QUESTIONS FOE SOLUTION 495 



by increasing complexity of structure ? How far do physical 

 conditions alone effect similar changes in different plants ? 

 How far do the curious facts of distribution among Arctic 

 plants indicate an extended glacial climate ? Does the 

 evidence from the migration and variation of temperate and 

 subarctic plants indicate that this cold spell was world-wide, 

 and was a factor in producing * representative species ' now 

 isolated from each other ? 



Without further quotation of detail here is enough to 

 illustrate the range of Hooker's abounding help in matters of 

 fact or of theory. Unfailing also is his information about 

 books to be consulted or papers in scientific journals dealing 

 with special points. Many were not procurable even from the 

 Linnean Library, where Hooker arranged that Darwin could 

 take out what volumes he wanted. Many he lent to his friend 

 from his own botanical library to be studied and lightly marked 

 on the margins for the purposes of his analysis, sometimes 

 to be borrowed afresh that the marked passages might be 

 consulted anew when some better scheme of analysis had 

 presented itself or some flaw had been detected in the pre- 

 vious scheme. * I never cease begging favours of you/ writes 

 Darwin in August 1855, when asking for the loan of the copy 

 he had before of Asa Gray's Manual. 



The parcels generally go from Kew to the Nag's Head in 

 the Borough, the headquarters of the Down carrier, whether 

 botanical parcels or a * magnificent and awful box of books,' 

 though in the case of a rare orchid in flower, Parslow, the 

 immemorial butler, would travel to Kew and carry it back in 

 his own safe hands. 



Once, when Hooker had a fair copy of one of Darwin's 

 MSS. to read, a misfortune happened which recalls, though 

 it happily did not equal, the catastrophe to the sole MS. of 

 Carlyle's * French Eevolution ' in J. S. Mill's house. The 

 bundle ' by some screaming accident ' had got transferred to 

 the drawer where Mrs. Hooker kept paper for the children to 

 draw upon and they ' of course had a drawing fit ever since/ 

 Nearly a quarter of the MS. had vanished when Hooker pre- 

 pared to read it at the end of a busy week. 



