lp hoping that you are not quite as right as you seem to be.
Finally, I cannot tell why, but when I finished your Address I felt
convinced that many would infer that you were dead against change of
species, but I clearly saw that you were not. I am not very well, so
good-night, and excuse this horrid letter.

LETTER 568. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, June 30th [1866].

I have heard from Sulivan (who, poor fellow, gives a very bad account
of his own health) about the fossils (568/1. In a letter to Huxley (June
4th, 1866) Darwin wrote: "Admiral Sulivan several years ago discovered
an astonishingly rich accumulation of fossil bones not far from the
Straits [of Magellan]...During many years it has seemed to me extremely
desirable that these should be collected; and here is an excellent
opportunity.")... The place is Gallegos, on the S. coast of Patagonia.
Sulivan says that in the course of two or three days all the boats in
the ship could be filled twice over; but to get good specimens out of
the hardish rock two or three weeks would be requisite. It would be a
grand haul for Palaeontology. I have been thinking over your lecture.
(568/2. A lecture on "Insular Floras" given at the British Association
meeting at Nottingham, August 27th, 1866, published in the "Gard.
Chron." 1867.) Will it not be possible to give enlarged drawings of
some leading forms of trees? You will, of course, have a large map, and
George tells me that he saw at Sir H. James', at Southampton, a map of
the world on a new principle, as seen from within, so that almost 4/5ths
of the globe was shown at once on a large scale. Would it not be worth
while to borrow one of these from Sir H. James as a curiosity to hang
up?

Remember you are to come here before Nottingham. I have almost finished
the last number of H. Spencer, and am astonished at its prodigality of
original thought. But the reflection constantly recurred to me that each
suggestion, to be of real value to science, would require years of work.
It is also very unsatisfactory, the impossibility of conjecturing where
direct action of external circumstances begins and ends--as he candidly
owns in discussing the production of woody tissue in the trunks of trees
on the one hand, and on the other in spines and the shells of nuts. I
shall like to hear what you think of this number when we meet.

LETTER 569. TO A. GAUDRY. Down, November 17th, 1868.

On my return home after a short absence I found your note