96 EVOLUTION [CHAP. I 



Letter 49 may object to the loss of time, for I daresay it would take an 

 hour and a half to read. It certainly would be of immense 

 advantage to me ; but of course you must not think of doing 

 it if it would interfere with your own work. 



I do not consider this request in futuro as breaking my 

 promise to give no more trouble for some time. 



From Lyell's letters, he is coming round at a railway pace 

 on the mutability of species, and authorises me to put some 

 sentences on this head in my preface. 



I shall meet Lyell on Wednesday at Lord Stanhope's, and 

 will ask him to forward my letter to you ; though, as my 

 arguments have not struck him, they cannot have force, and 

 my head must be crotchety on the subject ; but the crotchets 

 keep firmly there. I have given your opinion on continuous 

 land, I see, too strongly. 



Letter 50 To S. P. Woodward. 1 



Down, July iSth [1856]. 



Very many thanks for your kindness in writing to me at 

 such length, and I am glad to say for your sake that I do not 

 see that I shall have to beg any further favours. What a 

 range and what a variability in the Cyrena ! 2 Your list of 

 the ranges of the land and fresh-water shells certainly is 

 most striking and curious, and especially as the antiquity 

 of four of them is so clearly shown. 



I have got Harvey's seaside book, and liked it ; I was 

 not particularly struck with it, but I will re-read the first and 

 last chapters. 



I am growing as bad as the worst about species, and 

 hardly have a vestige of belief in the permanence of species 



1 Samuel Pickworth Woodward (1821-65) held an appointment in the 

 British Museum Library for a short time, and then became Sub-Curator 

 to the Geological Society (1839). In 1845 he was appointed Professor of 

 Geology and Natural History in the recently founded Royal Agricultural 

 College, Cirencester ; he afterwards obtained a post as first-class 

 assistant in the Department of Geology and Mineralogy in the British 

 Museum. Woodward's chief work, The Manual of Molhtsca, was pub- 

 lished in 1851-56. ("A Memoir of Dr. S. P. Woodward," Trans. Norfolk 

 and Norwich Naturalists' Society, Vol. III., p. 279, 1882. By H. B. 

 Woodward.) 



2 A genus of Lamellibranchs ranging from the Lias to the 

 present day. 



