erium and Mylodon with
respect to the Glacial deposits, had not been well made out; but perhaps
it has been so recently. Such are my reasons for not as yet admitting
the warmer period subsequent to Glacial epoch; but I daresay I may be
quite wrong, and shall not be at all sorry to be proved so.

I shall assuredly read your essay with care, for I have seen as yet
only a fragment, and very likely some parts, which I could not formerly
clearly understand, will be clear enough.

LETTER 348. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, [December] 26th, [1859].

I have just read with intense interest as far as page xxvi (348/1. For
Darwin's impression of the "Introductory Essay to the Tasmanian Flora"
as a whole, see "Life and Letters," II., page 257.), i.e. to where you
treat of the Australian Flora itself; and the latter part I remember
thinking most of in the proof-sheets. Either you have altered a good
deal, or I did not see all or was purblind, for I have been much more
interested with all the first part than I was before,--not that I did
not like it at first. All seems to me very clearly written, and I have
been baulked at only one sentence. I think, on the whole, I like the
geological, or rather palaeontological, discussion best: it seems to me
excellent, and admirably cautious. I agree with all that you say as far
as my want of special knowledge allows me to judge.

I have no criticisms of any importance, but I should have liked more
facts in one or two places, which I shall not ask about. I rather demur
to the fairness of your comparison of rising and sinking areas (348/2.
Hooker, op. cit., page xv, paragraph 24. Hooker's view was that sinking
islands "contain comparatively fewer species and fewer peculiar generic
types than those which are rising." In Darwin's copy of the Essay is
written on the margin of page xvi: "I doubt whole case."), as in the
Indian Ocean you compare volcanic land with exclusively coral islands,
and these latter are very small in area and have very peculiar soil,
and during their formation are likely to have been utterly submerged,
perhaps many times, and restocked with existing plants. In the Pacific,
ignorance of Marianne and Caroline and other chief islands almost
prevent comparison (348/3. Gambier Island would be an interesting case.
[Note in original.]); and is it right to include American islands like
Juan Fernandez and Galapagos? In such lofty and probably ancient islands
as Sandwich and Tahiti it cannot