1868 MUSEUM WORK 437 



In scientific work the main thing just now about which 

 I am engaged is a revision of the Dinosauria, with an eye 

 to the " Descendenz Theorie." The road from Reptiles 

 to Birds is by way of Dinosauria to the Ratitse. The 

 bird "phylum" was struthious, and wings grew out of 

 rudimentary forelimbs. 



You see that among other things I have been reading 

 Ernst Haeckel's Morphologic. 



The next two letters reflect his vie,ws on the 

 proper work to be undertaken by men of unusual 

 scientific capacity 



JERMYN STREET, Jan. 15, 1868. 



MY DEAR DOHRN Though the most procrastinating 

 correspondent in existence when a letter does not absolutely 

 require an answer, I am tolerably well-behaved when 

 something needs to be said or done immediately. And 

 as that appears to me to be the case with your letter of 

 the 13th which has this moment reached me, I lose no 

 time in replying to it. 



The Calcutta appointment has been in my hands as 

 well as Turner's, and I have made two or three efforts, 

 all of which unfortunately have proved unsuccessful, to 

 find : (1) A man who will do for it and at the same 

 time (2) for whom it will do. Now you fulfil the first 

 condition admirably, but as to the second I have very 

 great doubts. 



In the first place, the climate of Calcutta is not par- 

 ticularly good for any one who has a tendency to dysentery, 

 and I doubt very much if you would stand it for six 

 months. 



Huxley delivered an address ; some of the clergy present denounced 

 any concessions as impossible ; others declared that they had long 

 ago accepted the teachings of geology ; whereupon a candid friend 

 inquired, "Then why don't you say so from your pulpits ? " (See 

 CM. Ess. iii. 119.) 



