Enthusiastic about Lectures IV and V [Lectures to working men (1863)].
Sends specific comments on fantail pigeon,
sterility of hybrids,
the geological section diagram.
Thanks CD for agreeing to review Bates’s paper for Natural History Review.
No summary available.
JS should be proud of his paper ["Nature of the fern-spore", Edinburgh New. Philos. J. 2d ser. 16 (1862): 209–27].
CD has just found that JS’s observations on the confluence of two sexes causing variability were independently confirmed by Huxley.
CD has always suspected a fundamental difference between buds and ovules.
Asks for examples of "bud-variation" or "sports".
Asks JS to test germination of pollen on rostellum of Laelia.
Offers JS money for experimental supplies, e.g., netting, to keep insects out of flowers.
Encloses an outline of crossing experiments with Lythraceae, Primula, Pelargonium, and others, which he feels would be valuable.
Note on melastomids.
No summary available.
No summary available.
Thanks correspondent for sending him a strawberry hybrid.
Thanks for the gift of volumes on meteorology and the telescope. Hopes that JH will be able to visit Newcastle with the B.A.A.S.
"Throttled off" Welwitschia paper at Linnean Society [Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 24 (1863): 1–48].
Has read Tocqueville’s Democracy in America [1835–40] – disagrees with it. Tocqueville says democracy in America is a success. Democracy has persisted because there has been no cause for its overthrow (i.e., no struggle for existence, too much mobility).
Sends J. W. Dawson’s unsatisfactory letter.
Thanks for Begonia and Oxalis.
Keeps obstinate about crossing and could argue till doomsday, but will not bother JDH.
Sees that JDH has finished Welwitschia.
Thinks Huxley’s Working Men’s Lectures excellent.
Has finished Linum paper [Collected papers 2: 93–105],
and abstract of Bates’s paper for Natural History Review,
and has begun to arrange concluding chapters [for Variation]. Is paralysed on how to begin.
Has had news from Asa Gray about Civil War.
Belatedly thanks CD for Orchids, which shows CD to be the successor to Gilbert White.
No summary available.
No summary available.
Family and local news.
Explains the terms of his £200 gift or loan to Miss Ludwig’s father.
No summary available.
Has heard from Asa Gray [see 3850] that JA is bringing live plants over for CD. Gives address for forwarding box to Down.
No summary available.
Informs JH of a meeting of the finance committee of the Hawkhurst Volunteers.
Comments on matters relating to the provision of a reflecting telescope to Melbourne University [see JH's 1862-12-10].