220 THE GEOLOGICAL SUKVEY 



(and man of business), you may be glad to hear the reasons for 

 my preference ' and to the man of business rather than to 

 the affectionate grandfather sets forth their mutual suitability, 

 her industry, energy, education, good principles and scientific 

 sympathies, her literary helpfulness, for ' she is much cleverer 

 than I am.' But enough of * reasons ' ; there was another 

 and more personal side to all this, and if he should not speak 

 of it, the sister friend might perhaps speak more warmly, so 

 * for the rest I must refer you to my sister Elizabeth.' 



The high-stepping Johnsonese chosen by Sir William 

 for discussing ' Joseph's attachment and his prospects ' with 

 Dawson Turner is irresistible. ' I believe,' he writes, * Miss 

 Henslow to be an amiable and well-educated person of most 

 respectable, though not high connections, and from all that I 

 have Seen of her, well suited to Joseph's habits and pursuits. 

 He himself seems well pleased with his choice.' Formal 

 propriety could go no further in concealing a warm heart. 



The work already mentioned on the Antarctic and Niger 

 Floras and travel on Survey business alternately occupy the 

 rest of 1846 and most of the next year. March saw him in 

 Ireland. From South Wales, his mother notes, he returns 

 brown and well, carrying out his grandfather's dictum that 

 six hours' sleep is enough for any healthy man. In August he 

 was away again ; ' busy and happy he seems.' For most of 

 the first three months of 1847 his father was ill ; * Joseph,' 

 writes Lady Hooker, ' is most helpful to me with his father ; 

 always glad to assist, calm and quiet. He knows too what is fit 

 to be done and is very handy.' He would not, however, take 

 the opportunity of his father's temporary absence from work 

 to ' put himself forward at the Garden,' as his mother inwardly 

 wished, with a view to the future. 



On April 17 he went to Cambridge for a fortnight to see a 

 collection of coral plants from Australia ; then after a few 

 days with Berkeley 1 the mycologist at Oundle, proceeded on 



1 The Rev. Miles Joseph Berkeley (1803-89) as a botanist devoted himself 

 to the Cryptogams. He wrote the volume on Fungi in Smith's English Flora, 

 1836, Outlines of British Fungology, 1860, and a Handbook of British Mosses, 

 1863, besides an Introduction to Cryptogamic Botany, 1860. The collections of 

 fungi made by Darwin and other travellers came to him for description. His 



