[1]

To the Council of the Royal Soc^y

I recommend Dr. Carpenter's paper on Orbitolites to be printed in the Transactions. Though written, as it appears to me, in too diffuse a style, I cannot point any particular portion which could be condensed.

With respect to the publication of the very beautiful drawings, I feel much difficulty: their cost, I apprehend, would be very great, & there does not seem to me, sufficient new matter

[2]

of physiological importance in the memoir to justify going to a very great expence. D^r. Carpenter seems rather to overrate the novelty of connecting forms, apparently very different, by intermediate structures; though he most justly appreciates the importance of always attempting to do this, & he gives, under the form of Canons, the processes which every all sound naturalists

[3]

have long endeavoured to carry out. Very many of the figures are given to illustrate intermediate forms and variations. — I would, therefore, suggest that the author himself should be consulted as to how many Plates would contain those figures, which he considers as most important.—

Ch. Darwin.

Down Aug^t. 18^th. 1855.

[4]

1855

Report D^r Carpenter by M^r Darwin

Carpenter, William Benjamin. 1856. On the fossil shells of foraminifera, called by him 'Orbitolites' [14 June 1855]. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 146: 181-236. See Correspondence vol. 5.