Received notice to transfer one-fifth of funds from [Mary Anne Babbage's] 1823 marriage settlement to W. H. B. Hollier.
Received notice to transfer one-fifth of funds from [Mary Anne Babbage's] 1823 marriage settlement to W. H. B. Hollier.
CD must decline his correspondent’s kind offer [unspecified], but he is out of health and has passed the part about dogs in a work now at the printer’s [Variation].
Suggests, if further notice is to be taken of Variation, that the reviewer grapple with the subject of Pangenesis. Thanks him for his fair and friendly spirit.
Gives details of some points that occurred to him while reading Variation, including observations on horses, cattle, silkworms, and hereditary baldness and disease.
Relation of British imperial units of weight to their 'geometrical synonyms.'
Relation of imperial measures of capacity to their 'geometrical synonyms.'
Testimonial for James Archer, who leaves CD’s service after six months.
Is a listing of some of JH's papers in an attempt to clarify how many were distributed, and then JH indicates how many he will send to addressee.
Received [?]'s paper no. 10, which completes JH's collection. Returns duplicates of [?]'s papers on Kew and Nerchinsk 'disturbances' and on 'Residual Laws of disturbance.'
Gives his opinion of Rolla Charles Meadows Rouse, who is tutoring Horace Darwin in mathematics.
Has not heard that Horace has a chance of a minor scholarship.
"My experiment was intended solely to show that colour reappeared, and I choose kinds which breed [true] to colour, as is certainly the case with [sports] and those which I tried . . .
I have recorded an undoubted case of wild rock Pigeons caught in Scotland having bred in confinement …"
"When a man has laboured hard in science & has proved that he is capable of original research, he may [some]times indulge in speculation [&] the public will indulge him. But even in this case it is a common error to speculate too largely, for speculation is far easier than observation or experiments . . ."
[A quotation in CD’s hand, signed and dated, from the introduction to Orchids.] "I have never once expressed a wish for aid or for information, which has not been granted, as far as possible, in the most liberal spirit."
Develops mathematical theorem.
Thanks correspondent for sending curious facts about his cats.
Comments on a case of crossing distant plants of Habenaria
and on hermaphroditism in hybrid plants.
Thanks correspondent for sending extracts about the jackal.
Has given the right of translation [of Descent] to Julius Victor Carus of Leipzig, so the recipient should inform Alexander Duncker to communicate with JVC.