^T.52.] TO CHARLES DARWIN. 507 



I put to my neighbor, Professor Parsons, who had it 

 looked up. He tells me there is no such law at all on 

 the Ohio statute books, nor is there a trace of any 

 law on the subject to be found in the laws of any State 

 in the United States. He doubts if there can really 

 be any statistics which tell on the point, because, first, 

 the marriage of first cousins is a rare thing in this 

 country ; second, the United States decennial censuses 

 do not afford any information on the matter ; third, 

 nor any of the [state] censuses that he knows of. 



Pray, don't run mad over Phyllotaxis ! I can't save 

 you, I am sure. 



George's " Converging Sines " is the same, perhaps, 

 as what Bravais was after. His memoir may help you 

 (see " Botanical Text-Book," p. 141, par. 248) ; or, if 

 you want something thoroughly mathematical, consult 

 Neumann, of Berlin, in some paper, which I have no 

 reference to. ... 



I am sorry you do not give a better account of your- 

 self. Be careful and do not work too hard. 



July 7. 



My last from you is May 31. 



I had arranged to reprint most of Bates on Mimetic 

 Analogy in " Silliman's Journal," but my long re- 

 view of A. de Candolle crowded it out. I then thought 

 of a brief abstract, but have had no time to prepare it. 

 I wrote remarks and arranged long extracts of your 

 Linum paper, and insisted on it for the July number 

 of " Silliman's Journal." But it, too, was laid over, not 

 for anything I had, for I have little in the July number. 



I like and agree to your remark that, in Bates' s 

 Geographical Varieties, etc., we get about as near to 

 seeing a species made as we are ever likely to get ; 



