Drosera.

Has become profoundly interested in Desmodium. Asks whether Frank [Darwin] can look over the whole dried collection of the genus.

Has JDH any seed of Lathyrus nissolia?

Summary

Further details on inheritance of an eyelid abnormality.

Summary

Wants FD to look at the little lateral leaflets of Desmodium. CD has "a wild hypothesis that the little leaflets may be tendrils reconverted into leaflets".

Summary

"It is a fearfully difficult moral problem about speaking out on religion, & I have never been able to make up my mind."

An Irishman, a "grand breeder" of short-horns, declared at lunch that CD’s books had been "a great help to [him] in breeding!"