world.) would be, as far as known; and then you have never given a coup
d'oeil on the similarity and dissimilarity of Arctic and Antarctic floras.
Well, thank heavens, when you do come back you will be nolens volens a
fixture. I am particularly glad you have been at the Coal; I have often
since you went gone on maundering on the subject, and I shall never rest
easy in Down churchyard without the problem be solved by some one before I
die. Talking of dying makes me tell you that my confounded stomach is much
the same; indeed, of late has been rather worse, but for the last year, I
think, I have been able to do more work. I have done nothing besides the
barnacles, except, indeed, a little theoretical paper on erratic boulders
(27/2. "On the Transportal of Erratic Boulders from a Lower to a Higher
Level" ("Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc." Volume IV., pages 315-23. 1848). In
this paper Darwin favours the view that the transport of boulders was
effected by coast-ice. An earlier paper entitled "Notes on the Effects
produced by the ancient Glaciers of Caernarvonshire, and on the Boulders
transported by floating Ice" ("Phil. Mag." 1842, page 352) is spoken of by
Sir Archibald Geikie as standing "almost at the top of the long list of
English contributions to the history of the Ice Age" ("Charles Darwin,"
"Nature" Series, page 23).), and Scientific Geological Instructions for the
Admiralty Volume (27/3. "A manual of Scientific Enquiry, prepared for the
use of Her Majesty's Navy, and adapted for Travellers in General." Edited
by Sir John F.W. Herschel, Bart. Section VI.--Geology--by Charles Darwin.
London, 1849. See "Life and Letters," pages 328-9.), which cost me some
trouble. This work, which is edited by Sir J. Herschel, is a very good
job, inasmuch as the captains of men-of-war will now see that the Admiralty
cares for science, and so will favour naturalists on board. As for a man
who is not scientific by nature, I do not believe instructions will do him
any good; and if he be scientific and good for anything the instructions
will be superfluous. I do not know who does the Botany; Owen does the
Zoology, and I have sent him an account of my new simple microscope, which