Thanks CD for Origin, 6th ed.

Has declined chair at Strasbourg.

Describes research on calcareous sponges.

Criticises Pangenesis.

Much experiment and observation needed before spontaneous generation will be empirically advanced, but philosophically the matter is clear.

Thinks Ludwig Rütimeyer has attacked EH to satisfy pious opinion in Basel.

Will soon be finished with his monograph Die Kalkschwämme [1872].

Thanks CD for Expression.

Describes work on Die Kalkschwämme and its principal conclusions.

The application of biogenetic law.

Notes variability among calcareous sponges.

Gastrula-like "Gastraea" as ancestor of multicellular animals.

Posits homology between Hydra, Olynthus of calcareous sponges, and initial germ layers of higher animals.

Comments on Lubbock’s Prehistoric times [1865]

and on David Strauss’s Der alte und der neue Glaube [1872].

Thanks CD for comments on Die Kalkschwämme.

Plans trip to Greece, Asia Minor, and Egypt.

Discusses work of a Polish translator, Ludwik Masłowski.

On CD’s paper ["Complemental males of certain cirripedes", Collected papers 2: 177–82].

Comments on paper by W. H. Dallinger and J. J. Drysdale ["Life history of a Cercomonad", Mon. Microsc. J. 10 (1873): 53–8].

Discusses origin of life, the Gastraea theory and concept that primary germ layers are homologous in all animals. Notes similar views of E. Ray Lankester ["On the primitive cell-layers of the embryo", Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 4th ser. 11 (1873): 321–38].

Reception of Darwinism in Germany.

Thanks CD for Descent, 2d ed.

Comments on German edition of CD’s collected works.

Sales of his Anthropogenie [1874] in various countries.

Anticlericalism and progress of Darwinism in Germany.

Discusses his Anthropogenie [1874]. Remarks on the tables.

Has CD received Friedrich von Hellwald’s Culturgeschichte [1875]?

Plans research trip to the Mediterranean.