466 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP, xix 



very important, and in itself justifies the expenditure. 

 Any day next (that is to say this) week that you like I 

 can see Col. Turner. If you and Evans can arrange a 

 day I don't think we need mind the rest of the Com- 

 mittee. We must get at least two other borings ten or 

 fifteen miles off, if possible on the same parallel, by hook 

 or by crook. It will tell us more about the Nile valley 

 than has ever been known. That Italian fellow who 

 published sections must have lied considerably. 



Touching gentians, I have not examined your 

 specimen yet, but it certainly did not look like Andrewsii. 

 You talk of having acaulis in your garden. That is one 

 of the species I worked out most carefully at Arolla, but 

 its flowering time was almost over, and I only got two 

 full-blown specimens to work at. If you have any in 

 flower and don't mind sacrificing one with a bit of the 

 rhizorna, and would put it in spirit for me, I could 

 settle one or two points still wanting. Whisky will do, 

 and you will be all the better for not drinking the 

 whisky ! 



The distributional facts, when you work them in 

 connection with morphology, are lovely. We put up 

 with Donnelly on our way here. He has taken a cottage 

 at Felday, eleven miles from hence, in lovely country 

 on lease. I shall have to set up a country residence 

 some day, but as all my friends declare their own locality 

 best, I find a decision hard. And it is a bore to be tied 

 to one place. Ever yours, T. H. HUXLEY. 



4 MARLBOROUGH PLACE, 

 Oct. 20, 1886. 



MY DEAR HOOKER I wi:!i you would not mind the 

 trouble of looking through the enclosed chapter which I 

 have written at F. Darwin's request, and tell me what 

 you think of it. F. D. thinks I am hard upon the 

 " Quarterly Article," but I read it afresh and it is 

 absolutely scandalous. The anonymous vilifiers of the 



