Discusses installation of watering system. Sent question to Gardeners’ Chronicle but, through EC’s kindness, superfluously.

Thanks for fossil cirripede specimens. Comments on various specimens.

Discusses valves in Scalpellum. Comments on JAHdeB’s research on cirripedes.

Asks JM to forward letter [1525] to Francis Galton "the author of the very interesting volume" Murray recently published.

Thanks for rare Balanus specimens. Asks about their source.

Comments on GJ’s book [Terra Lindisfarnensis (1853)].

Further response to MS of introductory essay to Flora Novae-Zelandiae.

Disbelieving in permanence of species has made little difference to CD in his barnacle work.

Detailed response to MS of introductory essay to [The botany of the Antarctic voyage, pt II] Flora Novae-Zelandiae [1853–5]. CD will curse JDH when, in a year or two, he is at his species book, for "having put so many hostile facts so confoundedly well".

Discusses publication of Fossil Cirripedia.

Comments on paper by JAHdeB ["Les crustacés fossiles du terrain Crétacé du Limbourg", Verh. Uitg. Comm. Geol. Beschrijving & Kaart Ned. 2 (1854): 11–137].

Royal Society votes its Royal Medal for 1853 to CD. JDH reports the debate and vote at the Royal Society Council.

Honoured for Coral reefs

and Cirripedia.

Edward Sabine’s official letter announcing CD’s receipt of Royal Society Medal left him cold. JDH’s informal one moved him.

Applauds JDH for supporting John Lindley.

Comments on MS of JAHdeB’s work ["Crustacés fossiles du Limbourg" (1854)].

Further comments on JAHdeB’s MS.

Is relieved his book [Himalayan journals] has been well received and glad he has successfully completed it.

Thanks JDH for dedication of Himalayan journals. CD praises the work and suggests stylistic revisions.

Lyell’s remarks on lava beds in letter from Madeira are not original – they refer exclusively to Élie de Beaumont’s data.

More praise for Himalayan journals.

How remote was glacial action in Himalayas?

Implies Himalayas were birthplace of many plants.

Final volume of Cirripedia to be printed in two or three months.

JDH summarises letter from Humboldt.

JDH answers CD’s questions on glacial action in Himalayas.

CD welcomes the prospect of the Philosophical Club of the Royal Society as means for seeing old acquaintances and making new ones. Will try to go up to London regularly.

Admits that the warning from JDH and Asa Gray (that more harm than good will come from combat over the species issue) makes him feel "deuced uncomfortable".

Reflects upon the complexity of Agassiz; how singular that a man of his eminence and immense knowledge "should write such wonderful stuff & bosh".

CD "lectures" JDH on taking care of his health.

CD’s pleasure in London trip.

CD and Emma have taken season tickets to Crystal Palace.

Edward Forbes’s "Introductory Lecture" is the best CD ever read.

Birth of JDH’s second child.

Asks CD’s view of "highness" and "lowness" in animals. Gives his own for plants; extent of deviation from type, e.g., floral parts deviating from leaf.

Reading B. C. Brodie’s Psychological inquiries [1854].

CD gives his definition of "highness" and "lowness" as "morphological differentiation" from a common embryo or archetype. JDH’s view, with which CD agrees when it can be applied, is the same as Milne-Edwards’, i.e., the physiological division of labour. There is little agreement among zoologists and CD admits his own lack of clarity.