222 THE GEOLOGICAL SUEVEY 



the world under the most advantageous conditions. I 

 know myself to be deficient in education and I can feel my 

 abilities to be only second-rate, and so can only feel truly 

 thankful that I have light enough to see to whom I owe the 

 appreciation of my works by the public. 



I have done a good deal here both with marsh and fossil 

 plants. From one of your letters to my Father I think you 

 possibly mistake the nature of my studies as connected with 

 the Survey. I am no Geologist : my work is fossil botany ; 

 as legitimately a branch of Botany as is Muscology ; fossil 

 plants, though imperfect, are still pure plants ; and, though 

 dead as species, they form and show links between existing 

 forms, upon which they throw a marvellous light. 



Here also must be noted the beginnings of the close friend- 

 ship with Charles Darwin which was to be lifelong. They 

 had already been in close touch over botanical matters ; 

 Hooker had been working out Darwin's plants from the Gala- 

 pagos Islands ; now on October 10 he has gone to stay with 

 Darwin in Kent for three days, and on January 14, 1847, again 

 he goes for a visit of a week or ten days. 



