JET. 35.] TO J. D. HOOKER. 337 



by the Edinburgh Town Council. Such defeats can 

 do you no harm. I suppose you are now going on 

 with the " Flora Antarctica." I need not say that I 

 should be very glad to see the Antarctic plants of the 

 Wilkes Expedition in your hands. The botanist who 

 accompanied the expedition is no doubt perfectly in- 

 competent to the task, so greatly so that probably he 

 has but a remote idea how incompetent he is. I have 

 not seen him nor the plants. Certainly I would not 

 touch them (any but the Oregon and Californian) if 

 they were offered to me, which they are not likely to 

 be. I consider myself totally incompetent to do such 

 a work without making it a special study for some 

 years, and going abroad to study the collections ac- 

 cumulated in Europe. Of course if they are worked 

 up at all in this country, they will be done disgrace- 

 fully. I publicly expressed my opinion on the sub- 

 ject in " Silliman's Journal." But I have long been 

 convinced that nothing can be done. The whole busi- 

 ness has been in the hands till now of Senator , 



the most obstinate, wrong-headed, narrow-minded, im- 

 practicable ignoramus that could well be found. . . . 

 If to this you add an utter ignorance of those prin- 

 ciples of comity and the spirit of interchange that 

 prevail among naturalists, and a total want of com- 

 prehension of what is to be done in the scientific 

 works in question, and you will see that nothing is to 

 be expected from such sources. They have thrown 

 every obstacle they could in the way of their natu- 

 ralists, Dana and Pickering, for instance, so much 

 so that Pickering, though a patient man, once threw 

 up his position in disgust, I have heard, but, by some 

 concessions made to him, was finally persuaded to 

 retain it. 



