Discusses geological foliation and cleavage. Urges ACR to read CD's remarks on subject in his South America before ACR publishes his paper ["On the lower Palaeozoic rocks", Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 9 (1853): 161-79].
CD now has a sufficiently large collection of [skeletons of] chickens to be able to tell how far the young differ proportionally from the old.
He goes on accumulating facts; what he will do with them "remains to be seen".
Attended Glasgow BAAS meeting. "Duke of Argyll spoke excellently" [Rep. BAAS (1855): lxiii-lxxxvi].
Lists his pigeon collection.
Does not think much of the arguments of the Duke [of Argyll], though liberal and complimentary to himself.
THH's Athenæum letter ["Man and the apes", 30 Mar 1861, p. 433] almost too civil. What a thorn THH must be to Owen.
CK defended CD's theory at a shooting party with the Bishop of Oxford, the Duke of Argyll, and Lord Ashburton. The discussion started as a result of shooting some blue rock-pigeons which were different from blue rocks of other localities. CK held that all pigeons were descended from one species.
CK proposed that mythological races, e.g., elves and dwarfs, were intermediate species between man and apes, and have become extinct by natural selection; i.e., by competition with a superior white race of man.
Comments on CK's letter [3426].
Identifies species of pigeon shot by party.
On CK's "grand and awful" notion of genealogy of man, CD recalls how revolting was the thought that his ancestors must have been like the Fuegians. His present belief that they were hairy beasts is less revolting.
Box of Melastomataceae has arrived.
Talked with [Duke of] Argyll about Origin. He is between stools: Owen and Lyell.
Sends flowers with anthers of two colours.
Wife's health better.
Visited Duke of Argyll.
Thanks CD for Cruciferae diagram; will ponder it.
Staggered by complexity of Welwitschia.
So JDH did write the Gardeners' Chronicle review [of Orchids]! CD guessed it from the little slap at R. Brown.
Dawson's lecture has nothing new. Absurd to assume Greenland under water during whole of glacial period. Suggests absence of certain plants in Greenland due to seeds not surviving in sea-water. Suggests an experiment on vitality in sea-water of plants that might be in Greenland. Is more willing to admit a Norway-Greenland land connection than most other cases.
Urges JDH to warn Tyndall on his glacial theory of valleys in Switzerland.
Is working on cultivated plants.
Sends CD West Ireland soundings.
More detail on his review "a la Lindley" [see 3797].
Bates's paper ["Contributions to an insect fauna of the Amazon valley", Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 23 (1862): 495-566] is capital.
Andrew Murray's article plays into CD's hands through sheer ignorance.
JDH is on Royal Society Council.
Has no recollection of applying natural selection to Polynesians. None but a German would dig out such a passage if it exists [see 3812].
Has caused Tyndall to modify his pseudo-geology.
Has not seen Duke of Argyll's review [Edinburgh Rev. 116 (1862): 378-97]. [The Duke] did not understand Orchids the least little bit, nor the Origin, when JDH saw him.
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