Asks to borrow specimens of sessile cirripedes from Museum of Royal College of Surgeons.
Asks to meet RO to get his opinion on zoological points.
F. J. Muñiz has offered fossil bones collected around Buenos Aires to the Royal College of Surgeons. He believes he can complete their Megatherium skeleton and provide other specimens. CD feels he should be encouraged in his work.
CD proposes to call for tea if he is well enough on Thursday.
Has been invited to contribute geological instructions [to J. F. W. Herschel, ed., Manual of scientific enquiry (1849); Collected papers 1: 227–50]. Asks RO whether remarks on coral reefs appertain to geology rather than zoology.
Looks forward to visit by Owens.
Describes his new microscope and its advantages for dissecting. Suggests RO might discuss topic [in his contribution to J. F. W. Herschel, ed., Manual of scientific enquiry (1849)].
Apologises for length of notes of advice for microscopic work.
Thanks RO for his note on Conchoderma hunteri [see Living Cirripedia 1: 153].
Has been very unwell; has lost four-fifths of his time. Will go to Malvern to try the water-cure for his vomiting, which regular doctors cannot cure.
Has done some pretty homological work with cirripedes.
CD regrets the trouble RO has had about C. G. Ehrenberg’s parcel.
He is reading On the nature of limbs [1849] with uncommon interest and admires the way Owen worked out the toes.
Also has read On parthenogenesis [1849] with great interest.
Discusses possibility of providing B. J. Sulivan with a vessel for fossil hunting in Patagonia.
Asks RO to ask Mrs Dixon about borrowing cirripede specimen.
About to go to press with "wearyful" Fossil Cirripedia [vol. 1 (1851)];
would like to borrow proof-sheets of Frederick Dixon’s work [The geology and fossils of the Tertiary and Cretaceous formations of Sussex (1850)]. Would also like to borrow a specimen of Balanus glacialis from Royal College of Surgeons. Encloses formal request [see 1356].
Asks to borrow specimen of Balanus glacialis from the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. It will be necessary to disarticulate it, but CD will return the valves to the Museum.
Gratified by what RO says about his book [Living Cirripedia, vol. 1 (1851)]. The anatomical work is the only part he is really interested in; finds the "mere systematic part infinitely tedious"; but will be surprised if he is ever proved wrong on the males of Ibla and Scalpellum.
Bartholomew James Sulivan’s address is Guildford. Please to have CD’s copy [of Owen 1853] left at the Athenaeum Club or the Geological Society of London.
He and his family are in Eastbourne but the weather has been poor.
Has asked his publisher to send a copy of Origin. Fears it will be "an abomination" in RO’s eyes. Urges him to read it straight through, as it is a condensed abstract and will otherwise be unintelligible.
Sends source of description of swimming bear catching insects [Samuel Hearne, A journey from Prince of Wales’s Fort in Hudson’s Bay to the northern ocean … (1795); see Origin, p. 184].
Responds to Owen’s remarks that his book [Origin] is not likely to be true because it attempts to explain so much. CD describes how, for fear this might be so, he resolved to give up the work if he could not convince two or three competent judges. He is sensitive because of unjust things said by a distinguished friend [A. Sedgwick]. Value of his views now depends on men eminent in science.
Has written to Royal College of Surgeons, exactly as RO recommended, concerning disposition of his South American fossil bones. He fixed on the British Museum, rather than Paris, to receive plaster casts, because he was on board a King’s ship. Suggests RO propose another set for Paris, where they would be more useful than at BM. Has scarcely begun unpacking his cases.
Sends remaining proofs of RO’s description of Toxodon [Fossil Mammalia] and a revise of first part. Will Owen want a second revise? CD has made "plenty of remarks".
Sends perfect revise of "Toxodon" [Fossil Mammalia] which he has read and marked.