Working on "Insular floras" lecture for BAAS Nottingham meeting [see 5135].

Puzzled at distribution of Madeiran and Canaries plants and insects.

Supports Forbes’s Atlantis hypothesis [see 956], which he has reread and to which he will allude.

Wollaston disappointing on Madeiran insects.

Questions for his lecture on "Insular floras".

Comments on CD’s criticism of Atlantis. Has no fixed opinion on continental extensions. Great objections to hypotheses of CD and Forbes: botanical to CD’s; geological to Forbes’s. Will point out that natural selection is necessary to both hypotheses.

Alexander Beatson mentions a bird in considerable numbers on St Helena which appears to contradict CD’s statement in Journal of researches that only introduced land birds exist there.

The Azores flora and fauna tell heavily against Atlantis joining them with America and against transoceanic migration from America.

Will do justice to CD’s objections to continental extension theory.

CD misunderstood his question about Isthmus.

Responds to CD’s other points about Madeira and the Azores.

Is attempting to sum up the two theories impartially and must raise all the difficulties with each. More on his differences with CD.

More on continental extension vs transport [or migration] hypothesis. New questions raised. On Madeira, why were insects and plants changed so much, birds hardly at all?

Erratic boulders of the Azores.

Hopes to arrive with MS of "Insular floras" on Saturday.

Returns two volumes of Felix Holt [George Eliot (1866)]

and the Coddington [lens].

John Smith will send Drosera.

Nation reports that Louis Agassiz holds that the Amazon Valley was formed since the glacial epoch.

BAAS lecture on "Insular floras" [see 5135] went well.

On his "Insular floras" lecture.

Huxley’s success as President of Section.

D. W. R. Grove’s address. Grove left Darwinism to JDH after "sounding the charge".

[N. C.?] Seringe’s article [unspecified] has come safely.

Feels deeply at CD’s distress [Susan Darwin is dying].

Drosera will go in a day or two.

Drosera and Erica massoni have been sent.

Had heard of Agassiz’s theory but not that CD’s theory had raised it.

JDH wrote the article on A. Murray.

Frankland’s lecture too much for him.

Lyell has sent chapters [of 10th ed. of Principles] to JDH, who objects to CL’s ignoring the part vapour plays in affecting temperature of the globe.

Parliament will be asked to buy W. J. Hooker’s collection.

Left strict orders about Euryale seeds but "labour, difficulty and expense of getting anything done scientifically by practical men is untold".

The E. J. Eyre controversy [Jamaica uprising]. Odd that Huxley joins the "persecution fund". The principles involved are fiddlesticks.

His views on the Eyre controversy.

Went to Shrewsbury (for sale of Susan’s effects), hoping to buy some Wedgwood medallions, but they had been bought.

Asks CD to send W. R. Grove titles and place of publication of the Müller [Für Darwin (1864)] and Walsh (Walsh 1864–5) papers he referred to in his address [BAAS lecture at Nottingham, see 5135].

Lyell’s volume [Principles, 10th ed.] received.

"We must now keep him straight anent origin and development."

Some of Spencer’s new part is interesting but much is dull and ponderous.

Huxley’s Elementary physiology [1866].

Has finished his New Zealand manual [Handbook of New Zealand flora (1864–7)]. New Zealand flora [and past geological conditions] suggest islands were once connected.

Speculates on the total amount of living organised matter on the globe, and whether it varies.

Balfour Stewart on sunspots.

Plants arrived.

Delightful dinner at Lyell’s.

Will be interested in seeds passed through a fowl.

Wedgwood medallions were bought by a Miss W. [Sophy Wedgwood] of Leith Hill.

Lubbock’s account of a new centipede at Linnean Society gave rise to lively discussion by Busk and Huxley.

Scarlet seed is Adenanthera pavonina. JDH’s suggestion on how disseminated.

On Herbert Spencer, "all oil no bone – a thinking pump", but his paper on sap and wood [Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 25 (1866): 405–30] is good science. His refusal to bring a specimen for analysis when confronted by JDH.

Bentham and Martin disagreement.

Speculations on New Zealand flora.

Albert Günther’s paper on fishes on each side of Isthmus of Panama [Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. (1866): 600–4].

On the quantity (bulk and weight) of organic life [matter].

Analysis of New Zealand flora; proportion of indigenous annuals.

Uniform climates are poor in species.

Evergreen and deciduous vegetation: relationship to flora and fauna.