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REVIEW
LIFE OF SIR JOSEPH DALTON HOOKER, O.M., G.C.S.I.*
Joseph Dalton Hooker, who was born in 1817, and died in 1911, was almost the last survivor of the great group, Darwin, Wallace, Lyell, Huxley, and he played an important part in the revolution of thought which they brought about in the nineteenth century. His unique knowledge of plants and their distribution contributed to the evidences for evolution, and he was Darwin's confident, his keen but friendly critic, and his ardent champion. One of his gifts to posterity was this contribution to the new movement ; another was the gradual transformation of Kew from little more than a park to a national institution of world-wide importance, which work was begun by his father and completed by himself in spite of official indifference and even opposition. His third great gift is the written works he has left, especially the Genera Plantarum (in which Bentham collaborated),' the Index Kewensis, which was financed by Darwin as a gift to the nation, and his various floras with their instructive introductory essays.
Hooker's opportunities of studying plants were unrivalled, owing to his Botanical expeditions in different parts of the world, and the collections in his charge at Kew ; but they were opportunities often hardly won and beset with difficulties, and his tireless industry never brought him enough of this world's goods to make his work easy.
His first journey in 1839, when only twenty-two years old but already with a reputation as a botanist, was with Ross to the Antarctic."; and as the objects of the expedition were to establish magnetic observatories at St. Helena, the Cape and Van Dieman's Land, to make observations at various oceanic islands, and then to determine, if possible the position of the South Magnetic Pole and generally to explore the Antarctic regions, Hooker had opportunities for collecting plants from many localities. His equipment was of the scantiest, Government supplying him with nothing but drying-paper and some collecting-cases ; the only glass bottles available were empty pickle bottles, and the only preserva- tive rum from the ship's stores. Fortunately his father had given him microscopes and books, and though at first he had to wait to arrange his Collections after an expedition ashore until his messmates were in bed, Capt. Ross soon provided space and a cabinet in his own cabin, where how- ever damp and cockroaches had to be contended with, and in rough seas the microscope had to be lashed to the table. In spite of' all difficulties, young Hooker collected assiduously, and scarcely needed his father's letters urging him to stick to his work and avoid unnecessary entertainments ; this stern parent thought it a frivolous amusement to join a riding excursion in Madeira to see an ancient crater in the heart of the mountainous island.
- Life and Letters of Sir JOSEPH Dalton Hooker, O.M., G.C.S.I. Based
on materials oollected and arranged by Lady Hooker. By Leonard Huxley. 2 Vols. VII and 5i6, and VIII to 569 pp. London, John Murray, 1918.
