Review. 273 



the same genera and even species are found. Another outstanding fact, 

 for which he was not prepared, was the way in which his species from 

 different regions run into one another, for he naturally at this time 

 accepted the belief of his day that they were all fixed and distinct. His 

 work therefore prepared him to accept Darwin's view when known, yet 

 his native caution and critical spirit made him slow to adopt it, and 

 at first he merely accepted it as a working hypothesis, giving scope for 

 reason and reflection, and hopes of a rational explanation of the origin 

 and dispersal of species, whereas "the old stick-in-the-mud doctrines of 

 absolute creations, multiple creations, and dispersion by actual causes 

 under existing circumstances are all used up, they are so many stops to 

 further inquiry : if they are admitted as truths, why there is an end of 

 the whole matter." The Flora of New Zeland was based on the old 

 principle, but when the Tasmauian Flora was published he had whole- 

 heartedly adopted the new. 



Hooker's second and most important botanical journey, after the 

 Antarctic expedition, was to the Himalayas. On his way out to India, 

 when stopping at Cairo, he made a trip into the desert, that he might 

 make some observations on its temperature and dryness, in order to see 

 how near the starving and burning point vegetation would exist, in 

 comparison with his many observations in the Antarctic of how much cold 

 they would bear. 



The story of his experiences in India has been told in his Himalayan 

 Journals, his delight in the wealth of beautiful plants in the mountain 

 jungles, his difficulties in collecting and preserving in monsoon weather, 

 his native collectors and the elephant that gathered inaccessible plants 

 for him, his imprisonment and ill-treatment by a hostile Dewan. Many 

 of his specimens were lost or spoiled, but hundreds of cases reached 

 safety. The rhododendrons required a book for themselves which was 

 finely illustrated and edited by his father. At 18,000 ft., where no other 

 known shrub grows, he discovered the little Rhododendron nivale with 

 matted branches straggling on the ground, small scented leaves and 

 purple flowers, struggling successfully against the rigours of the climate 

 ■ — scorching sun followed by keen frost at night, utter drought follow- 

 ed by extreme moisture, short time for blooming and few insects to 

 help in fertilisation. His vivid description makes one regret more keenly 

 than ever that one who could write thus sympathetically of plants should 

 have been obliged to cut down the Flora of British India to so bare 

 a description of each species. The volume brought out with the co-opera- 

 tion of his friend and companion Thomson, had an Introduction of 280 

 pages, and an equal amount of description, extending only from Ranuncula^ 

 Ceace to Fumariaceae ; but the East India Company refused any assistance, 

 and the authors were so much out of pocket by their venture that it was 

 impossible to continue the work on the same scale. Fifteen years after, in 

 1870, the India Council was moved to take an interest in the matter, and for 

 twenty-seven years Hooker worked at the Flora, with help of various 

 collaborators, and utilizing the collections of Wight, Falconer, Griffith, 

 Wallich and others for all the districts of India not visited by himself. The 

 last three volumes of the seven were brought out after his retirement 

 from Kew, and to the end of his long life he continued to work at Indian 

 botany, which he loved, revising the Indian balsams, and comparing them 

 with African and Chinese'balsams, delighted to find when over 90 years 

 of age that " eyes and fingers are good as ever". 



The F. B. I., he calls a pioneer work merely, and often expressed a 

 great wish to see India properly botanized. The specimens from which he 



