Has read JH's brochure with pleasure. Regarding the alleged obstruseness of some of his own mathematical theories.
No summary available.
No summary available.
CD is collecting [for Variation] all accounts of what some call "sports" and what he calls "bud-variations". He asks whether very slight variations in fruit appear suddenly by buds, or whether only rather strongly marked varieties thus appear.
Directs JH to inquire regarding a pension for John Russell. Note C. P. Smyth's use of Outlines Astr. Mentions Isaac Fletcher as a promising amateur astronomer.
No summary available.
Trying to resolve disagreement between author of a paper, William Hopkins, and JH, a referee.
Thanks for Dawson’s letter. Doubts his evidence that climate of land was not glacial when upheaved after submergence.
Encloses memorandum of questions for C. V. Naudin.
Expression of the emotions.
Is building a hothouse for plant experimenting.
JDH’s ideas on America are more atrocious than his. What a new idea that struggle for existence is necessary to try to purge a government! Probably true. Slavery draws him one way one day, another the next. Yankees are "detestable toward us". Tocqueville.
No summary available.
Sending a gift of his Weather Book. Hopes JH will send his comments on chapter 18. Has scarcely seen M. F. Maury.
J. P. Thom [of Home News] must change his position because of his health. Asks if CD can help find him a new situation.
Thanks for gift of a book [RF's Weather Book].
Discusses plans for a memorial for Thomas Maclear. Requests change in manner in which WP records positions of nebulae observed at WP's observatory.
No summary available.
On his particular spiritual faith; worships great naturalists and authors.
Does not wish to see American newspapers that Asa Gray offers to send, or hear about Civil War.
Inquires whether penguin ducks can run faster than other kinds.
Hostile to Spencer’s application of natural selection to society.
JDH on J. E. Gray’s views on collecting.
JDH collecting Wedgwood ware.
Sends translation of Book III of Homer's Iliad and a memorial for Thomas Maclear.
CD interested in hybrid sterility and encloses his preliminary MS. Outlines experiments to test for existence of sterility in breeds of poultry and pigeons.
Experiments on dimorphism have led him to change in part his opinion as given in Origin, and he is now asking pigeon and poultry fanciers for any examples of special selective sterility [i.e., a particular pair are sterile when crossed, but each individual is fertile with others] and hopes to investigate its inheritance.
Returns Kingsley’s letter [see ML 1: 225 n.].
Lectures [to working men] would do good if widely circulated.
On sterility, they differ so much there is no use arguing. To get the degree of sterility THH expects in recently formed varieties seems to CD simply hopeless. Has suggested a test experiment to Tegetmeier [two fertile birds paired and unproductive].