An invitation to Down for Sunday 16 October.

Asks JT to send the tubes [of boiled infusions]. Frank Darwin will do his best. Asks for full instructions.

Sends congratulations and a teapot on the occasion of JT’s engagement.

Is pleased JT is not giving up on the spontaneous generation question. Feels strongly that subject will not be clear until it is understood how J. S. Burdon Sanderson and others succeeded in getting bacteria in infusions they had boiled for a long time.

CD has quite given up the marine theory [of Glen Roy] and has accepted glacier lakes. "Nothing makes me gnash my teeth so much as that confounded paper of mine." It is a lesson "never in science to infer one explanation is right because no other one seems possible".

Has read JT’s address ["Science and man", The Times, 2 October 1877, p. 8]. What JT says about CD honours and pleases him. JT’s short character of Faraday is beautiful.

Has observed, perhaps erroneously, that certain plants were excited to movement by a prolonged high note on the bassoon. Would now like to try a siren and asks JT to bring one from the Royal Institution.

Returns the siren; the plants "ill luck to them, are not sensitive to aerial vibrations". Is ashamed of his blunder.

Has been asked to contribute to W. K. Clifford memorial fund. Asks JT’s advice on how much the committee hopes to raise. Would like to give handsomely but feels bound "with such a lot of children, not to be extravagant".

Thanks JT for his information. Sends £50 to the W. K. Clifford memorial fund.

Sends W. K. Clifford subscription.

Has been unwell and hardly able to do anything. Has seen Andrew Clark.

Thinks JT’s discovery of a glycerine respirator is an interesting practical discovery. CD has been wondering about the hairs in our nostrils, but doubts that JT has explained their function, since there are hardly enough.

Will ask W. Ogle to observe hairs in nostrils of different races.

Ogle will keep JT’s suggestion in mind in observing less hairy races of man and the lower animals.

Asks JT whether he can help Ogle on a troublesome point on the colour of tissues with olfactory nerves, and the relation of colour to the absorption of odours. Does JT’s respirator deprive odorous substances of their smell?

Ogle is unacquainted with JT; would be proud and pleased to call on him. CD likes what little he has seen of him.

Ogle wants very much to meet JT.

Thanks JT for his kindness to Ogle.

CD particularly wishes to see JT "On business not connected with himself" [the fund for Huxley’s holiday]. Asks whether CD may call that afternoon. GHD adds postscript saying CD very fatigued. He hopes JT can come to see CD instead, but he should not mention that GHD suggested it.

CD will write to William Spottiswoode about the fund for Huxley. CD is raising his subscription to £300. "We have done a good day’s work … [it] gives me a higher opinion of human nature than I had before, though I am not one of those who think lowly of mankind."

Sends JT the list and amounts subscribed for Huxley. It will probably amount to £1800. He will write to Huxley and use every argument he can to make him accept.

The Huxley fund amounts to £1955. CD trembles about THH’s answer.

Sends Huxley’s "charming letter". Asks whether it should be sent to Lady Millicent Jones. CD is "so happy about the whole affair".