WCP4568

[1]

Old Orchard,

Broadstone,

Wimborne.

August 5^th. 1910

My dear Meldola

I am going to bother you again, but do not, please, take any trouble to hunt up information which you have not got handy.

One of the subjects I am dealing with now is Variety in the Universe. I have got from the Nat[ural] Hist[ory] Museum their "Student’s Index to the Collection of Minerals" (2^d) which gives the names of all the mineral species, in the Collection, and also the varieties. The former are just over 1000 — the latter 540 — and I presume there are very few known minerals of which they have not specimens. I have also an [2] Excellent "Guide to the Mineral Gallery", which gives a lot of very interesting information as to the more important minerals. (6d)

Now I should like to have also the number of the known chemical compounds, — which may be called artificial or chemical minerals. Is there any book or periodical that gives this up to a recent date? Or has any estimate been given. The inorganic compounds would do, to compare with the ^native minerals, but if there is any list or Estimate of organic compounds natural ^and artificial I should like those also — the totals only..

Should you not have these figures at hand, but know [3] any foreign book &c. where they may be found, please give me the title & I will write to the Librarian of the Roy[al] Soc[iety] to get me the figures.

I have also several "Guides" to the Geol[ogy] Dep[artmen]t — Fossil Reptiles — & Fossil Mammals. Splendid books with about 100 figures of skulls, skeletons or restorations in each — price only 6d each! Yet in the Botany and Entomology we have absolutely nothing!

Yours very truly| Alfred R. Wallace [signature]