488 THE MAKING OF THE ' OBIGIN ' 



year, while he was hurrying on the last of his medical studies 

 in order to take his degree before sailing with Boss, and how, 

 there being no other time available, he slept with them under 

 his pillow, and read them before getting up in the morning. 



They impressed me profoundly, I might say despairingly, 

 with the variety of acquirements, mental and physical, 

 required in a naturalist who should follow in Darwin's 

 footsteps, whilst they stimulated me to enthusiasm in the 

 desire to travel and observe. 



In the letters from the Antarctic there are several references 

 to Darwin, who saw various of these letters through the Lyells. 

 The correspondence between them, as has been told on 

 p. 169, began in December 1843, when Darwin wrote to con- 

 gratulate him on his return (C.D. ii. 21) and urged the import- 

 ance of correlating the Fuegian Flora with that of the Cordillera 

 and of Europe, at the same time offering his own collections 

 of plants from the Galapagos Islands, from Patagonia and 

 Fuegia for examination. 



This led to me sending him an outline of the conclusions 

 I had formed regarding the distribution of plants in the 

 southern regions, and the necessity of assuming the destruc- 

 tion of considerable areas of land to account for the relations 

 of the flora of the so-called Antarctic Islands. I do not sup- 

 pose that any of these ideas were new to him, but they led 

 to an animated and lengthy correspondence full of instruction. 



Only the first two or three letters open with the formal 

 * My dear Sir ' of the period ; by February 1844 Darwin 

 inaugurates ' Dear Hooker ' to his ' co-circum- wanderer and 

 fellow labourer,' while from the day of his impending departure 

 to India the * very truly ' or * very sincerely ' of either signature, 

 gradually merging in ' Ever yours/ is lost in ' Your affectionate 

 friend ' or ' Yours affectionately ' maintained by both to the 

 end. 



Acquaintance ripened swiftly into friendship. * Farewell ! ' 

 Darwin concludes a letter in 1845. ' What a good thing is 

 community of tastes ! I feel as if I had known you for fifty 

 years. Adios ! ' And * forty years on ' the sympathetic 



