252 



NATURE 



[December 21, 191 1 



■ The results of Htwker's journeys in North Africa 

 in 1871 are j^'iven in "A Journal of a Tour in Marocco 

 and the Great Atlas," written in cQllaboration with 

 Ball and published in 1S73; those of his visit to 

 North America in 1S77 were summarised by himself in 

 our pages (Nature, vol. xvi., p. 539). 



Ot the addresses and discourses delivered by Hooker 

 during this period that on "Insular Floras" of 1866 

 has already been alluded to. That delivered from 

 the president's chair to the British Association in 1868, 

 with its whole-hearted advocacy of an acceptance of 

 the hypothesis of Mr. Darwin as the surest means of 

 promoting natural knowledge, was perhaps more im- 

 portant in its effect on scientific thought generally. 

 His British Association sectional address of 1874, on 

 "The Carnivorous Habits of Plants," was an illu- 

 minating review of those problems to which his own 

 •observations and researches on Nepenthes in 1859 had 

 directed attention. 



It has recently been remarked that "so broad-based 

 were the foundations of Kew as laid by Sir William 

 Hooker that they have been but little extended by his 

 followers. Their work has been to build a noble 

 superstructure. Viewed in detail Kew is hardly any- 

 where the same as it was in 1865. But the framework 

 is very much the same." These remarks are so just 

 that no useful purpose could be served by any attempt 

 to enumerate here the various manifestations of 

 Hooker's activity as an administrator, or to detail the 

 alterations and additions which marked his director- 

 ship. That activity, as was said in this journal by 

 Prof. .\sa Gray in the article on Hooker in our 

 "Scientific Worthies" series (vol. xvi., p. 538), was 

 exercised " in such wise as to win, along with national 

 applause, the gratitude of the scientific world." Nor 

 is more than a passing allusion due to a bitter con- 

 troversy in 1872, Hooker's unsought share in which 

 the world of science made its own. Those whose 

 curiosity extends to the unedifying may find the details 

 in a parliamentary paper; it is sufficient to remark 

 that in the followmg session the Royal Society chose 

 Hooker to preside over their councils. 



We have yet to allude to what was the 

 heaviest and the most prolonged task of 

 Hooker's life, the publication of the " Flora 

 of British India." During his collaboration 

 with Thomson, prior to 1855, in the elaboration of 

 the results of their Indian journeys, the two friends 

 had been able to render available for scientific study 

 the botanical treasures preserved in the East India 

 House. The heavy but essential task of distributing 

 these involved as a corollary the preparation and issue 

 of a catalogue of the specimens dealt with. This 

 catalogue Hooker was able to publish in 1865. A 

 similar necessity subsequently arose in connection with 

 the Peninsular Indian herbarium brought together by 

 the late Dr. Wight. This subsidiary distribution was 

 completed and the requisite ancillary catalogue was 

 prepared by 1870. The task of preparing for British 

 India a flora on the lines of those written at Kew on 

 behalf of the various colonies could at last be under- 

 taken. This task was at once begun ; the opening 

 part of the initial volume appeared in 1872 and the 

 volume was completed in 1875. It was followed by 

 the second volume, finished in 1879, by the third, 

 finished in 1882, and by the fourth, the concluding 

 part of which was issueid, just as Hooker retired, in 

 1885. 



Nearly half of the gigantic task had still to be 

 accomplished, so that in Hooker's case retirement, if 

 it brought relief from administrative cares, did not 

 bring leisure. The heavy labour was faced without 

 flinching; the progress of the work remained un- 

 checked. The fifth volume, containing four parts, was 

 completed in i8qo; the sixth, also a volume of four 

 NO. 2199, VOL. 88] 



parts, in 1894; the seventh and concluding volume 

 apoeared in 1897. 



In the meantime, however, Hooker undertook a 

 new and onerous task. Shortly before his death the 

 late Mr. Darwin informed Hooker of his intention 

 to devote a considerable sum to be expended in pro- 

 viding some work of utility to biological science, and 

 to arrange that its completion be assured should this 

 not be accomplished during his lifetime. Th' ' ' ' '- 

 ties which he had experienced in his own s: 

 Darwin to suggest that this work might iuk- me 

 form of an index to the names, authorities, and coun- 

 tries of all flowering plants, kx. Darwin's re<'"- • •'>.- 

 direction and supervision of the work was ui 



by Hooker; the actual preparation was enii ^ .^ 



Mr. B. D. Jackson. The result is the " Index 

 Kewensis," of which the publication alone occupied 

 the period from 1892 to 1895. During the period 

 devoted to its preparation an<tipublication the work 

 received the unremitting car^t.^tfld attention of its 

 director and its compiler. Other works, however 

 valuable they may be, admit, as a rule, of some rela- 

 tive estimate. To the " Index Kewensis " no such 

 mode of judgment is applicable; it is simply invalu- 

 able, and stands a lasting monument to the wisdonl 

 and generosity of Darwin, the piety and sagacity of 

 Hooker, the care and fidelity of Jackson. While this 

 " Index " was in progress, Hooker arranged for pub- 

 lication in 1895 a century of drawings of orchids, for 

 which he provided descriptions, from among the 

 manuscript figures placed at his disposal by the Cal- 

 cutta herbarium in connection with his own work on 

 the "Flora of British India." Scarcely had the re- 

 sponsibility attaching to the preparation of the 

 " Index " been laid aside ere Hooker undertook, as an 

 act of justice to the memory of a distinguished pre- 

 decessor, to edit the "Journal of the Right Hon. 

 Sir Joseph Banks, during Captain Cook's first voyage, 

 1768-71 "; this work was published in 1896. 



The time-consuming and exacting labour which the 

 preparation of the Indian flora entailed had barely 

 ended when the chivalrous generosity of Hooker was 

 once more invoked. The late Dr. Trimen had under- 

 taken the preparation of a " Handbook of the Flora 

 of Ceylon." Three volumes of this work were issued 

 between 1893 and 1895. While it was in progress J 

 Trimen was mortally stricken ; the third volume was 

 issued with the hand of death upon the author. When 

 Trimen died the Government of Ceylon sought 

 Hooker's aid. With indomitable courage the veteran 

 of over eighty undertook the heavy task of complet- 

 ing the work of another author who had fallen 

 victim in the prime of life, under restrictions as tc 

 scope and style which, whether they met with his 

 approval or not, were at any rate different from thos 

 hitherto observed by himself. Perhaps no more toucl 

 ing token of regard than this was ever paid to th« 

 memory of a friend. The fourth volume of tl 

 Ceylon flora, to some extent edited from material lef^ 

 by Trimen, appeared in 1898; the fifth and concluding 

 volunie, which it fell to Hooker to prepare himself 

 was issued in 1900. Still, as he himself once ex^ 

 pressed it, "dragging the lengthening chain" of th« 

 EotanicdX Magazine, Hooker devoted the next tw< 

 years of his own life to writing that of his father,: 

 which appeared in the "Annals of Botany" in Decem-r 

 her. 1902. Coincident w-ith the appearance of this ^ 

 tribute of filial piety came the arrangement which' 

 relieved him of some of the pressure which the editing 

 of the Maj^azine entailed, but not the anticipated 

 freedom. At the request of the Government of India, 

 Hooker undertook to prepare for the " Imperial Gazet- 

 teer " a sketch of the vegetation of the Indian Empire. 

 This task, one of the most difficult, when regard is 

 had to the limitation of space almost necessarily 



