Now plans to come to Kew for an hour’s farewell if his stomach permits.

Congratulations on JDH’s Flora Antarctica [1847].

CD too unwell to see JDH. Encloses Emma’s farewell note.

Responding to GG’s offer to aid CD’s natural history researches on New Zealand, CD suggests that limestone caverns should be examined for fossils and that observations on the presence and range of erratic boulders in New Zealand would be very valuable.

Offers HM-E some specimens of Lernaea, a crustacean parasite on Balanus elongatus.

Mentions opinion of Harry Goodsir about a form CD believes to be the larva of Lernaea.

Accepts AC’s offer to conduct hybridisation experiments, and offers suggestions.

Sends book [Journal of researches, 2d ed. (1845)].

Discusses account. Glad that all is prosperous.

Seeks permission from the Trustees of the British Museum to borrow the cirripede specimens in the public collection. Explains his intention to produce a monograph of the Cirripedia.

Asks JCR to collect cirripedes for him on forthcoming expedition [to the Arctic in search of Sir John Franklin].

Suggests various remedies for toothache.

Writes about Emma’s trust account investments and calls due upon them. Sends his record and asks JW to bring it up to date.

Seeks excuse from jury duty on grounds of ill health.

[Valediction only.] CD note on verso: Athenaeum/48/p. 839 "E. Forbes on genera being continuous in time––good––fact".

Discusses loan of cirripede specimens from the British Museum.

Discusses CD’s Glen Roy paper; would like to see the theory put beyond dispute. Tells of Mr Stables’ observations on the parallel roads. Discusses geological features of Scotland which he is sure are marine in origin.

CD asks if he may have the use of the cirripedes JS collected in Portugal. He will need to break up or make a section of at least one of each species.

Expresses admiration for JS’s paper on Malta ["On recent depressions in the land", Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 3 (1847): 234–40], with its striking demonstration of the change of level between land and water there discovered.

Thanks WCW for his article ["Microscopical objects found in mud of Levant", Mem. Lit. & Philos. Soc. Manchester 2d ser. 8 (1848):1–128]. Comments on it; offers to send Ascension Island specimens. Urges WCW to re-examine coal-beds for Infusoria to determine whether intervening beds were deposited by sea-, brackish, or fresh water.

Has been invited to contribute geological instructions [to J. F. W. Herschel, ed., Manual of scientific enquiry (1849); Collected papers 1: 227–50]. Asks RO whether remarks on coral reefs appertain to geology rather than zoology.

Looks forward to visit by Owens.

Undertakes to write geological part of Admiralty Instructions [A manual of scientific enquiry (1849), Collected papers 1: 227–50]. Has doubts as to his success.

Invites him to dinner on Saturday the 12th. Charles and Mrs Lyell, Edward Forbes, Richard Owen, and Thomas Bell coming also.

"Will you bring your map of S. America … and we will have a talk over it."

Thanks the Trustees of the British Museum for entrusting to him the collection of Cirripedia and allowing him to disarticulate one specimen of each species.