"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."

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.

TFJ returns CD’s "too flattering" letter concerning Glen Roy [see 3761]. Further discussion of [A. C.] Ramsay’s, [J. D.] Hooker’s, and CL’s arguments about the formation of glacial lakes.

Has been to Osborne on the Isle of Wight to visit Queen Victoria, who had lots of questions about CD.

Curious to read what CD will say on man and his races.

Has CD seen Ludwig Rütimeyer’s Ueber die Herkunft unserer Thierwelt (Rütimeyer 1867c)?

Discusses J. F. W. Herschel’s theory of active volcanoes existing at the junction of continents and the sea.

Has just arrived in London, and would like to visit the following morning at breakfast time.

Comments on Huxley’s address ["Geological reform", Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 25 (1869): xxxviii–liii].

Physicists have ignored variation in sea-level in calculating effects.

Doubts if sun only source of heat.

Notes average depth of sea is 15 times height of land.

Criticises CD’s concept of permanent continents.

Sedimentary strata of Alleghenies must have derived from continent located where Atlantic is. Thinks enormous amount of denudation, submergence, and elevation may have accompanied relatively insignificant organic changes.

Has been looking for something about crop rotation in Origin and Variation.

Offers condolences on the death of CL’s wife.

Returns CD’s books and discusses apples and Crags at Sudbury.

Sends proofs of pages on shells with revised species names. Discusses Crag Moll, Sutton and Butley Red Grag, and Scrobicularia beds. Son asks him to thank Lyell for extract from Darwin’s book.

The coral-reef book has been invaluable [J. D. Dana, Corals and coral islands (1872); used by CD in Coral reefs, 2d ed. (1874)].

Thanks for Saturday Review.

Comments on Tyndall’s [Presidential] Address at Belfast meeting [of BAAS] and praise of CD’s work there. Mentions criticism of Belfast clergy.

CL saw some crustacean footprints while in Ireland.

Auguste Bravard’s discoveries magnificent.

Bravard has sent pamphlets [Observaciones geológicas (1857) and Monografia de los terrenos marinos terciarios (1858)] with strange doctrine that Pampean deposit is subaerial.

Review of Origin by Wollaston [Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 3d ser. 5 (1860): 132–43] clever and misinterprets CD only in a few places.

Wallace’s MS ["Zoological geography of the Malay Archipelago", J. Proc. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Zool.) 4 (1860): 172–84] admirably good.

Henslow "will go very little way with us". "He, also, shudders at the eye!"

Baden Powell says CD’s statement about eye is conclusive.

Leonard Jenyns cannot go as far as CD, yet cannot give good reason.

Response to Origin. Praise for summary of chapter 10 and chapter 11.

The dissimilarity of African and American species is ‘necessary result of “Creation” adapting new species to the pre-existing ones. Granting this unknown & if you please miraculous power acting’.

C. T. Gaudin writes of Oswald Heer’s finding many species common between Miocene floras of Iceland and Switzerland. Interesting for CD’s migration theory.

Further comments on Jamieson’s theory of the formation of the roads of Glen Roy; paper by Jamieson dealing with glaciation in Scotland ["On the ice-worn rocks of Scotland", Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 18 (1862): 164–84].

Comments on paper by A. C. Ramsay on the glacial formation of lakes ["On the glacial origin of certain lakes", Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 18 (1862): 185–204].

Criticises remarks by John Tyndall on glacial formation of Swiss valleys.

Thanks him for interesting letter from a Mr Wood on heredity in fruit-trees.