To H. N. Moseley   4 February 1879

Dear Moseley

I have at last read every word of your book, & it has excited in me greater interest than any other scientific book which I have read for a long time.—¹ You will perhaps be surprised how slow I have been, but my head prevents me reading except at intervals. If I were asked which parts had interested me most, I sh^d. be somewhat perplexed to answer.

I fancy that the general reader would prefer your account of Japan. For myself I hesitate between your discussions & description of the Southern ice, which seem to me admirable, & the last chapter which contained many facts & views new to me. Though I had read your papers on the stony Hydroid Corals, yet your resumé made me realise better than I had done before, what a most curious case it is.—² You have also collected a surprising number of valuable facts bearing on the dispersal of plants,—far more than in any other book known to me.—³

In fact your volume is a mass of interesting facts & discussions, with hardly a superfluous word; & I heartily congratulate you on its publication.

Your Dedication makes me prouder than ever.—⁴

Believe me | yours sincerely | Ch. Darwin