LINNEAX SOCIETY OF LONDOiJf. 49 



Kerguelen's Land, ina}'' not throw as much hglit on the Greology of 

 the Antarctic regions as 8kye alone would have done in respect of 

 Northern Europe. Perhaps the fossil wood of Kerguelen's Land 

 may be the nucleus of a great liglit." 



On his return from the Antarctic, Hooker at once took in hand 

 the description of his rich collections and the elucidation of the 

 Southern Floras. This task culminated in tlie publication of the 

 first instalment of the ' Flora Antarctica ' in 1847. It is interesting 

 to note at this period the influence of the atmosphere of Bryology 

 in which the son of so famous a Bryologist as Sir William Hooker 

 had been brought up. His earliest published papers all dealt with 

 Mosses, and on his return from the Antarctic it was the Mosses, 

 Liverworts, Lichens and Algte of the voyage which he lirst worked 

 out in detail. 



In a letter to my fatlier, written in his 91st year, Hooker states 

 that the first plant he ever dissected was a Moss*, and though 

 throughout the middle period of his life he concerned himself 

 mainly with the flowering plants, the intention was always 

 cherished and sometimes referred to, so my father tells me, of 

 returning to the group once more when the burden of official duties 

 ■should fall from his shoulders. This intention, as is well known, 

 was never realised ; the remarkable and difficult genus Imiiatiens 

 absorbing him during the last ten years of his life. 



In the course of his travels Hooker had come into frequent 

 contact with fossil plants, and in 1846 he was appointed Botanist 

 to the Geological Survey of Great Britain. This field evidently 

 was a congenial one, and he pursued it for a while with marked 

 success. It is not necessary, however, here to record in detail 

 Hooker's work as a Palseobotanist, for it has formed the main 

 subject matter of the Presidential Address to the Fellows of this 

 Society delivered last May by our retiring President, Dr. D. 

 H. Scott. This, at any i-ate, is certain. Had Hooker devoted his 

 life to this branch, the history of fossil botany in this country 

 must have been profoundly changed. The post of Botanist to 

 the Geological Survey would appear to have been long obsolete, 

 and, so far as the State is concerned, paheobotany has not received 

 the encouragement which it deserves, having regard to the magni- 

 tude of the coal industry of Great Britain and to the intrinsic 

 importance of the subject. 



Though his energies were directed into other fields, Hooker 

 always maintained an ardent interest in the progress of fossil 

 botany right up to the end of his life. It is stated of his con- 

 temporai-y, Lindley, that he abandoned the pursuit of fossil botany 

 lest it should beguile him from the straight path of systematics ; 

 in the case of Hooker no doubt the superior attractions of travel 

 and phytogeography proved too strong. 



* " Happily my eyes are as good and my fingers as nimble at dissecting 

 under the microscope as when I coinmenceci at 10 years of age — I think with 

 a Polytrichiim," from letter dated Jan. 22nd, 1908. 



LINK. SOC. PROCEEDINGS. — SESSION 1911-1912. e, 



