Thanks GdeS for communicating his discovery. It is especially important at a time when several naturalists have declared that development occurs quite suddenly at intervals. Joseph Le Conte in N. America urges that even new families and orders are developed within an extremely short period.

Sends a query he would like GHD to put to Clerk Maxwell: why does a sponged leaf dry more rapidly, although sponging cannot remove the waxy bloom from the minute pores through which it is secreted?

Is very glad to hear about tides in the earth.

Has read JT’s address ["Science and man", The Times, 2 October 1877, p. 8]. What JT says about CD honours and pleases him. JT’s short character of Faraday is beautiful.

Welcomes JDH home from American expedition.

Returns [unspecified] enclosure.

Requests seeds for experiments he and Frank are doing on automatic movements of cotyledons.

Pleased the Senate has passed Grace conferring his LL.D.

Has given dates [for the Cambridge University honorary degree] to the Vice-Chancellor.

Regrets he cannot accept JC’s invitation to the [Master’s] Lodge [of Christ’s College] when he comes to Cambridge to accept his LL.D., as his health demands he stay quite by himself.

Wants HD to observe earthworm activity at Roman antiquities of Chedworth and Cirencester.

Although honoured by being asked, regrets the state of his health prevents his standing as a candidate for Lord Rector of Edinburgh.

Requests seeds for study of movement in cotyledons. Would love to study Welwitschia cotyledons.

Son William is to be married 28 November.

CD and Frank working hard on cotyledonary movement.

CD suggests technique for growing Welwitschia.

Approves of J. D. Dana and of O. Heer.

Thanks his correspondent for his letter; hopes he will convey to the president how obliged he is for the invitation, which he cannot accept as it would tire him too much.

CD declines to write for RLT’s new journal. He is not fitted for the work and dislikes it particularly. It costs loss of time as he "cannot change with ease from one job to another".

Asks GHD to determine whether there are worm-castings in cloisters of [Neville?] Court.

Enjoyed his visit to Cambridge. Asks for newspaper account of the LL.D.

Thinks he had better not sign GHD’s paper [as a candidate for F.R.S.], since he obviously is no judge of the quality of his work.

Asks if Thomson did not overlook heat generated by the crushing and folding of strata during the refrigeration of the globe.

Neptunia seeds germinated by applying great heat. CD wants advice of Kew gardener, R. I. Lynch, on how to proceed.

Printed public oration for CD’s Cambridge doctorate enclosed.

Suggests revisions in JDH’s 1877 Presidential Address to the Royal Society [Proc. R. Soc. Lond. (1877): 427–46].

Thanks for letter about beet. Will strike out statement about it in MS of new edition of Forms of flowers.