I 



VISIT TO PARIS 177 



on December 14, 1843), for ' Bennett^ [his assistant] would in 

 all human probability outlive and succeed him.' In November 

 1844 came news of a vacant Curatorship of the Botanical 

 Gardens at Sydney, biit this would hardly suit his views, even 

 even if the salary were better. In the course of the winter 

 came the proposal to lecture for Professor Graham at Edinburgh, 

 with a fair prospect of succeeding him in the Botanical chair. 

 The story of this is told in the next chapter. 



In the meanwhile. Hooker proceeded to fulfil his intention 

 of seeing the chief Continental botanists, and comparing their 

 Gardens and collections with those of Kew. He hoped also to 

 effect exchanges of specimens and living plants. 



Midwinter certainly was not the ideal season for such a visit, 

 but Schomburgk,2 another distinguished traveller, was going to 

 Germany, and promised to act as his * chaperon * there ; more- 

 over, any permanent appointment at home might interfere 

 for a long time with further travel, which in itself was one 

 passport to good society in such a place as Edinburgh. And 

 at this moment it would involve no delay in his book ; the next 

 two monthly parts were ready for press. He planned an 

 extensive journey, including a visit to * a man of the name of 

 Alexander Braun, who has written on the development of 

 leaves and branches in a spiral direction, and who has devehfed 

 the laws of their devehpnent and future directions on the plant. 

 Mr. Brown thinks Braun a very first rate man, though a little 

 known one, and considers him as well worth my seeing as any 

 man abroad.' (To D. Turner, January 26, 1845. Cf. p. 425n). 



But Sir William warned him that all the time at his dis- 

 posal would be taken up with seeing what was to be seen at 



1 John Joseph Bennett (1801-76), botanist, was Robert Brown's assistant 

 in charge of the Banksian Herbarium and Library on its transfer to the 

 British Museum in 1827, succeeding him as keeper in 1858. He was secre- 

 tary to the Linnean Society, 1840-60; F.R.S. 1841; and published various 

 botanical papers. 



* Probably Sir Robert Schomburgk (1804-65), discoverer of the Victoria 

 Regia lily, who was knighted at the end of 1844 on his return from his three 

 years' travel delimiting the frontiers of British Guiana. His brother Richard, 

 who had accompanied him as botanist, had returned to Germany in 1842. 

 After the political troubles of 1848, he fled to Australia, where he cultivated the 

 vine with great success, and in 1866 became director of the botanical gardens 

 at Adelaide. He survived till 1890. 



