238 MISCELLANEA (continued). [1879. 



puzzled to answer. I fancy that the general reader would 

 prefer your account of Japan. For myself I hesitate between 

 your discussions and description of the Southern ice, which 

 seems to me admirable, and the last chapter which contained 

 many facts and views new to me, though I had read your 

 papers on the stony Hydroid Corals, yet your resumi made 

 me realise better than I had done before, what a most curious 

 case it is. 



You have also collected a surprising number of valuable 

 facts bearing on the disposal of plants, far more than in any 

 other book known to me. In fact your volume is a mass of 

 interesting facts and discussions, with hardly a superfluous 

 word ; and I heartily congratulate you on its publication. 



Your dedication makes me prouder than ever. 



Believe me, yours sincerely, 



Ch. Darwin. 



[In November, 1879, he answered for Mr. Galton a series of 

 questions for his 'Inquiries into Human Faculty/ 1883. He 

 wrote to Mr. Galton : — 



" I have answered the questions as well as I could, but they 

 are miserably answered, for I have never tried looking into 

 my own mind. Unless others answer very much better than 

 I can do, you will get no good from your queries. Do you 

 not think you ought to have the age of the answerer ? I 

 think so, because I can call up faces of many schoolboys, not 

 seen for sixty years, with much distinctness, but nowadays I 

 may talk with a man for an hour, and see him several times 

 consecutively, and, after a month, I am utterly unable to 

 recollect what he is at all like. The picture is quite washed 

 out." 



The greater number of the answers are given in the 

 annexed table :] 



