SIR JOSEPH DALTON HOOKER, O. M., G. C. S. I., F. R. S., 



1817-1911. 1 



[With 1 plate.] 



By Lieut. Col. D. Prain, C. M. G., F. R. S., 



Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kev). 



The most distinguished son of a very distinguished father, Joseph 

 Dalton Hooker, was born at Halesworth, in Suffolk, on June 30, 1817. 

 Early in 1S20 his father was appointed by the Crown to fill the chair 

 of botany in the University of Glasgow, a post which he held until, 

 in 1841, he became director of the Royal Gardens at Kew. As a 

 consequence Hooker was educated in Glasgow, passing through the 

 high school to the universiy, from which he obtained the degree of 

 M. D. in 1839. Devoted as a lad to the reading of works of travel, 

 we learn from Hooker himself that he was especially impressed by 

 Turner's description of the Himalayan Peak of Chumlari, and by the 

 account of the Antarctic island of Kerguelen contained in Cook's 

 voyages. An opportunity of investigating the latter came to him 

 very early in his career. When he completed his medical studies, 

 Hooker entered the Royal Navy as an assistant surgeon, and was 

 gazetted to the Erebus, then about to start, along with the Terror, 

 on the famous Antarctic expedition led by the eminent navigator Sir 

 James Clark Ross. Throughout this expedition the young assistant 

 surgeon held the post of botanist, and during its three years' cruise in 

 the southern seas he was able to visit New Zealand, Australia, 

 Tasmania, Kerguelen, Tierra del Fuego, and the Falkland Islands, 

 amassing large collections and acquiring a vast amount of botanical 

 information. 



Shortly after the close of this expedition, Hooker, in 1843, became 

 assistant to Graham, then professor of botany in the University of 

 Edinburgh, and in 1845, when Graham was succeeded by the elder 

 Balfour, Hooker was appointed botanist to the geological survey of 

 Great Britain. Much of his time during this period was devoted to 

 the preparation for publication of the results obtained during the 

 course of his Antarctic voyages. But in 1847 this work was tem- 

 porarily suspended, and his appointment on the geological survey was 



i Reprinted by permission from Nature, London, Dec. 21, 1911, No. 2199. 



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