Summary

Responds to CD’s queries concerning faults; is sending sections of the kind he wants. The Merionethshire fault with a downthrow of 12000ft. [See Origin, p. 285.]

Summary

Will secure information on indigenous and naturalised bees as CD requests.

Believes Mexican and Jamaican Melipona are different.

Summary

Outlines the basic categories of phanerogams.

Places Gymnospermae in the dicotyledons.

Evaluates the variable utility of embryological characters in plant classification.

Summary

Embryology of Diptera. Development of insects; metamorphosis. JL feels all insects go through metamorphosis but that in some of them, part takes place before birth.

Summary

Is correcting chapters [of Origin] for press.

Health has been wretched of late.

He values fame to a certain extent, but "if I know myself, I work from a sort of instinct to try to make out truth".

Summary

Provides requested information about certain railway shares.

Summary

CD making extensive corrections on proofs of Origin. Worries that style is too dry.

Doubts about Joseph Prestwich’s discovery [of flint tools].

Summary

No doubt about worm-holes in the Long Mynd, and they are certainly lower than J. Barrande’s primordial zone. Fossils in Laurentian gneiss.

Summary

Returns JDH’s proofs. He is so involved in Origin he cannot judge force of JDH’s arguments. Some detailed comments.

Haldeman’s old paper [see 2470] clever, but does not have natural selection. Explaining adaptation has always seemed turning point of theory of natural selection.

Summary

Will forward ARW’s "admirable" paper to Linnean Society ["On the zoological geography of the Malay Archipelago", J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Zool.) 4 (1860): 172–84].

Discusses geographical distribution of animals in the Malay Archipelago; relation of distribution to depth of sea between islands.

Relation of Celebes to Africa almost passes belief.

Differs wholly from ARW on colonisation of oceanic islands; does not believe in Forbes’s great continental extensions.

Anticipates Owen’s opposition to their views, but "he is a poor reasoner & deeply considers the good opinion of the world, especially the aristocratic world".

Summary

Sheets [of Origin] up to p. 240 are ready. Asks how many copies and how soon JM will publish. Hopes as soon as possible because of his health. Bitterly disappointed at delay he has caused.

Summary

All but last two chapters of Origin proofs corrected.

Praise for JDH’s introductory essay [to Flora Tasmaniae].

Very ill and sick of work.

Summary

CL’s research on flint tools.

Promises to send proof-sheets of Origin. Discusses his view of species.

Ill health of himself and his family.

Summary

CL’s comments on Origin. Mentions corrections to last chapter suggested by CL.

Comments on lack of peculiar bird species on Madeira and Bermuda. Emphasises importance of American types in Galapagos.

Denies necessity of continued creation of primitive "Monads".

Denies need for new powers and any principle of improvement.

Discusses gradations of intellectual powers.

Adaptive inferiority and extinction of groups of species and genera.

Asserts that climate is less important than the struggle with other organisms.

Suggests an experiment involving primroses and cowslips.

The chapter on hybridisation.

Rudimentary organs.

Gives opinion of Lamarck’s work.

Summary

Book finished some two weeks.

Feeling much better at Ilkley.

Lyell thinks favourably of book but "staggered" at lengths to which CD goes.

Which continental botanists should receive presentation copies?

Summary

Declines an invitation to visit [Moor] Park.

He hopes that Dr Lane is arranging things to his satisfaction.

Summary

Wishes CD would enlarge on the doctrines of [Pyotr Simon] Pallas about the various races of dogs having come from several distinct wild species or sub-species.

Suggests organisms have a latent principle of improvement which is brought out by selection or breeding.

Summary

Congratulates JDH on finishing his introductory essay [to Flora Tasmaniae].

Lyell’s position on mutability appears more positive in his letters to JDH than in those to CD. Considers JDH a convert.

Summary

More detailed comments on JDH’s introductory essay [to Flora Tasmaniae]. Remarks on struggle of vegetation are admirable.

JDH will receive Origin in about ten days.

Summary

By this post he sends for approval specimen copy of CD’s book [Origin of species]. At 14 s., 1250 copies will yield £240, two-thirds of which will go to author. Arrangements for early copies.