Summary

Obliged for note of 16th.

Failed to enclose letter from Hofmann.

Will be glad to read A. S. Taylor’s work [On poisons in relation to medical jurisprudence and medicine, 2d ed. (1859)].

Daughter Henrietta still weak.

Summary

Has not himself experimented with delicacy of tests but sends several illustrations of what other authorities have done. Reference to James Marsh’s test for arsenic and that of Ashley Paston Price for iodine.

Summary

Discusses letter from A. W. v. Hofmann concerning solution of iodine in water.

Summary

Is enclosing Alfred Swaine Taylor’s book On poisons (1848). Reports on his own experiment with the starch test in dissolving iodine in different measures of water.

Summary

Sends CD passages from A. S. Taylor’s book [On poisons in relation to medical jurisprudence and medicine, 2d ed. (1859)], citing smallest portions of poisons that are chemically detectable. "Drosera beats the chemists hollow."

Summary

Thanks for pamphlet by A. S. Taylor.

"… we have had a terrible week with my poor girl [Henrietta] on the point of death".

Discusses experiments involving placing solutions of ammonia and other substances on leaves of plants.

Summary

Discusses pamphlet by A. S. Taylor

and note by A. W. v. Hofmann concerning iodine solution.

Summary

Explains discrepancies in weights and measures caused by changes since 1836 in apothecaries’ measures.

EC has found that a discrepancy in A. W. von Hofmann’s experiments with iodine solutions resulted from an error in Hofmann’s use of decimals.

Reports S. P. Woodward’s opinion of the Origin: "a very sad book, it unsettles all one’s religious principles and the worst of it is so much of it is true".

Summary

CD may be interested in a reference to a method of detecting 1/195000 of a grain of sodium chloride.

Also, on Drosera, suggests it would be interesting to try substances such as gun-cotton, in which nitrogen is in very different states from a salt of ammonia.

Summary

Asks him to thank A. S. Taylor for note.

Describes experiments on Drosera.

Discusses reviews of the Origin. By far the best is by Asa Gray.

Discusses plans for new edition of Origin.

Summary

Thanks for railway map.

Surprised about Richard Owen: "I thought his courage was as indomitable as his malignity."

Sends extract [Sir John Herschel, "Physical geography", from the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1861)].

Summary

Comments on presentation copy of Orchids: bee Ophrys self-fertilisation; origin of nectar; odour of orchids. Book gives strong cases for special creationists.

Summary

Walter White [Asst.-Sec. and Librarian, Royal Society] has introduced EC to Richard Kippist of the Linnean Society, who has made little progress toward accepting Origin.

Summary

Son [Leonard] ill with scarlet fever. Also Mrs Darwin.

Intends to give up work on Drosera until Variation is done.

Summary

CD’s Linum paper [Collected papers 2: 93–105].

Sending up-to-date railway map of southern region.

Summary

Thanks for maps.

George [Darwin] failed at St John’s [College, Cambridge] and will stay another year at school.

Summary

Requests letter of introduction to Asa Gray.

Went to Linnean Society to hear CD’s Lythrum paper read [Collected papers 2: 106–31].

Summary

May his son George call for advice on his career?

CD has been ill for past four months.

Summary

Discusses income provided for sons at Cambridge.

Summary

Impressed by Fritz Müller’s argument for natural selection in air-breathing apparatus of crustaceans ["The Darwinian hypothesis supported by observations on Crustacea", Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 3d ser. 15 (1865): 410–16].

Plans to visit CD.