From J. D. Hooker   [29 December 1866]1

Kew

Saturday

Dear Darwin

By all means let Heer have the Bournemouth leaves, I have no time even to look at them; & Heer works them better than anyone— They are usually so fragile that they should be so packed at once, as not to be disturbed till in the hands of Heer. & Sulivan had better take a little time & patience about that point. How to get them to Heer is another point, I will write & ask him.2

I am very glad you have taken up the Book-cutting matter.3 I had a great mind to— The Yankees are far ahead of us in all such matters.4 Our Publishers are Penny-wise Pound foolish, Pragmatical Prigs— there then— I have spoken to several on the subject, but none would even listen.

Ever yrs | J D Hooker.

I go on Monday to Norwich for 3 days

1
The date is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter to J. D. Hooker, 28 [December 1866]. In 1866, the first Saturday after 28 December was 29 December.
2
Bartholomew James Sulivan had offered to send Hooker specimens of fossil leaves he had found in Eocene beds near Bournemouth (see letter from B. J. Sulivan, 25 December 1866). CD had suggested that Oswald Heer might be interested in them (see letter to J. D. Hooker, 28 [December 1866]). Heer was a professor of botany and entomology at Zurich, Switzerland (DSB).
4
From the 1850s, North American publications had the pages trimmed (see Tebbel 1972, pp. 260–1).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-5328,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-5328