a eee 
ET. 48.] TO GEORGE BENTHAM. 447 
Fendler is with you, at least in St. Louis. Short is 
ready to advance something if he will fall to collect- 
ing again wherever you say. Get him some appoint- 
ment with the army at Utah. That is the place. 
What is the good of your both beg Democrats if 
you cannot get something for it! ! 
December 3. 
Darwin asks me to find out if you medical men 
have ascertained or noticed any difference in liability 
to take fevers of warm climates, say yellow fever, be- 
tween light-complexioned and dark-complexioned peo- 
ple of the Caucasian race. If you know personally 
anything about it, or where anything is published 
bearing on the point, kindly let me know, and oblige 
Your old friend, Asa Gray. 
TO GEORGE BENTHAM. 
December 13, 1858, 
Boott writes in glowing terms of your paper on 
British flora and distribution lately read; and I 
hope soon to read it in the “ Linnean Journal.” 
That the interchange of temperate species between 
North America and Europe has taken place via Asia 
is now a patent fact; and now the whole subject, and 
the probable explanation, begins to be clear to see. 
December 31. 
A happy New Year to you and Mrs. Bentham, and 
many thanks for your letter promising me your paper 
on Hongkong plants to print here. Pray give me 
passim any notes that occur to you upon Loo Choo 
plants, ete. I shall now soon be done with my 
Japan studies, and shall print a paper bringing to 
