Summary

Sends, with CD’s approval, a clarification of CD’s explanation of how useless organs might diminish [see 9061]. Using Quetelet’s law of normal distribution GHD shows how horns of cattle, having become useless, would gradually diminish and finally disappear.

Summary

Errata for Insectivorous plants, 3d printing.

Summary

Suggests GHD write a supplement to his review [of A. H. Huth’s The marriage of near kin (1875)]. Feels sorry Huth was taken in by the Legrain fraud. [See Autobiography (1958), pp. 143–4.]

Summary

CD’s suspicions that Legrain falsified experiments on interbred rabbits are like second sight. Has sent a copy of the letter to A. H. Huth.

Henry Sidgwick and A. J. Balfour are "spiritualising" again.

Summary

Sends comments and suggestions for Huth’s experiment on crossbreeding rabbits.

Summary

Sends an article for CD’s opinion.

Has finished an account of the globes for the Philosophical Magazine ["On maps of the world", 50 (1875): 431–44].

His poor health has interfered with his pitch experiments.

Summary

Pleased by W. Stanley Jevons’ letter.

Has ordered Dr Cohn’s book.

Is sure that GHD’s energy will lead to success with work on viscous fluids.

Summary

Asks that a copy of GHD’s paper on cousin marriage be sent to Hermann Müller. J. F. McLennan admires it "as a model".

Summary

Has sent a copy [of his article on cousin marriage] to Hermann Müller.

Problem he is now working on is a tough nut: "It does not do what [James Clerk] Maxwell said it wd or ought to do".

Summary

Personal news – is unwell.

Mentions "Twin-papers" ["Short notes on heredity, etc., in twins", J. Anthropol. Inst. 5 (1876): 324–9] sent by Galton.

Summary

Müller has sent Chips [from a German workshop (1867–75)] and a boring defence against WDW’s attack. GHD feels he is maligned for using the weight of CD’s name in his Contemporary Review article. CD says Müller has misinterpreted a letter from CD as supporting him in his controversy with WDW.

Summary

Gives further explanations of his theory of stirps and his objections to Pangenesis, in answer to a question of CD’s.

Summary

Has received a baffling article on God, immortality, and socialism under a Darwinian point of view.

Clerk Maxwell has disagreed with CD on molecular calculations in relation to Pangenesis in Encyclopaedia Britannica article ["Atom", Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th ed. (1875) 3: 36–49].

Summary

Frank [Darwin] has found a Trifolium remarkable for "bloom", but it was not in flower. If GHD knows where it grows, could he dig up the whole plant?

Summary

Asks GHD to calculate average or mean heights of crossed and self-fertilised plant species.

Summary

Provides CD with a method of obtaining a numerical ratio that expresses the superiority in heights of crossed plants to self-fertilised plants.

Summary

Is elated by his work on the alteration in the earth’s axis and the displacement of the poles. [See 10689.]

Summary

Sends Mind. Henry Sidgwick’s article ["The theory of evolution in its application to practice", Mind 1 (1876): 52–67] is so clear it makes CD feel "a muddle-headed man". But he disagrees with Sidgwick on the origin of morality within tribes.

Summary

Is sure mathematical discussion of elevation of continents will be valued by geologists.

Summary

Writes of his "geo-mathematical" work.