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

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

JDH delivers CD’s letter to C. V. Naudin.

Neither Naudin nor Decaisne appreciates Origin.

Discusses Naudin on physiological causes of species formation;

Decaisne on plant heredity.

JDH on Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation.

Summary

Evidence of tropical floras continuous since Tertiary cannot fit CD’s position on intermittent cold periods.

Agrees with CD on reversion and latency.

Summary

Falconer’s elephant paper.

Owen’s conduct.

Falconer’s view of CD’s theory: independence of natural selection and variation.

JDH on Tocqueville,

the principles of the Origin,

and the evils of American democracy.

Summary

JDH battling with Lyell over treatment of species question in Antiquity of man. Distressed by Lyell’s raising false priority issue between JDH and CD. Falconer involved in a priority squabble.

Summary

Lyell’s position on mutability.

Directions for care of hothouse plants.

Falconer hostile to Lyell’s book.

JDH’s Wedgwood ware collection.

Summary

John Lubbock’s lecture on man a success [Not. Proc. R. Inst. G. B. 4 (1863): 29–40].

JDH on the effect of the Civil War on Asa Gray.

JDH’s opinion of Lyell on glaciers is improving.

Summary

Falconer going to France in defence of his views.

On scientific squabbling.

Herschel’s theory of the earth.

Bates’s book.

Summary

Has heard from Julius von Haast that some of his letters were lost before leaving New Zealand. Haast’s enclosure for CD has been forwarded.

Haast and James Hector have both sent accounts of their travels in New Zealand.

Summary

Owen is the author of the Athenæum article [28 Mar 1863, pp. 417–19]. JDH dismisses it as vulgar rubbish. W. B. Carpenter intends to write a reply.

Summary

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

Summary

Encloses his notions [missing] on John Scott’s offer; some points in explanation.

Summary

JDH and Oliver impressed with CD’s observations on gyratory motion of plants.

CD pleased with Bentham’s Linnean Society address on the reception of Darwinism [J. Proc. Linn. Soc. Lond. 7 (1863): xi–xxix].

JDH’s social "dogma": "Brains x Beauty = Breeding + wealth".

[Dated 9 June by JDH.]

Summary

JDH has lost a letter from Julius von Haast intended for CD.

Summary

British attitude towards America: not hate as Asa Gray thinks, but contempt.

Summary

With scientific party to Amiens to look at gravel-pits, the geology of which JDH describes at length.

Summary

Sends "tendrilliferous" plants.

Plans visit to Down.

Naudin’s paper on tendrils [Ann. Sci. Nat. (Bot.) 4th ser. 9 (1863): 180–203].

T. V. Wollaston snubs Bates’s work.

Summary

Anxious to see Haast’s letter.

JDH’s views on Poles and Franco-Prussian conflict.

Summary

Flora of Cameroons shakes JDH’s faith in ability to explain past or present migrations. Sees need for a major novel explanation such as natural selection, glacial cold, or continental connections.

Lyell in a bad way about feud with Falconer.

JDH’s opinion of Wallace, Bates, J. E. Gray, Owen, Asa Gray, Lubbock, and Bentham.

Bentham’s Linnean Society address [see 4118].