eT. 52.) TO CHARLES DARWIN. 50T 
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. . 
T 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 
Thad 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. Ithen 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 J uly number. 
I like and agree to your remark that, in Bates’s 
Geographical Varieties, ete., we get about as near to 
mong a species made as we are ever likely to get; 
