P. T. A. Talandier wants to translate Origin into French. Talandier gave Louis Blanc as a referee. Could Mrs Cresy, who knows Blanc, find out what he thinks of Talandier?

Thanks EC for help in finding French translator [for Origin].

Invites EC to visit. Wants to discuss education of his sons.

Daughter [Henrietta] has been very ill for 15 weeks.

Has not himself experimented with delicacy of tests but sends several illustrations of what other authorities have done. Reference to James Marsh’s test for arsenic and that of Ashley Paston Price for iodine.

Discusses letter from A. W. v. Hofmann concerning solution of iodine in water.

Obliged for note of 16th.

Failed to enclose letter from Hofmann.

Will be glad to read A. S. Taylor’s work [On poisons in relation to medical jurisprudence and medicine, 2d ed. (1859)].

Daughter Henrietta still weak.

Is enclosing Alfred Swaine Taylor’s book On poisons (1848). Reports on his own experiment with the starch test in dissolving iodine in different measures of water.

Sends CD passages from A. S. Taylor’s book [On poisons in relation to medical jurisprudence and medicine, 2d ed. (1859)], citing smallest portions of poisons that are chemically detectable. "Drosera beats the chemists hollow."

Thanks for pamphlet by A. S. Taylor.

"… we have had a terrible week with my poor girl [Henrietta] on the point of death".

Discusses experiments involving placing solutions of ammonia and other substances on leaves of plants.

Discusses pamphlet by A. S. Taylor

and note by A. W. v. Hofmann concerning iodine solution.

Explains discrepancies in weights and measures caused by changes since 1836 in apothecaries’ measures.

EC has found that a discrepancy in A. W. von Hofmann’s experiments with iodine solutions resulted from an error in Hofmann’s use of decimals.

Reports S. P. Woodward’s opinion of the Origin: "a very sad book, it unsettles all one’s religious principles and the worst of it is so much of it is true".

Thanks for information about the weight of water.

Describes experiments on Drosera.

CD may be interested in a reference to a method of detecting 1/195000 of a grain of sodium chloride.

Also, on Drosera, suggests it would be interesting to try substances such as gun-cotton, in which nitrogen is in very different states from a salt of ammonia.

Asks him to thank A. S. Taylor for note.

Describes experiments on Drosera.

Discusses reviews of the Origin. By far the best is by Asa Gray.

Discusses plans for new edition of Origin.

Thanks for railway map.

Surprised about Richard Owen: "I thought his courage was as indomitable as his malignity."

Sends extract [Sir John Herschel, "Physical geography", from the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1861)].

Obliged for the Theophrastus. Will return it.

Comments on presentation copy of Orchids: bee Ophrys self-fertilisation; origin of nectar; odour of orchids. Book gives strong cases for special creationists.

Walter White [Asst.-Sec. and Librarian, Royal Society] has introduced EC to Richard Kippist of the Linnean Society, who has made little progress toward accepting Origin.

Son [Leonard] ill with scarlet fever. Also Mrs Darwin.

Intends to give up work on Drosera until Variation is done.

CD’s Linum paper [Collected papers 2: 93–105].

Sending up-to-date railway map of southern region.