Summary

JDH on Asa Gray’s sanguine view of the Civil War and slavery.

Wishes to discuss variation with CD, a subject that Huxley does not understand.

Summary

Thomas Thomson has gone over Scott’s paper; encloses his conclusions. Not fit for publication in present form. His experiments should have been repeated to resolve his disagreement with Gärtner.

Summary

W. J. Hooker is unwell.

Bentham wrote on Planchon ["The ancient and modern floras of Montpellier", Nat. Hist. Rev. (1865): 202–25],

T. Thomson on subspecies ["Species and subspecies", Nat. Hist. Rev. (1865): 226–42]

and Greene of York on ["The Linnean Society’s transactions", Nat. Hist. Rev. (1865): 189–202].

JDH did the leader in Gardeners’ Chronicle [(1865): 267–8, 291–2].

Delighted with CD’s calm opinion of Origin. Has same view of some of his own papers.

Summary

Sends CD West Ireland soundings.

More detail on his review "a la Lindley" [see 3797].

Bates’s paper ["Contributions to an insect fauna of the Amazon valley", Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 23 (1862): 495–566] is capital.

Andrew Murray’s article plays into CD’s hands through sheer ignorance.

JDH is on Royal Society Council.

Has no recollection of applying natural selection to Polynesians. None but a German would dig out such a passage if it exists [see 3812].

Has caused Tyndall to modify his pseudo-geology.

Has not seen Duke of Argyll’s review [Edinburgh Rev. 116 (1862): 378–97]. [The Duke] did not understand Orchids the least little bit, nor the Origin, when JDH saw him.

Summary

CD’s photograph looks like J. R. Herbert’s Moses in the fresco in the House of Lords.

JDH is delighted about oxlip, but hybridity does not explain some large patches that are uniform and do not vary towards either cowslip or primrose.

Encloses letter from W. H. Harvey discussing Myosotis sylvatica and the common dandelion.

Summary

Scarlet seed is Adenanthera pavonina. JDH’s suggestion on how disseminated.

On Herbert Spencer, "all oil no bone – a thinking pump", but his paper on sap and wood [Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 25 (1866): 405–30] is good science. His refusal to bring a specimen for analysis when confronted by JDH.

Bentham and Martin disagreement.

Speculations on New Zealand flora.

Albert Günther’s paper on fishes on each side of Isthmus of Panama [Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. (1866): 600–4].

On the quantity (bulk and weight) of organic life [matter].

Summary

JDH’s trip to Switzerland with his wife.

Has seen Oswald Heer’s fossils, including a leaf, apparently dicotyledonous, from the Lower Lias in Jura.

Value of insect and crustacean fossils for systematic determination.

JDH "impressed with identity of physical features and what wonderful analogy of biological [features] between Alps and Himalayas".

Summary

Studying moraines.

On Lubbock’s book [see 4860], and Lyell’s apology. Recapitulates whole affair.

W. E. H. Lecky [Rise of rationalism in Europe (1865)] and other reading.

Spencer’s observations are wrong on umbellifers, his reasoning partially right.

Natural History Review is all but defunct.

Summary

Orchids translation should goad [French] Academy into electing CD.

JDH will be sent to St Petersburg congress by Government.

Huxley on protoplasm; his address to Geological Society.

Fertilised an Aucuba with pollen of various species. Reports on results.

Summary

The die is cast on Ayrton affair. Lord Derby has called for all of the correspondence, as a result of pressure by men of science on JDH’s behalf.

Has just had a Greenland collection, which supports his views altogether; "I am ready to do fight for these with you."

Summary

JDH lays hard treatment of John Scott to J. H. Balfour’s anti-Darwinism.

Summary

Lyell’s volume [Principles, 10th ed.] received.

"We must now keep him straight anent origin and development."

Some of Spencer’s new part is interesting but much is dull and ponderous.

Huxley’s Elementary physiology [1866].

Has finished his New Zealand manual [Handbook of New Zealand flora (1864–7)]. New Zealand flora [and past geological conditions] suggest islands were once connected.

Speculates on the total amount of living organised matter on the globe, and whether it varies.

Balfour Stewart on sunspots.

Summary

Attacks by Falconer [Athenæum 4 Apr 1863, pp. 459–60] and Joseph Prestwich on Lyell.

W. B. Carpenter fails to attack Owen.

Welwitschia male cones with useless ovules marvellous example of lost function and retained structure.

JDH evaluates his sons.

Summary

Forwards H. T. Stainton letter for reply.

Finds many Cucurbita have tendrils with sticking ends.

The "potentiality of so many organs in plants to play so many parts is one of the most wonderful of your discoveries . . . one day it will itself play a prodigious part in the interpretation of both morphological and physiological facts".

Is disgusted with Sabine’s address [see 4708] because of its mutilation of what JDH wrote.

THH’s slashing leader in Reader ["Science and ""Church policy"" ", 4 (1864): 821] – as usual he destroys all in his path.

Encloses letter from G. H. K. Thwaites with a message for CD [see encl].

Summary

[T. Bell Salter’s?] "hybrid" Epilobium a false claim.

Admires Huxley’s response to Falconer [see 1904].

Tristan da Cunha plant list, requested by CD, supports JDH’s position [on continental extension?].

Chilean plants not exceptional.

JDH considers parallels between Australian Alps and European plants strong evidence for multiple creations.

Summary

Returns Asa Gray’s letter. Disappointed with Gray. Comments on America. British–American relations.

Summary

Huxley’s lectures [Man’s place in nature (1863)]; he would be a scientific H. T. Buckle, if he were more careful.

Asks CD what the evidence is for inheritance of acquired characteristics.

Summary

Sabine’s address, printed in the Reader [4 (1864): 708–9], is good on the whole. Sends Huxley’s account of the row.

Praises John Ruskin’s eloquent reply to Jukes.

Summary

JDH castigates the Americans after the Trent affair. The value of an aristocracy. How will CD answer Asa Gray’s letter?

His "remarkable plant" [Welwitschia mirabilis] exhibited at Linnean Society.

Genera plantarum is in press.

Summary

Alexander Beatson mentions a bird in considerable numbers on St Helena which appears to contradict CD’s statement in Journal of researches that only introduced land birds exist there.

The Azores flora and fauna tell heavily against Atlantis joining them with America and against transoceanic migration from America.