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Da. HOOKER, 



It was fortunate for natural science that you succeeded in ob- 

 taining the appointment of Naturalist to the Antarctic Expedition 

 under Sir J. C. Ross, and that you fully availed yourself of the 

 opportunities of pursuing your favourite studies which so frequently 

 presented themselves during the progress of that arduous voyage. 



The collections made during this voyage were extremely import- 

 ant, and have served as the foundation of a series of works illus- 

 trative of the botany of the Southern hemisphere. The " Flora 

 Antarctica," which was commenced immediately after your return, 

 at once established for you a high place as a philosophical botanist, 

 by the accuracy and completeness with which each subject is treated, 

 as well as by the importance of the physiological questions there dis- 

 cussed. The value of the details of a systematic work can be best 

 appreciated by those who use it as a guide, but the essay on the 

 structure and affinities of the curious parasite Myzodendron, may be 

 noticed as perhaps the most striking of the many special topics 

 which are there treated of. 



The peculiar configuration of the Southern hemisphere, in which 

 the land bears so small a proportion to the sea, seems at an early 

 period to have directed your attention to Geographical Botany, and 

 to have led you to investigate critically one of the most difficult 

 questions of natural science, which is now acquiring that prominence 

 to which it is so well entitled, I mean the question of the origin 

 and distribution of species. In your memoirs on the vegetation of 

 the Galapagos Islands, you have brought together a great number 

 of facts relative to insular floras, which throw much light upon this 

 point of abstract science ; and in your Flora of New Zealand (now 

 in progress), you have discussed the question in all its bearings, 

 in an essay which has attracted much attention, from the cautious 

 and philosophical manner in which the subject is treated. 



As Botanist to the Geological Survey of Great Britain, your 

 attention was directed to the investigation of the extinct Flora ; and 

 it is evident from the essay on the carboniferous vegetation pub- 

 lished in their Records, that you devoted yourself to this task with 

 the same energy which had characterized your previous labours. 

 In this essay an intimate knowledge of recent structure is applied 

 to throw light upon the vegetation of remote periods in the history 



