I 94 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xi 



skeletons as a remarkable piece of inquiry— anticipative of sub- 

 sequent deep sea work. 



Best thanks for taking so much trouble about H -. Pray 



tell him if ever you write that I have not answered his letter 

 only because I awaited your reply. He may think my silence 

 uncivil. . . . — Ever yours, T. H. Huxley. 



4 Marlborough Place, Dec. 29, 1887. 



Where is the fullest information about distribution of Co- 

 nifers ? Of course I have looked at Genera PI. and De Candolle. 



I have been trying to make out whether structure or climate 

 or paleontology throw any light on their distribution — and am 

 drawing complete blank. Why the deuce are there no Conifers 

 but Podocarpus and Widringtonias in all Africa south' of the 

 Sahara? And why the double deuce are about three-quarters 

 of the genera huddled together in Japan and N. China? 



I am puzzling over this group because the paleontological 

 record is comparatively so good. 



I am beginning to suspect that present distribution is an 

 affair rather of denudation than migration. 



Sequoia! Taxodium! Widringtonia! Araucaria! all in Eu- 

 rope, in Mesozoic and Tertiary. 



The following letters to Mr. Herbert Spencer were writ- 

 ten as sets of proofs of his Autobiography arrived. That 

 to Sir J. Skelton was to thank him for his book on Mait- 

 land of Lcthington, the Scotch statesman of the time of Queen 

 Mary. 



Jan. 18, 1887. 

 (The first part of this letter is given on p. 161.) 



My dear Spencer — I see that your proofs have been in my 

 hands longer than I thought for. But you may have seen that I 

 have been " starring " at the Mansion House. . . . 



I am immensely tickled with your review of your own book. 

 That is something most originally Spencerian. I have hardly 

 any suggestions to make, except in what you say about the 

 Rattlesnake work and my position on board. 



Her proper business was the survey of the so-called " inner 

 passage " between the Barrier Reef and the east coast of Aus- 

 tralia ; the New Guinea work was a hors d'oouvre, and dealt with 

 only a small part of the southern coast. 



Macgillivray was naturalist — I was actually Assistant-Sur- 



