AS SYSTEMATIST 311 



They are marked by a temporary pause in the stream of publi- 

 cation. None of his own larger works belong to this period. It 

 happens only too often in this country that our ablest men are 

 thus paralysed in their scientific careers by the potent vortex of 

 administration. Not a few succumb, and cease altogether to 

 produce. They are caught as in the eddy of the Lorelei, and 

 are so hopelessly entangled that they never emerge again. 

 They fail to realise, or realise too late, that the administration of 

 matters relating to a science is not an end in itself, but only a 

 means to an end. Some, the steadfast and invincible seekers 

 after truth, though held by the eddy for a time, pass again into 

 the main stream. Hooker was one of these. The Presidency 

 of the Royal Society ended at the usual term of five years. 

 Seven years later he demitted office as Director of Kew. He 

 was thus free in 1885, still a young man in vigour though not 

 in years. For over a quarter of a century after retirement he 

 devoted the energy of his old age to peculiarly fruitful scientific 

 work. Thus the administrative tie upon him was only temporary. 

 So long as it lasted he faithfully obeyed the call of duty, not- 

 withstanding the restrictions it imposed. 



No exhaustive catalogue need be given of the works upon 

 which the reputation of Sir Joseph Hooker as a scientific 

 systematist was founded. It must suffice briefly to consider his 

 four greatest systematic works, The Antarctic Flora^ The Flora 

 of British India, The Genera Plantamm, and the hidex Kewensis. 



We have seen how on the Antarctic voyage Hooker had the 

 opportunity of collecting on all the great circumpolar areas of 

 the Southern Hemisphere. His Antarctic Flora was based on 

 the collections and observations then made. It was published 

 in six large quarto volumes. The first related to the Lord 

 Auckland and Campbell Islands (1843 1845); the second to 

 Fuegia and the Falkland Islands (1845 1847); the third and 

 fourth to New Zealand (1851 1853); and the fifth and sixth 

 to Tasmania (1853 1860), They describe about 3000 species, 

 while on 530 plates 1095 species are depicted, usually with 

 detailed analytical drawings. But these volumes did not merely 

 contain reports of explorations, or descriptions of the many new 

 species collected. There is much more than this in them. All 



