From Charles Lyell   [9 April 1843]

My dear Darwin

I spoke separately yesterday to Warburton, Fitton & Greenough¹ before they entered into Committee on the affairs of the Nation or G.S. as to a Government Grant for publication & said all you had suggested—² The idea was new & struck them as leaving us more independent than any other scheme— So your coming up to town you see has done some good—

I shall read a paper on erect N. Scotia trees next meeting— ³

Cap^t Halstead RN—has returned from surveying Ramree & islands & coast ceded by Burmese—⁴ He tells me the shores are rising everywhere⁵ —oyster beds of recent species corals & old beaches inland & the same all along the E. side of Bay of Bengall where mud volcanos—for several 100 miles all the way he believes from Sumatra to Barren Isl^d.—⁶

⁠⟨⁠half page of text missing ⁠⟩⁠ making— So now I am unpacking all my U.S. silurian carbonif^s. Devonian &c— Phillips⁷ looked over 8 drawers of beds below coal in Pensylv^a— the result as usual the species different but a complete representation of forms in correspond^g formations