1 86 EVOLUTION [CHAP. Ill 



Letter 125 capital work in making out the age of the celt-bearing beds, 

 but the case gets more and more complicated. All, however, 

 tends to greater and greater antiquity of man. The shingle 

 beds seem to be estuary deposits. I called on R. Chambers at 

 his very nice house in St. John's Wood, and had a very pleasant 

 half-hour's talk he is really a capital fellow. He made one 

 good remark and chuckled over it : that the laymen universally 

 had treated the controversy on the Essays and Reviews as a 

 merely professional subject, and had not joined in it but 

 had left it to the clergy. I shall be anxious for your next 

 letter about Henslow. Farewell, with sincere sympathy, my 

 old friend. 



P.S. We are very much obliged for London Review. 

 We like reading much of it, and the science is incomparably 

 better than in the Athen&um. You shall not go on very long- 

 sending it, as you will be ruined by pennies and trouble ; but 

 I am under a horrid spell to the Athen&um and Gardeners* 

 Chronicle^ both of which are intolerably dull, but I have taken 

 them in for so many years that I cannot give them up. The 

 Cottage Gardener, for my purpose, is now far better than 

 the Gardeners' Chronicle. 



Letter 126 To J. L. A. de Ouatrefages. 1 



Down, April 25 [1861]. 



I received this morning your Unite de FEspece Humaine 

 [published in 1861], and most sincerely do I thank you for 

 this your very kind present. I had heard of and been recom- 

 mended to read your articles, but, not knowing that they were 

 separately published, did not know how to get them. So 

 your present is most acceptable, and lam very anxious to see 

 your views on the whole subject of species and variation ; and 

 I am certain to derive much benefit from your work. In 

 cutting the pages I observe that you have most kindly men- 



1 Jean Louis Armand de Quatrefages de Breau (1810-92) was a scion 

 of an ancient family originally settled at Breau, in the Cevennes. His 

 work was largely anthropological, and in his writings and lectures 

 he always combated evolutionary ideas. Nevertheless he had a strong 

 personal respect for Darwin, and was active in obtaining his election at 

 the Institut. For details of his life and work see A la Memoire de 

 /. L. A. de Quatrefages de Breau, 4, Paris (privately printed); also 

 1} Anthropologie^ III., 1892, p. 2. 



