You say
that you have been somewhat surprised at no notice having been taken of
your paper in the _Annals_. I cannot say that I am; for so very few
naturalists care for anything beyond the mere description of species.
But you must not suppose that your paper has not been attended to: two
very good men, Sir C. Lyell, and Mr. E. Blyth at Calcutta, specially
called my attention to it. Though agreeing with you on your conclusions
in the paper, I believe I go much further than you; but it is too long a
subject to enter on my speculative notions. I have not yet seen your
paper on distribution of animals in the Aru Islands: I shall read it
with the _utmost_ interest; for I think that the most interesting
quarter of the whole globe in respect to distribution; and I have long
been very imperfectly trying to collect data from the Malay Archipelago.
I shall be quite prepared to subscribe to your doctrine of subsidence:
indeed from the quite independent evidence of the coral reefs I coloured
my original map in my Coral volumes colours [_sic_] of the Aru Islands
as one of subsidence, but got frightened and left it uncoloured.
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