Summary

Pleasure at receiving CD’s scientific letters to JDH and Hodgson.

The H. Wedgwoods’ pecuniary loss.

Condolences at CD’s father’s death.

Rajah harasses JDH’s work. Lack of supplies, rain, malarial valleys, and landslips make going difficult. Cannot get into Tibet.

"Twenty species [of plants] here [Camp Sikkim] to one there [Tierra del Fuego?] always are asking me the vexed question, ""where do we come from?""."

From observation of terraces descending to steppes and plains of India, he thinks that the Himalayas were once a grand fiord coast.

Has information CD requested on Yangsma valley. JDH’s detailed hypothesis of origin of dam there. Does not agree with CD’s interpretation.

Summary

The debt of plant geography to voyages may be JDH’s topic at BAAS meeting [at Swansea].

Photographs from New Zealand forwarded.

Summary

CD partly right. JDH was calling "stratification" what CD calls "foliation". Answers CD’s question on cleavage foliation in Himalayas. Glacial action.

Charmed by CD’s Admiralty instructions on geology [in Manual of scientific enquiry (1849), Collected papers 1: 227–50], but complains he does not give prices of books and instruments he recommends.

Summary

CD thinks great dam across Yangma valley is a lateral glacial moraine.

Reports on Birmingham BAAS meeting.

Details of water-cure.

Barnacles becoming tedious; careful description shows slight differences constitute varieties, not species.

Lamination of gneiss.

Summary

Can Alphonse de Candolle see CD?

Asa Gray at Kew; will meet JDH in Italy in December.

Summary

Praise for Movement in plants, lately arrived.

Praise for Wallace’s Island life

and astonishment that he could be a spiritualist.

Differs with Wallace on age of SW. Australian flora. JDH ascribes its peculiarities to isolation by an inland sea.

Summary

Admires Wallace’s Island life.

Criticises: 1. His view of similar plants on distant mountains – CD prefers previous low-land connections to Wallace’s summit–summit dispersal;

2. Source of warmth for ancient Arctic climate;

3. Origin of S. Australian flora.

CD’s favourite cases in Movement in plants.

Summary

Huxley has persuaded JDH that the Wallace memorial may not be hopeless; JDH still has misgivings about Wallace’s spiritualism but will follow CD’s and Huxley’s decision.

Summary

Wants to see Frank become F.R.S. before he dies.

Pities Wallace and wants a pension for him very much.

Summary

Quality of Frank’s work merits F.R.S., but quantity could defer speedy election. Will advise best strategy.

Summary

Responds, with some embarrassment, to JDH’s caution on Frank’s F.R.S. prospects.

Summary

Wants to propose Frank for F.R.S. now, with election in 1882.

Summary

Thanks for agreeing to propose Frank as F.R.S.

Would have enjoyed discussing Island life.

Summary

On Wallace’s pension and Frank’s F.R.S.

Summary

Letter of introduction for V. O. Kovalevsky.

Summary

Hooker’s imprisonment.

Birth of Leonard Darwin.

Barnacles will never end; on to fossils.

Summary

Island life continues to stimulate: Wallace ignores effects of glaciers on alpine flora and generally exaggerates those of débâcles and wind dispersal. CD encourages JDH to prepare a geographical address including history of geographical distribution.

Summary

Spoke too harshly about CD’s involvement in nomenclatural reform.

JDH used to think CD "too prone to theoretical considerations about species", hence was pleased CD took up a difficult group like barnacles. CD’s theories have progressed but JDH not converted. Sikkim has not cleared up his doubts about CD’s doctrines.

Argument with Falconer.

Summary

Has struggled for months with complexity of structure and distribution of palms for Genera plantarum.

Summary

CD complains of discomfort, but has not the strength for a project that would let him forget it.