LINjS'EAN society of LONDON. 53 



insular and other floras ; Existing conditions iv ill not account for 

 existing distribution ; Effects of humidity in modifying distribu- 

 tion ; Effects of the Glacial Epoch, and Darivin's views thereon. 

 Coming just when it did, this essay was of enormous service to the 

 cause ol: Darwinism. Hooker had always been Darwiu's right 

 hand man, and it was due to liis well-judged intervention in con- 

 junction with Lyell, that the famous Darwin-Wallace joint note 

 on Natural Selection was presented to the Linnean Society on 

 July 1st, 1858. The matter, however, need not be pursued here, 

 as it has been recently embodied in extenso in a special volume 

 issued by the Society on the occasion of the Jubilee celebration on 

 July 1st, 1908. jtlooker's friendship and scientific connection 

 with Darwin was undoubtedly the most important experience of 

 his lifetime, and was frequently alluded to by him M-itli gratitude. 



Hooker, now 40 years of age, had reached the plenitude of his 

 powers, and must have been a great figure in those days. He had 

 undertaken two great journeys in regions hitherto veiled in 

 obscurity, and by his masterly handling of the enormous masses 

 of data he had accumulated, he became the virtual founder of 

 phytogeography as a science. In 1855 he was appointed 

 Assistant Director of Kew under his father ; and all this time 

 he was behind the scenes with Darwin, doing yeoman service in 

 the cause of evolution with his great stores of knowledge, good 

 judgment, and fine critical powers. 



At the present day we often incline to be envious of the 

 apparent ease with which average men belonging to a former 

 genex'ation took their place as recognised authorities whilst still 

 quite young ; w^e conceive the world to have been less crowded 

 then and the public less satiated with the results of modern 

 science. Whatever substratum of justice there may be in such 

 jaundiced reflections, they do not apply to the case of Hooker. 

 This philosophically-minded and robust man of action, quick in 

 observation and sound of judgment, always ready to help Avith 

 acute criticism, such a man was bound in any age and in any field 

 to tower above his contemporaries. The best material brought up 

 in the best of schools, the early Victorian days threw into fitting 

 relief this vivid and indomitable personality which really belongs 

 to the heroic age. A hero indeed he was to the younger men 

 of his time, as I gather from what my father tells me of his own 

 feeling towards Hooker before he came to Kew. 



Tor ten years (1855-1865) Hooker served under Sir "William 

 Hooker, and on the death of the latter naturally succeeded to the 

 Directorship of Kew, a position which he held till 1885. 



His official connection with Kew was marked by the continued 

 active development of the Gardens along the lines laid down by 

 his father. It was under the Hookers that Kew rose into fame, 

 and I agree with Prof. E. O. Bower * that it would serve no useful 



* An Oration on Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker. Glasgow, 1912, p. 15. 



