ASA GRAY. BOTANIC GARDEN, CAMBRIDGE, January 1, 1873. TO A. DE CANDOLLE. CAMBRIDGE, January 14, 1873. MY DEAR DE CANDOLLE,--I am much and long in your debt,--all the more by your agreeable letter of the 16th ult.... Let me note points in your letter. Your volume of “Mélanges,” etc., has not yet come to hand,--but it is sure to come in time through the Smithsonian Institution, and will be received with welcome. I will see to the reproduction of the article on the Dominant Language of the Twentieth Century,--English of course. I am glad you will make a full index of the “Prodromus” quoad Genera. I wish it had been species, also! Glaciers in California! Why, there is a fair remnant of one now, on the north side of Shasta,--and more in the southern part of the Sierra; and as to glacial marks, the geologists note them abundantly. I am glad you saw much of Mr. Adams at Vallon. Madame A. is the more of a talker, is she not? Or, perhaps she does not speak French. Adams is vice-president of our American Academy; and is, I hope, presiding this evening at a meeting which I myself am not well enough to attend. I hope he will become president, for I mean to retire in May.... Dr. Parry passed last summer in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, where Madame and I visited him, in his cabin; and we ascended Gray’s Peak together (14,400 feet). Torrey, old as he is, was there later, but did not get up the twin Torrey’s Peak, though his daughter did surmount Gray’s Peak.... Now about myself. In what time I can save I am assisting Brewer in the “Flora of California,” and shall do for him the Monopetalæ, and finish next summer, if my health does not fail. Moreover, this is my last year of university work. I finish in July, and then resign, and give my remaining time to the “Flora of North America.” Although it is so arranged, it is not yet to be announced. It is difficult to drop at once the many things I have charge of, and the vast correspondence all over the country, which has been very useful to me, and others, but which takes a deal of time. But I am making a fairly good beginning. Mrs. Gray delights with me in the prospect of release from many a care, and of devoting myself without distraction to the work I have always liked best. I really hope it is not too late to do something (a few lines from you upon this subject might, _entre nous_, be useful to me). TO ----. CAMBRIDGE, May 18, 1873. ... I cannot object to your maintaining the hypothesis that each and every existing plant and animal form has been directly created (or mediately created, if you see a difference) out of the soil, pure hypothesis though it be, and one which “from the nature of the case can never be directly proved.” It is natural that you should hold to such hypothesis as long as you believe it to be possibly tenable.