ADVANTAGES OF THE POST 207 



I am doing my utmost to the Niger Flora and 

 hope to succeed, but it is a terrible task from the badness 

 of the specimens, the worseness of the published descrip- 

 tions, and the necessity of comparing everything with both 

 American and Asiatic species ; you will be surprised at the 

 quantity of species in common these countries possess. 



But in February a post was found for him. Sir Henry de la 

 Beche, 1 head of the Geological Survey, was in search of a botanist 

 to work out the British Flora, extant and fossil, in relation to 

 Geology, and consulted Sir William. After brief consideration, 

 the latter proposed the name of his son, who was instantly 

 accepted. The salary was 150 with travelling allowances for 

 the local research to be carried out from time to time ; the 

 work, much of which could be done at home, would not prevent 

 him from continuing the Antarctic Flora with its contingent 

 allowances from the Admiralty, while not only would fossil 

 research widen his botanical outlook, but with such an intimate 

 local knowledge as he could acquire of Great Britain and 

 Ireland, he would be able to carry on his father's book on 

 the British Flora. Nor did his father forget that the Survey 

 was under the same Department, the Woods and Forests, 

 as Kew, and the official connexion might well help to bring 

 him as assistant to Kew when the projected extensions were 

 carried and the Museum established, possibly within a year. 



The work was agreeable, moreover, it threw him very much 

 into a new world and class of society in London, such as the 

 Lyells, Owen, 2 and Horner, as well as brought him into touch 



1 Sir Henry Thomas De La Beche (1796-1835), the geologist whose enter- 

 prise in making the new ordnance survey the basis of a geological map of each 

 county led to the establishment of the Geological Survey in 1832, under his 

 directorship. To him also were due the Jermyn Street Museum of Geology 

 and the School of Mines (1851). 



2 Sir Richard Owen (1804-92), the famous anatomist. He was assistant 

 to Clift at the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons from 1827, 

 succeeding him as conservator in 1842 till 1856, when he was appointed 

 superintendent of the natural history departments of the British Museum, 

 retiring in 1883. Unrivalled though be was in the amount and general value 

 of his work in comparative anatomy and palaeontology, it was different when 

 he came to speculative theory. His doctrine of the Archetype was founded un- 

 stably on Oken's transcendentalism, and his proposed division of the mammalia 

 into four sub-classes, according to the difference of their brains, was unsatis- 

 factory, while very little of the classification in his great work, The Anatomy 



