Summary

Keeling Islands, his first coral lagoons; he has been occupied with subject of coral formation for six months.

Very busy at sea rewriting old geological notes. Has difficulties with writing.

FitzRoy has proposed joint account of the journey, combining CD’s journal with his own.

Looks forward with anxiety to Henslow’s reaction to the geological notes.

Summary

Enjoyed the merry evening with JMH.

Summary

Sends a number of questions (to put to his father), mainly concerned with transmission of diseases, between Europeans and natives, "people packed together", etc.

Is investigating how to get Government support [for Zoology].

Summary

Describes the two species of lizard [Amblyrhynchus] found in the Galapagos Archipelago.

Summary

Syenitic granite from Norway carried as far as Osnabruck.

Has met warm reception in Germany.

Leopold von Buch mistaken in believing that granite overlies transition rock in Norway. Granite sends veins into transition and gneiss.

Has been examining fossil shells of Crag with Heinrich Beck. Beck admits some shells are of species still living.

CL still believes Eocene, Miocene, and Pliocene are satisfactory divisions of Tertiary epoch.

Summary

Cancelled. Third party letter. For text see letter to William Shoberl, [22 or 23 September 1837], n. 1 (Correspondence 2: 49.

Summary

Thanks WS for a document [see 379]. Promises to send MS and woodcuts before night. Discusses details of printing and correction. Thanks WS and Henry Colburn for assistance.

Summary

The publishers [of Zoology] have agreed to 50 plates [for Birds]. Asks JG to decide which are most worthy of being done. Also asks him to see whether Bayfield will undertake [to colour] the birds (and quadrupeds) at something under 5d each.

Summary

Testifies to the courtesy and helpfulness of George Gray [assistant at the British Museum]. [See 402b.]

Summary

Sends four samples of dust blown on board his ship from the coast of Africa, nearly 400 miles away, during four days in March 1838. Gives careful descriptions and relates the tests he made of it [see Collected papers 1: 200].

Summary

Comments on receiving copy of Lyell’s Elements [of geology]. Much is new to CD, and he is copying out notes and references.

Criticises geological work of John Phillips.

Describes expedition to Glen Roy, about which he is writing a paper ["Parallel roads of Glen Roy" (1839), Collected papers 1: 87–137].

Enjoys the Athenaeum Club.

Criticises entomological work of F. W. Hope.

Asks Lyell to obtain for him a copy of barometric readings made at Leith.

Asks him to ascertain altitude of several Scottish lochs.

Comments on FitzRoy’s character.

Summary

Comments on an article in Edinburgh Review [by David Brewster, 67 (1838): 271–308] on Comte’s Philosophie positive.

Discusses falsity of Élie de Beaumont’s views of contemporaneous parallel lines of elevation and subsidence.

Owen’s views of relationship of reptiles to birds.

On "question of species" CD has filled notebook after notebook with facts, "which begin to group themselves clearly under sub-laws".

Summary

Submits the account of Smith, Elder & Co. for the second number of the second part of the Zoology.

Summary

Relates plan for an appendix to his Journal of researches which will include facts of species of birds’ being different in different islands of the Galápagos and also of the lizards and tortoises on the islands. Asks JSH whether he can supply parallels in the plant life.

Summary

Recounts his misadventures on the train journey back to London. Tells of a visit to the FitzRoys and a friendly letter from Lyell. Whether CD and Emma should live in central London or in the suburbs is a perplexing problem, much discussed by relatives and friends.

Summary

Sends congratulations and expresses her pleasure on hearing of CD’s forthcoming marriage.

Summary

A "Zoological memorandum" for CD with an extract from L. Hindmarsh, "On the wild cattle of Chillingham Park" [Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 2 (1838): 274–84].

Summary

Writes, as Secretary of the Geological Society, to thank GAM for his presents, a slab of anthracite with plant impressions (from Philadelphia) and some fossils from Cornwall.

Summary

Thanks for copies of the Proceedings of the Geological Society of London, with a request for items (listed) missing from their set.

Offer to supply, if they can, any copies missing from the Geological Society’s run of the American Journal of Science.

Summary

Detailed evidence for and against geological elevation along coast of the Indian subcontinent, South Asia, and Arabia. Extensive references to geological literature about these areas.

Describes coral sand-dune and salt-marsh formation.