66 THE SOUTH AND ITS SCIENTIFIC SCOPE 



exceeded my expectations and do you credit. . . . And 

 Brown is charmed with what you have done.' 



The long stay at Kerguelen's Land, Tasmania, Hermite 

 Island, and the Falklands, the travel through New Zealand, 

 the short stay at the Cape and Sydney, and flying raids on 

 Lord Auckland Island and Campbell Island, provided sugges- 

 tive material for his works on the Floras of the Southern lands 

 and the Antarctic regions: works which afforded not merely 

 a thorough Hst and account of the plants and^the 

 "Xfiider which .fo existing^ but discussed the com- 



parison of South and North, the questions^oT^distribution, 

 the problem of the oceanic islands and the former connection 

 of the Southern continents, leading slowly but inevitably on 

 to tlSe evolutionary theory in which he was to be Darwin's 

 c6nE2antr critic, and supporter. Darwm^s' bwii 'Voyage of 

 the Beagle/ indeed, was Ihe most recent of the various travel 

 books that inspired him. It was in the press while he was 

 approaching his M.D. examinations, and the old friend of his 

 family, and of Darwin himself, Mr. Lyell of Kinnordy, sent 

 him a set of proofs that had come from Darwin. Time was 

 short : Hooker slept with the proofs under his pillow, and 

 devoured them eagerly the moment he woke in the mornings. 

 Before he sailed Mr. LyeU sent him a copy of the book, a gift 

 most gratefully and enthusiastically acknowledged. As the 

 voyage continues he tells Mr. Lyell, ' Your kind present is indeed 

 now a well-thumbed book, for all the officers send to me for it.' ^ 



If Darwin's was the last of the travel books that inspired 

 him, Cook's voyage was the first. As has been noted already, 

 it fired him at a far earlier age than Darwin himself was stirred 

 by Humboldt's * Personal Narrative,' a fact on which he dwells 

 again when WTiting to James Hamilton, his old college friend, 

 after he had sat on the very spot in Kerguelen's Land from 

 which the view of the Arch Eock was taken, and the picture 

 of the men killing penguins. 



I- ^ Thus J. E. Davis, second master of the Terror, later thanking Hooker 

 for the ' young library ' sent to him, writes : ' I like Darwin's Journal much : 

 he has accomplished what Old Johnson said of Goldsmith when he heard he was 

 going to write a Natural History : " he will make it as interesting as a Persian 

 tale." ' (See also the letter to Lady Hooker, p. 136;) 



