BOOKS AND EEADING 131 



From the botanist's point of view, the Falklands turned 

 out better than was expected. The mosses took first place 

 for interest ; then the monocotyledons, of which he had about 

 forty species, and he found a good many plants undescribed 

 in De Candolle after the publication of D'Urville's lists. 



He was grateful for having the run of the Governor's 

 library. 



I often spend a day there and afterwards take on 

 board with me any of his books that please me. Those 

 I have been lately reading are Pope's Homer's Iliad, 

 Mrs. Hemans' Poems, Daniell's Chemical Philosophy and 

 Pugin's Christian Architecture, a very miscellaneous selec- 

 tion, but even from the last; with all his faults and 

 bigoted Eoman Catholicism, I have gained much good. 

 Keith's Evidence (of Prophecy) and Pollock's Course of 

 Time I had read long before without appreciating them 

 as I do now, Stephens's Travels in the East pleased me 

 much and Milner's Church History, what I have seen of 

 it, for it is too much for me to get through here. (To Lady 

 Hooker, August 24, 1842.) 



As regards botanical books, however, he tells his father 

 (August 25, 1842) : 



It was very foolish in me to have brought so few books 

 on Cryptogamic plants, having nothing but London's 1 

 Encyclopaedia and the miserable Sprengel 2 to help me. 

 From knowing something of the mosses before, I can get on 

 with them and examine them very minutely, but with the 

 Algae and Lichens I am sadly puzzled. Your parcel to 

 me, when it comes ! will be a great catch, if it is only for 

 the Journal, to which Berkeley no doubt still contributes. 



It was better when a packet arrived from Sir William : 



1 John Claudius London (1783-1843) was a famous traveller, landscape 



ardener, agriculturist, and horticultural writer ; Fellow of the Linnean 

 ociety, 1806. His energy, despite ill health, is illustrated by the fact that 

 at one time he was editing five monthly periodicals, from the Gardeners' 

 Magazine to the Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum. 



2 Kurt Sprengel (1766-1833) was Professor of Medicine and later of Botany 

 at Halle. His investigations greatly stimulated the microscopic anatomy of 

 plants, though his own results, owing to inadequate means of investigation, 

 were not always trustworthy. 



