Increasing importation of [whale oil] allows Metropolitan Light Company to reduce [candle] prices.

JDH reports he has written to Humboldt, [Henry] de la Beche, Lord Morpeth & will write Mr Phillipp next. A gale has blown down flowers & fruits of many timber plants JDH could not previously get specimens from. His collection included: epiphyte Vaccinia, Mistletoe, ferns, branch of a new Oak sp, Loranthi & Viscaceae, 8 oaks & Edgeworth's Streptolirion. Will send batch of Orchideae to Calcutta [Kolkata], mostly Dendrobia & Coelogyne. Other things coming into fruit at Darjeeling: Rubiaceae, stinging nettles & other Urticeae. Forest species incl: Arum, Balsam, Streptolirion, Polygona, a small bamboo, large tasty figs, Laurinea, Cyrtandreae, Begonias & Magnolias. Madden has suggested he will give WJH the pick of his collections. Winterbottom has joined Strachey's brother surveying Kumaon. JDH plans to go to the snow [in Sikkim] even without permission, though the Lepchas are fearful of showing him the way without government sanction & [Archibald] Campbell is not pushing hard enough to get this. Rubiaceae & Myrtaceae & Leguminosae are rare in Darjeeling & there are no Acanthaceae, which abound 3000 ft lower. Araliaceae, Rosaceae, Aroideae, Verbenaceae & Laurinceae are common. Timber trees are remarkable, few have good wood, Walnut is one of the best. Compares fruit of the Darjeeling Walnut to the Bhutan kind. Mentions wild & cultivated plantain & wild mango. He has sent seeds of the ground Raspberry; a Rubus he advises be sown in a cool place & grown with Vaccinium. Oxycoccos & Tussack. Writes he is enclosing fragments of tree fern [not present] that resembles Alsophila gigantea.