Mentions George Maw’s "good review" of Origin [Zoologist 19 (1861): 7577–611].

Relates remark by J. S. Mill concerning soundness of logic and method of Origin.

Is at work [on Orchids and Variation].

Mentions Dutch translation [of Origin].

Discusses evolutionary origin of sexuality.

Asa Gray’s suggestion that variation was directed by a higher power and Herschel’s view of providential arrangement in nature.

Compares variation in domestic and wild species.

Asks CL for introductions for his son William in Southampton, where he has joined a bank.

Bentham has sent a damaged spurless Orchis pyramidalis; asks CL to send another. Fears they are irregular monsters. [See Orchids, pp. 47–8.]

Thanks CL for orchids acquired from a collector.

Discusses role of Providence in variation. Does CL honestly think it applies to variations in domestication? If not ordained there, sees no reason for it in nature either.

Suggests change in a passage [in MS] of CL’s [Antiquity of man (1863)] dealing with adaptations for travel.

Comments on review of Origin by F. W. Hutton [Geologist (1861): 132–6, 183–8].

Emphasises importance of variability for natural selection.

Discusses possiblity of intelligent causes in variation.

Sends an enclosure [a letter from T. F. Jamieson, see 3247].

"I am smashed to atoms about Glen Roy. My paper was one long gigantic blunder."

Absence of organic remains in many deposits.

Discusses presence of marine animals near icebergs.

Comments on former geological state of England.

Discusses CL’s correspondence with T. F. Jamieson. Comments on Jamieson’s theory that the roads of Glen Roy were formed by a glacial lake. Discusses elevation of Scotland during the glacial period.

Additional discussion of Jamieson’s theory that the roads of Glen Roy were formed by a glacial lake. Suggests the possible marine origin of the Glen Spean terraces. Comments on the power of lakes to produce pebbles. Discusses elevation of Wales and Scotland during the glacial period.

Asks for copy of CD’s paper ["Ancient glaciers of Caernarvonshire", Collected papers 1: 163–71]. Gathers that drift of Moel Tryfan is glacial.

Believes Glen Roy roads formed later than submergence of Scotland.

Asks CD’s opinion concerning relative chronology of various glacial deposits, particularly a flint tool find in the Ouse River near Bedford.

The flint tools found at Bedford.

Further discussion of Jamieson’s theory of the formation of the roads of Glen Roy by a glacial lake. Comments on formation of Glen Spean terraces. Mentions glaciers in North Wales.

Agreement with John Murray to publish [Orchids].

Continued discussion of Jamieson’s Glen Roy theory. Mentions river erosion of glaciers. Quotes from old letter to CL [1116].

Is working hard on orchids; fears subject is too complex for the public.

Ice could not have formed the blockages in Lochaber unless in every case the water escaped over some col into a contiguous valley on the same watershed, or into the eastern watershed. Supposes that the cols were not land-straits, but the places where the lakes were drained when forced to flow the wrong way.

Comments especially on the "intermediate shelf" problem of Glen Roy; views of Jamieson and Milne. CD "cannot help a sneaking hope that the sea might have formed the horizontal shelves".

Comments on [MS of] CD’s paper ["Elevation on the coast of Chili" (4 Jan 1837), Collected papers 1: 41–3].

Invites CD to dinner. "Don’t accept any official scientific place, if you can avoid it".

"I could think of nothing for days after your lesson on coral reefs, but of the top of submerged continents. It is all true, but do not flatter youself that you will be believed, till you are growing bald, like me, with hard work & vexation at the incredulity in the world."

Suggests that the height of the water which formed the shelves in Glen Roy was determined not by the height of the blocking glacier but by the height of a col. Notes problems in the idea.

Explains how melting of ice in Glen Spean could have successively freed two lower cols, thus establishing the water-levels that determined the two lower shelves in Glen Roy.

Plans to read a paper to the Linnean Society ["Sexual forms of Catasetum", Collected papers 2: 63–70].

Galapagos land birds and reptiles.

No two naturalists agree on any fundamental idea [of species]. "Everything is arbitrary."

Has been with Richard Owen going over the S. American fossils.

Has worked out the non-relation between animals’ bulk and luxuriance of vegetation.

The horse once common on the Pampas. The mystery of the extinction of these animals.

Jamieson has revisited Glen Roy and confirmed his theory of glacier lakes.

A. G. More considers CD the most profound of reasoners.