1864-1869] PERIODICALS 317 



me before. It strikes me as admirable, as it did on the first Letter 232 

 reading, though I differ in some few points. 



Such an address is worth its weight in gold, I should 

 think, in making converts to our views. Lyell tells me that 

 Bunbury has been wonderfully impressed with it, and he 

 never before thought anything of our views on evolution. 



P.S. (2). I have just read, and like very much, your review 

 of Schimper. 1 



To J. D. Hooker. Letter 233 



Down, Nov. igth [1869]. 



Thank you much for telling me all about the C.B., for I 

 much wished to hear. It pleases me extremely that the 

 Government have done this much ; and as the K.C.B.'s are 

 limited in number (which I did not know), I excuse it. I will 

 not mention what you have told me to any one, as it would 

 be Murchisonian. But what a shame it is to use this ex- 

 pression, for I fully believe that Murchison would take any 

 trouble to get any token of honour for any man of science. 



I like all scientific periodicals, including poor Scientific 

 Opinion, and I think higher than you do of Nature. Lord, 

 what a rhapsody that was of Goethe, but how well translated ; 

 it seemed to me, as I told Huxley, as if written by the 

 maddest English scholar. It is poetry, and can I say any- 

 thing more severe ? The last number of the Academy was 

 splendid, and I hope it will soon come out fortnightly. I wish 

 Nature would search more carefully all foreign journals and 

 transactions. 



I am now reading a German thick pamphlet 2 by Kerner 

 on Tubocytisus ; if you come across it, look at the map of the 

 distribution of the eighteen quasi-species, and at the genealo- 

 gical tree. If the latter, as the author says, was constructed 

 solely from the affinities of the forms, then the distribution is 

 wonderfully interesting ; we may see the very steps of the 

 formation of a species. If you study the genealogical tree 



1 A review of Schimper's Traitt de Paltontologie Vdgetale, the first 

 portion of which was published in 1869. Natttre, Nov. nth, 1869, p. 48. 



2 "Die Abhangigheit der Pflanzengestalt von Klima und Boden. Ein 

 Beitrag zur Lehre von der Enstehung und Verbreitung der Arten, etc." 

 Festschrift zur 43 Versammlung Deutscher Naturforscher und Aertze in 

 Innsbruck (Innsbruck, 1869), 



