348 
Oxford, once more, thirty-four years later, with Huxley again pre- 
sent but not Hooker, the late Lord Salisbury, then President of the 
British Association as well as Chancellor of the University, saw 
fit to make somewhat cynical references to Darwinism, Tooker 
thought them silly, ghd. hardly had patience to read them. “I 
really thought he had more gumption,’’ was his comment. Very 
different was his estimate of Mr. Arthur Balfour’s address at 
the Darwin celebration at Cambridge in 1909: ‘‘he grasped every 
salient point in Darwin’s character, works, and their results on 
the progress of science and civilisation in a truly magic manner.’’ 
f Hooker’s ‘magna opera,’ the Genera Plantarum, which he 
collaborated with Bentham, stands first. It marked, as Mr. 
the accurate definition of genera, not in their classification. And 
it may be noted here that Hooker did not share Engler’s views 
on classification, though phyletically it is undoubtedly an ad- 
vance ; he regarded it ‘‘ in the abstract as neither better nor worse 
than De Candolle’s, and far more troublesome to apply for 
practical purposes.’’? This is comforting to the many who hold 
that until Science can supply something nearer finality, it is 
better to adhere to a widely accepted and established arrangement. 
The work which has conferred ihe next greatest blessing on 
botanists is the ‘Index Kewensis.’ It object was, to use Pro- 
fessor Bower’s words, “to provide an authoritative list of all 
the names that have been used, with references to the author of 
each, and to its place of publication.”’ The idea was Darwin’s, 
who read the proofs—some 2,500 pages containing 375,000 names. 
This work, like the Genera Plantarum, has met with some criti- 
botanists, and it is satisfactory to record that four supplements 
ave been issued since the work was first published, and that the 
I Kew. 
f Hooker’s powers as a descriptive writer we have ample evi- 
u ich has been justly 
described as ane of the best books of travel ever written. One 
Passage in a letter to his father, written from Tasmania, must 
be quoted ; it makes us wish he had also embodied his Antarctic 
B2, ay : ought we were reall 
_ going on to the true aire Pole, when we ware brought up by 
-, Where there was a fine voleano 
ae » among huge bergs, the 
blue, or rather more intensely blue than 
Mahe Selsey 
