r oblige me, will you let me know a few days
before, when you leave Edinburgh and how long you stay at Kinnordy, so
that my letter might catch you. I am not surprised at my collection from
James Island differing from others, as the damp upland district (where I
slept two nights) is six miles from the coast, and no naturalist except
myself probably ever ascended to it. Cuming had never even heard of it.
Cuming tells me that he was on Charles, James, and Albemarle Islands,
and that he cannot remember from my description the Scalesia, but thinks
he could if he saw a specimen. I have no idea of the origin of the
distribution of the Galapagos shells, about which you ask. I
presume (after Forbes' excellent remarks on the facilities by which
embryo-shells are transported) that the Pacific shells have been borne
thither by currents; but the currents all run the other way.

(PLATE: EDWARD FORBES 1844? From a photograph by Hill & Adamson.)

LETTER 20. EDWARD FORBES TO C. DARWIN.

(20/1. Edward Forbes was at work on his celebrated paper in the
"Geological Survey Memoirs" for 1846. We have not seen the letter of
Darwin's to which this is a reply, nor, indeed, any of his letters to
Forbes. The date of the letter is fixed by Forbes's lecture given at
the Royal Institution on February 27th, 1846 (according to L. Horner's
privately printed "Memoirs," II., page 94.))

Wednesday. 3, Southwark Street, Hyde Park. [1846].

Dear Darwin

To answer your very welcome letter, so far from being a waste of time,
is a gain, for it obliges me to make myself clear and understood
on matters which I have evidently put forward imperfectly and with
obscurity. I have devoted the whole of this week to working and writing
out the flora question, for I now feel strong enough to give my promised
evening lecture on it at the Royal Institution on Friday, and, moreover,
wish to get it in printable form for the Reports of our Survey.
Therefore at no time can I receive or answer objections with more
benefit than now. From the hurry and pressure which unfortunately attend
all my movements and doings I rarely have time to spare, in preparing
for publication, to do more than give brief and unsatisfactory
abstracts, which I fear are often extremely obscure.

Now for your objections--which have sprung out of my own obscurities.

I do not argue in a circle about the Irish case, but treat the botanical
evidence of connection and the geological as distinct. Th