Summary

Sends CD the number of Pitcairn islanders transferred to Norfolk Island cited in her deceased husband’s book [Sir William Thomas Denison, Varieties of a vice-regal life (1870)] but is unable to furnish additional information.

Summary

Reports on a séance. "The Lord have mercy on us all if we have to believe in such rubbish."

Asks JDH to vote for his nephew, Henry Parker, for Athenaeum membership.

Summary

A new German edition of Descent is planned. Would like to work on proofs before leaving for lectures at Edinburgh.

Summary

JHM, who has not read CD’s works, must conduct a discussion on Darwinism and theology at a local literary society. He asks CD to define briefly his position on the origin of man and on descent.

Summary

Finds from the Colonial Office that a census [of the Pitcairn Islands?] is expected soon, from which he will get the information he desires. [See 9241 and 9246.]

Summary

An awful row at the Linnean Society. William Carruthers and Co. packed a meeting to throw out a decision of the Council. He was beaten by one vote (more than two-thirds majority needed).

Spent two hours with Lyell talking about Thomas Belt’s book [The naturalist in Nicaragua (1874)]: "the tropical old Glaciers beat the seance I do think".

Lyell agrees that the glacial epoch is the great geological crux of the day. Lowering of the ocean level must also be investigated.

Curious about A. C. Ramsay’s paper coming at Royal Society on 29th ["On the comparative value of certain geological ages", Proc. R. Soc. Lond. 22 (1874): 145–8].

Huxley’s new book [? Critiques and addresses (1873)].

Summary

Russian Expression has sold nearly 2000 copies.

Plans to come to England to study collections of vertebrate fossils from the Chalk. This will complement his work in the south of France.

Summary

Would like recipient to ask inmates whether they are offspring of cousin marriages.

Summary

Is glad to hear of new German edition of Descent, but owing to his extensive revisions, corrected sheets will not be ready for about three months.

Is working on a new edition of Coral reefs, which he thinks would sell in Germany.

Would like to hear "out of curiosity & vanity" how many copies of his books have been sold in Germany.

Summary

Asks for information about the title and date of Semper’s essay disputing CD’s theory of coral reefs.

Summary

Has ordered James Clerk Maxwell’s book [On the stability of the motion of Saturn’s rings (1859)] as a present for Sofya Kovalevsky.

Summary

Has grown haricots in England following CD’s suggestion in the Origin that this had never been done.

Wishes to see CD.

Summary

Discusses coral reefs

and encloses a copy of his "Reisebericht" [Z. Wiss. Zool. 13 (1863): 538–70], as requested by CD.

Summary

Reports to CD on a spiritualist séance attended by himself (incognito) and G. H. Darwin.

Summary

On obtaining Clerk Maxwell’s memoir on Saturn for his wife, Sofya.

Summary

Discusses THH’s account of the séance. CD convinced all are fraudulent.

Summary

On proportion of sexes in births of cattle; variations in families. Encloses a letter from J. G. Grove on proportions of sexes in animals.

The limitation of inbreeding.

Summary

Has finished the index [for Descent, 2d ed.].

Summary

Statement of U. S. sales of Origin, Expression, and Descent.

Summary

Thanks CD for copy of Examiner.

Fear of communism is making CD’s theory popular among possessing classes.

Describes reception of Lyell’s Antiquity of man among German country people.