Thanks JVC for his corrections. Will send other errata. Hopes to send remainder of vol. 2 [of Descent] in a fortnight.
Thanks JVC for his corrections. Will send other errata. Hopes to send remainder of vol. 2 [of Descent] in a fortnight.
Asks that review copy [of Descent] be sent to F. P. Cobbe.
Discusses mailing of presentation copies.
No summary available.
Responds to ARW’s comments on CD’s argument about protection in Descent.
Comments on St G. Mivart’s criticism [Genesis of species (1871)]. "The pendulum will now swing against us."
Thanks CD for the second volume of Descent.
Thinks G. H. Lewes will review Descent in Pall Mall Gazette.
Has sent JH a copy of his new book [The Sun].
Comments on spelling reform being attempted in Germany and the United States, and being proposed in England.
Replying to JH's letter of 24 Jan. 1871. Thanking him for his suggestions. Has not seen JH's Cape Observations. Has seen report of R. W. Bunsen's experiments. Comments on these experiments.
Returns pamphlets.
B. T. Lowne’s observation [Mon. Microsc. J. 4 (1870): 326–30] that boiling does not kill certain moulds is curious, but then how account for absence of all living things in Pasteur’s experiment?
Always delighted to see a word in favour of Pangenesis.
Thiselton-Dyer’s paper ["On spontaneous generation and evolution", Q. J. Microsc. Sci. 10 (1870): 333–54] is Spencerian.
The chemical conditions for first production of life are said to exist at present, but in some warm little pond today such matter would be absorbed or devoured, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed.
Sir Andrew Smith says Hottentots and Kaffirs laugh till they cry.
Has left Paris because of the war.
J. J. Moulinié and Carl Vogt are at work on Descent, which CR plans to publish in Paris.
No summary available.
Would like his views on the correct definition of a billion, to settle an argument.
Queries regarding the red glow seen during an eclipse of the sun.
Thanks RP for sending RP's Sun. Suggests a theory that the solar corona, rather than originating in the earth's atmosphere, is produced by reflection from meteoric dust. Informs RP that he has completed a catalogue of all observations of double stars.
No summary available.
Encloses a letter [missing] from C. Reinwald, publisher of the French edition of Descent [1872].
Vincenzi [of Unione, Turin – publisher of Italian translation] has not yet paid the account.
Raises objections to JH's theory of the solar corona. Discusses possible existence of extensive meteoric dust in the solar system. Requests permission to dedicate a book on sidereal astronomy to JH. Asks JH whether his father in later years always used a front focus for his large telescopes and whether he saw the supposed four additional Uranian satellites with his 40-foot reflector.
Information [for CD] on old, sloping, ridged fields.