"Do you remember telling me that I ought to study Phyllotaxy? Well I have often wished you at the bottom of the sea; for I could not resist, and I muddled my brains with diagrams, etc., and specimens, and made out, as might have been expected, nothing. Those angles are a most wonderful problem and I wish I could see some one give a rational explanation of them." TO DR. ASA GRAY. May 11 [1861]. "If you wish to save me from a miserable death, do tell me why the angles 1/2, 1/3, 2/5, 3/8, etc, series occur, and no other angles. It is enough to drive the quietest man mad. Did you and some mathematician (Probably my father was thinking of Chauncey Wright's work on Phyllotaxy, in Gould's 'Astronomical Journal,' No.99, 1856, and in the 'Mathematical Monthly,' 1859. These papers are mentioned in the "Letters of Chauncey Wright.' Mr. Wright corresponded with my father on the subject.) publish some paper on the subject? Hooker says you did; where is it? TO DR. ASA GRAY. [May 31, 1863?]. "I have been looking at Nageli's work on this subject, and am astonished to see that the angle is not always the same in young shoots when the lea-buds are first distinguishable, as in full-grown branches. This shows, I think, that there must be some potent cause for those angles which do occur: I dare say there is some explanation as simple as that for the angles of the Bees-cells." My father also corresponded with Dr. Hubert Airy and was interested in his views on the subject, published in the Royal Soc. Proceedings, 1873, page 176. We now return to the year 1866. In November, when the prosecution of Governor Eyre was dividing England into two bitterly opposed parties, he wrote to Sir J. Hooker:-- "You will shriek at me when you hear that I have just subscribed to the Jamaica Committee." (He subscribed 10 pounds.) On this subject I quote from a letter of my brother's:-- "With respect to Governor Eyre's conduct in Jamaica, he felt strongly that J.S. Mill was right in prosecuting him. I remember one evening, at my Uncle's, we were talking on the subject, and as I happened to think it was too strong a measure to prosecute Governor Eyre for murder, I made some foolish remark about the prosecutors spending the surplus of the fund in a dinner. My father turned on me almost with fury, and told me, if those were my feelings, I had better go back to Southampton; the inhabitants having given a dinner to Governor Eyre on his landing, but with which I had had nothing to do." The end of the incident, as told by my brother, is so characteristic of my father that I cannot resist giving it, though it has no bearing on the point at issue. "Next morning at 7 o'clock, or so, he came into my bedroom and sat on my bed, and said that he had not been able to sleep from the thought that he had been so angry with me, and after a few more kind words he left me."