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overwhelmed with my riches in facts, and I mean to make my book as perfect as ever I can. I shall not go to press at soonest for a couple of years.

C. Darwin to J. D. Hooker.

Feb. 23rd [1858].

I was not much struck with the great Buckle, and I admired the way you stuck up about deduction and induction. I am reading his book,* which, with much sophistry, as it seems to me, is wonderfully clever and original, and with astounding knowledge.

I saw that you admired Mrs. Farrer's 'Questa tomba' of Beethoven thoroughly; there is something grand in her sweet

tones.

Farewell. I have partly written this note to drive bee'scells out of my head; for I am half-mad on the subject to try to make out some simple steps from which all the wondrous angles may result.t

I was very glad to see Mrs. Hooker on Friday; how well she appears to be and looks.

Forgive your intolerable but affectionate friend,

C. DARWIN.

C. Darwin to W. D. Fox.

Down, April 16th [1858].

MY DEAR FOX,-I want you to observe one point for me, on which I am extremely much interested, and which will give you no trouble beyond keeping your eyes open, and that is a habit I know full well that you have.

I find horses of various colours often have a spinal band or stripe of different and darker tint than the rest of the body; rarely transverse bars on the legs, generally on the under-side.

*The History of Civilisation.'

He had much correspondence on this subject with the late Professor Miller of Cambridge.

of the front legs, still more rarely a very faint transverse shoulder-stripe like an ass.

Is there any breed of Delamere forest ponies? I have found out little about ponies in these respects. Sir P. Egerton has, I believe, some quite thoroughbred chestnut horses; have any of them the spinal stripe? Mouse-coloured ponies,

or rather small horses, often have spinal and leg bars. So have dun horses (by dun I mean real colour of cream mixed with brown, bay, or chestnut). So have sometimes chestnuts, but I have not yet got a case of spinal stripe in chestnut, race horse, or in quite heavy cart-horse. Any fact of this nature of such stripes in horses would be most useful to me. There is a parallel case in the legs of the donkey, and I have collected some most curious cases of stripes appearing in various crossed equine animals. I have also a large mass of parallel facts in the breeds of pigeons about the wing bars. I suspect it will throw light on the colour of the primeval horse. So do help me if occasion turns up. My health has been lately very bad from overwork, and on Tuesday I go for a fortnight's hydropathy. My work is everlasting. Farewell.

My dear Fox, I trust you are well. Farewell,

C. Darwin to J. D. Hooker.

C. DARWIN.

Moor Park, Farnham [April 26th, 1858].

I have just had the innermost cockles of my heart rejoiced by a letter from Lyell. I said to him (or he to me) that I believed from the character of the flora of the Azores, that icebergs must have been stranded there; and that I expected erratic boulders would be detected embedded between the upheaved lava-beds; and I got Lyell to write to Hartung to ask, and now H. says my question explains what had astounded him, viz., large boulders (and some polished) of mica-schist, quartz, sandstone, &c., some embedded, and some 40 and 50 feet above the level of the sea, so that he had

inferred that they had not been brought as ballast. Is this not beautiful?

The water-cure has done me some good, but I [am] nothing to boast of to-day, so good-bye.

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MY DEAR LYELL,-I have come here for a fortnight's hydropathy, as my stomach had got, from steady work, into a horrid state. I am extremely much obliged to you for sending me Hartung's interesting letter. The erratic boulders are splendid. It is a grand case of floating ice versus glaciers. He ought to have compared the northern and southern shores of the islands. It is eminently interesting to me, for I have written a very long chapter on the subject, collecting briefly all the geological evidence of glacial action in different parts of the world, and then at great length (on the theory of species changing) I have discussed the migration and modification of plants and animals, in sea and land, over a large part of the world. To my mind, it throws a flood of light on the whole subject of distribution, if combined with the modification of species. Indeed, I venture to speak with some little confidence on this, for Hooker, about a year ago, kindly read over my chapter, and though he then demurred gravely to the general conclusion, I was delighted to hear a week or two ago that he was inclined to come round pretty strongly to my views of distribution and change during the glacial period. I had a letter from Thompson, of Calcutta, the other day, which helps me much, as he is making out for me what heat our temperate plants can endure. But it is too long a subject for a note; and I have written thus only because Hartung's note has set the whole subject afloat in my mind again. But I will write no more, for my object here is to think about nothing, bathe much, walk much, eat much, and

read much novels. Farewell, with many thanks, and very

kind remembrance to Lady Lyell.

Ever yours,

C. DARWIN.

C. Darwin to Mrs. Darwin.

Moor Park, Wednesday, April [1858].

The weather is quite delicious. Yesterday, after writing to you, I strolled a little beyond the glade for an hour and a half, and enjoyed myself-the fresh yet dark-green of the grand Scotch firs, the brown of the catkins of the old birches, with their white stems, and a fringe of distant green from the larches made an excessively pretty view. At last I fell fast asleep on the grass, and awoke with a chorus of birds singing around me, and squirrels running up the trees, and some woodpeckers laughing, and it was as pleasant and rural a scene as ever I saw, and I did not care one penny how any of the beasts or birds had been formed. I sat in the drawingroom till after eight, and then went and read the Chief Justice's summing up, and thought Bernard* guilty, and then read a bit of my novel, which is feminine, virtuous, clerical, philanthropical, and all that sort of thing, but very decidedly flat. I say feminine, for the author is ignorant about money matters, and not much of a lady-for she makes her men say, "My Lady." I like Miss Craik very much, though we have some battles, and differ on every subject. I like also the Hungarian; a thorough gentleman, formerly attaché at Paris, and then in the Austrian cavalry, and now a pardoned exile, with broken health. He does not seem to like Kossuth, but says, he is certain [he is] a sincere patriot, most clever and eloquent, but weak, with no determination of character..

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*Simon Bernard was tried in April 1858 as an accessory to Orsini's attempt on the life of the Emperor of the French. The verdict was not guilty."

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[THE letters given in the present chapter tell their story with sufficient clearness, and need but a few words of expla nation. Mr. Wallace's Essay, referred to in the first letter, bore the sub-title, 'On the Tendency of Varieties to depart indefinitely from the Original Type,' and was published in the Linnean Society's Journal (1858, vol. iii. p. 53) as part of the joint paper of "Messrs. C. Darwin and A. Wallace," of which the full title was 'On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection.'

My father's contribution of the paper consisted of (1) Extracts from the sketch of 1844; (2) part of a letter addressed to Dr. Asa Gray, dated September 5, 1857, and which is given at p. 120. The paper was "communicated" to the Society by Sir Charles Lyell and Sir Joseph Hooker, in whose prefatory letter, a clear account of the circumstances of the case is given.

Referring to Mr. Wallace's Essay, they wrote:

So highly did Mr. Darwin appreciate the value of the views therein set forth, that he proposed, in a letter to Sir Charles Lyell, to obtain Mr. Wallace's consent to allow the Essay to be published as soon as possible. Of this step we highly approved, provided Mr. Darwin did not withold from the public, as he was strongly inclined to do (in favour of Mr. Wallace), the memoir which he had himself written on the same subject, and which, as before stated, one of us had

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