Chapter 167

I have read your paper (145/1. "On the disputed Affinity of the Mammalian Genus Plagiaulax, from the Purbeck beds."--"Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc." Volume XVIII., page 348, 1862.) with extreme interest, and I thank you for sending it, though I should certainly have carefully read it, or anything with your name, in the Journal. It seems to me a masterpiece of close reasoning: although, of course, not a judge of such subjects, I cannot feel any doubt that it is conclusive. Will Owen answer you? I expect that from his arrogant view of his own position he will not answer. Your paper is dreadfully severe on him, but perfectly courteous, and polished as the finest dagger. How kind you are towards me: your first sentence (145/2. "One of the most accurate observers and original thinkers of our time has discoursed with emphatic eloquence on the Imperfection of the Geological Record.") has pleased me more than perhaps it ought to do, if I had any modesty in my composition. By the way, after reading the first whole paragraph, I re-read it, not for matter, but for style; and then it suddenly occurred to me that a certain man once said to me, when I urged him to publish some of his miscellaneous wealth of knowledge, "Oh, he could not write,--he hated it," etc. You false man, never say that to me again. Your incidental remark on the remarkable specialisation of Plagiaulax (145/3. "If Plagiaulax be regarded through the medium of the view advocated with such power by Darwin, through what a number of intermediate forms must not the genus have passed before it attained the specialised condition in which the fossils come before us!") (which has stuck in my gizzard ever since I read your first paper) as bearing on the number of preceding forms, is quite new to me, and, of course, is in accordance to my notions a most impressive argument. I was also glad to be reminded of teeth of camel and tarsal bones. (145/4. Op. cit. page 353. A reference to Cuvier's instance "of the secret relation between the upper canine-shaped incisors of the camel and the bones of the tarsus.") Descent from an intermediate form, Ahem!

Well, all I can say is that I have not been for a long time more interested with a paper than with yours. It gives me a demoniacal chuckle to think of Owen's pleasant countenance when he reads it.

I have not been in London since the end of September; when I do come I will beat up your quarters if I possibly can; but I do not know what has come over me. I am worse than ever in bearing any excitement. Even talking of an evening for less than two hours has twice recently brought on such violent vomiting and trembling that I dread coming up to London. I hear that you came out strong at Cambridge (145/5. Prof. Owen, in a communication to the British Association at Cambridge (1862) "On a tooth of Mastodon from the Tertiary marls, near Shanghai," brought forward the case of the Australian Mastodon as a proof of the remarkable geographical distribution of the Proboscidia. In a subsequent discussion he frankly abandoned it, in consequence of the doubts then urged regarding its authenticity. (See footnote, page 101, in Falconer's paper "On the American Fossil Elephant," "Nat. Hist. Review," 1863.)), and am heartily glad you attacked the Australian Mastodon. I never did or could believe in him. I wish you would read my little Primula paper in the "Linnean Journal," Volume VI. Botany (No. 22), page 77 (I have no copy which I can spare), as I think there is a good chance that you may have observed similar cases. This is my real hobby-horse at present. I have re-tested this summer the functional difference of the two forms in Primula, and find all strictly accurate. If you should know of any cases analogous, pray inform me. Farewell, my good and kind friend.