. 73.] TO J. D. HOOKER. 759 



Your two letters reached us at Philadelphia, on our 

 return from North Carolina and Virginia. . . . 



Yesterday we had Sir William and Lady Thomson. 1 

 To-day Traill and wife (young and bright) of Aber- 

 deen looked in and lunched. 



I come home to a heap of letters and parcels and 

 affairs, to keep me busy awhile. . . . 



Well, the meeting at Montreal was a success, and 

 made a pleasant occasion. The influx of visitors 

 from British Association to Philadelphia made that 

 meeting very good too. George Darwin I just saw 

 for a moment at Montreal, and Mrs. Darwin also at 

 Philadelphia, one evening, - - handsome and winning. 



I hope you have got the copy of " Synoptical Flora 

 II." for your own shelf, through Wesley. Slips and 

 omissions are already revealing, especially in the 

 index. 



I am wonderfully strong and well. Mrs. G. well 

 up to average, both much set; up by holiday, of which 

 mine has now lasted a month. . . . 



What a deal you have fished out of Bentham's 

 earlier life ! I thought you meant Toulouse, not 

 Tours. Bentham used to speak of Toulouse and that 

 part of France. . . . 



Among the inventive feats of his father was one I 

 have somewhere heard or read of, that he made a fleet 

 of articulated transport boats for descending the 

 crooked channels of the Russian rivers. 



I think you might have specified De Morgan's dis- 

 covery of Bentham's contribution to logic, and his 

 able defense of the reclamation, to which Herbert 

 Spencer's " Verdict ' in 1873 was not particularly 



1 Sir William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, the distinguished physi- 

 cist. 



