SIR JOSEPH HOOKER — LANKESTER. 591 



but always of special significance, were published by him in the 

 Transactions of the Linna?an Society, in the journal of the Geo- 

 graphical Society and other journals, and as contributions to the 

 works of other authorities, British and foreign. 



Hooker did a vast amount of work with his own hands, his own 

 pencil and pen. The mechanical work of sorting the " hay-stacks," 

 as collections of dried plants are irreverently called, the selection of 

 specimens for description and incorporation in the herbarium and 

 of duplicates for distribution to other botanical institutions and 

 individuals (a proceeding by which exchanges were obtained and 

 the completeness of the Kew herbarium assured), was always a 

 delight to him; the mechanical labor and the mere "handling''' of 

 plants being, as he tells us, a relief from closer work and yet con- 

 ducive to thought and reflection bearing on his one great purpose. 

 Of course, he had an efficient staff and distinguished botanists as 

 volunteer assistants, attracted by the unique conveniences for study 

 afforded by the great herbarium, the library and the working- 

 rooms, for which by degrees, following out and developing the cher- 

 ished scheme of his father, he succeeded in getting the reluctant 

 officials of the Treasury and the Board of Works to disburse the nec- 

 essary funds. 



The great interest for Hooker in all this accumulation of know- 

 ledge touching the flora of every part of the world, over and above 

 the mere record of new plants and their habitat, was the discovery 

 of the causes which have led to the present geographical distribution 

 of plants. The problem continually presented itself to him in his 

 travels. Take, for instance, the following passage in a letter writ- 

 ten to his father from the Thibet frontier in 1848 : 



To-day I went up the flanks of Donkiah to 19,300 feet * * * The 

 mountains, especially Kinchin-jhow, are beyond all description beautiful; 

 from whichever side you view this latter mountain, it is a castle of pure blue 

 glacier ice, 4,000 feet high and 6 or 8 miles long. I do wish I were not the only 

 person who has " ever seen it or dwelt among its wonders * * * I was 

 greatly pleased with finding my most Antarctic plant, Lecanora miniata, at the 

 top of the pass ; and to-day I saw stony hills at 19,000 feet stained wholly 

 orange-red with it, exactly as the rocks of Cockburn Island were in 64° south. 

 Is not this most curious and interesting? To find the identical plant forming 

 the only vegetation at the two extreme limits of vegetable Hfe is always inter- 

 esting ; but to find it absolutely in both instances painting a landscape so as to 

 render its color conspicuous in each case 5 miles off, is wonderful. 



How does it come about that this plant flourishes in two such 

 widely remote regions ? How can we account for hundreds of other 

 instances of the presence of identical plants in isolated localities 

 thousands of miles apart, and for the absence of others in regions 

 contiguous with one in which they abound? 



