JDH reports on the debate on the Origin at Oxford [BAAS] meeting.

CD, ill and despondent about hostile reviews, is cheered by JDH’s account of Oxford battle, particularly by willingness of JDH and Huxley to fight for CD’s theory in public.

With 942 others petitions Queen Victoria for museums, art galleries and libraries to open on Sunday afternoons for the benefit of those who work during the week.

Origin has "stirred up the mud with a vengeance"; AG and three or four others have saved CD from annihilation and are responsible for the attention now given to the subject. Reports events at Oxford BAAS meeting.

New evidence supports AG’s view of a warm post-glacial period.

Discusses his recent orchid observations.

Poses AG a question on design in nature.

Reread JDH’s letter "with infinite pleasure".

Plans to visit Kew.

Has had a report on Oxford BAAS meeting from Hooker. Asks THH to write about it. Has heard he fought nobly with Owen and Bishop Samuel Wilberforce. Regrets trouble he has caused his friends.

Thanks for orchid specimens.

On 10th and 11th will be at Tunbridge Wells.

CD will visit Kew on way home from E. W. Lane’s hydropathy establishment.

Birth of JL’s child.

THH’s long account of Oxford meeting. Has he no reverence for a bishop?

W. Hopkins’ review in Fraser’s Magazine is nothing new.

Glad CL plans trip to Amiens to investigate flints and post-glacial period.

Mentions support by Huxley, Hooker, and Lubbock at Oxford BAAS meeting. Asa Gray also goes on fighting.

Likes article by William Hopkins ["Physical theories and the phenomena of life", Fraser’s Mag. 61 (1860): 739–52; 62 (1860): 74–90].

Comments on hybrids of hare and rabbit.

Hyaena remains show how recently Sicily was joined to Africa.

Reports on the Oxford meeting of BAAS.

Thanks JOW for the bees. The pollen-masses that were attached to one of them have unaccountably been lost.

Does not know of a paper by Charles Morren on orchids and insects, and would be glad to have the reference [see 3267, and Orchids, p. 270 n.].

Has spent so much money recently he is unwilling to subscribe for the purchase of T. V. Wollaston’s collection for the [Oxford] Museum.

Regrets he cannot answer SPW’s questions.

Discusses antiquity of subaerial volcanoes.

Disagrees "entirely & absolutely" with L. von Buch’s "elevation-crater-theory".

Cases of "dioecio-dimorphism" as in primroses are widespread. AG always considered them the first step toward bisexuality.

Eldest daughter [Henrietta] very ill.

CD enjoys Owen’s having had "a good setting down".

Floral anatomy; pistil curvature and pistil movement. CD’s rule that bent pistils occur in "gangway" into nectaries.

The book JDH is planning, which he and CD discussed at Kew, should deal with plant reproduction.

Responds to HGB’s critique of Origin [appended to German translation of Origin]. Comments on English reviews.

Thanks for memoir of her father [G. Jäger, Zum Andenken an Dr. C. F. von Gärtner (1851)] and engravings.

Declines gift of CFvG’s collection of hybrid plants. Suggests Kew Herbarium.

Confirms CGBD’s impression given in a letter to J. S. Henslow that CD in the Origin did not touch directly upon the final causes of sexuality, which CD considers one of the "profoundest mysteries in nature". CD is inclined to stress sexuality as the means of keeping forms constant and checking variation although he grants its role in the origination of varieties. [See 2869.]