460 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION [Chap. VI 



Letter 349 eastern area must be larger than the western, which would 

 account to a certain small extent for preponderance on 

 eastern side of the representative species. Is there any truth 

 in this suspicion ? Your memoir sets me marvelling and 

 reflecting. I confess I am not able quite to understand your 

 Geology at pp. 447, 448 ; but you would probably not care 

 to hear my difficulties, and therefore I will not trouble you 

 with them. 



I was so grieved to get a letter from Dana at Florence, 

 giving me a very poor (though improved) account of his 

 health. 



Letter 350 To T. H. Huxley. 



15) Marine Parade, Eastbourne, 



Nov. 1st [i860]. 



Your note has been wonderfully interesting. Your term, 

 " pithecoid man," is a whole paper and theory in itself. 

 How I hope the skull of the new MacraucHenia has come. 

 It is grand. I return Hooker's letter, with very many 

 thanks. The glacial action on Lebanon is particularly 

 interesting, considering its position between Europe and 

 Himalaya. I get more and more convinced that my 

 doctrine of mundane Glacial period x is correct, and that it 

 is the most important of all late phenomena with respect 

 to distribution of plants and animals. I hope your Review 2 

 progresses favourably. I am exhausted and not well, so 

 write briefly ; for we have had nine days of as much misery 

 as man can endure. My poor daughter has suffered pitiably, 

 and night and day required three persons to support her. 

 The crisis of extreme danger is over, and she is rallying 

 surprisingly, but the doctors are yet doubtful of ultimate 

 issue. But the suffering was so pitiable I almost got to 

 wish to see her die. She is easy now. When she will be 



1 In the 1st edition of the Origin, p, 373. Darwin argues in favour of 

 a Glacial period practically simultaneous over the globe. In the 5th 

 edition, 1869, p. 451, he adopted Mr. Croll's views on the alternation of 

 cold periods in the northern and southern hemispheres. An interesting 

 modification of the mundane Glacial period theory is given in Belt's 

 The Naturalist in Nicaragua, 1874, p. 265. Mr. Belt's views are dis- 

 cussed in Wallace's Geogr. Distribution, 1S76, Vol. I., p. 151. 



2 The history of the foundation of the Natural History Review is 

 given in Huxley's Life and Letters, Vol. I., p. 209. See Letter 107. 



