NATURE 



537 



THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1877 



SCIENTIFIC WORTHIES 

 XI.— Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker 



SIR JOSEPH DALTON HOOKER,' Director of the 

 Royal Gardens, Kew, and President of the Royal 

 Society — the second and only surviving son of the late 

 Sir William Jackson Hooker, who first made the name 

 illustrious in botany — was born at Halesworth, in Suffolk, 

 on June 30, 1817. He was educated at the University of 

 Glasgow, where the father was Regius Professor of 

 Botany from 1820 to 1840, and where the son took 

 the degree of M.D. in 1839. He has since been affiliated 

 to the great English Universities, receiving in the same 

 year the honorary degrees of D.C.L. at Oxford, and of 

 LL.D. at Cambridge, and subsequently that of LL.D. at 

 his own University of Glasgow. Immediately on com- 

 pleting his medical studies, namely in 1839, he was com- 

 missioned Assistant-Surgeon in the Royal Navy, and 

 appointed botanist of the antarctic voyage of exploration 

 by the En-bus and Tirror, under the command of Cap- 

 tain, afterwards Sir James Clark Ross. This celebrated 

 expedition, leaving England in the autumn of 1839, and 

 touching at Madeira, Teneriffe, Cape Verde Islands, St. 

 Helena, and the Cape of Good Hope, entered, in the 

 spring of 1840, upon its special work of antarctic explora- 

 tion, which, including visits to Kerguelen Island, New 

 Zealand, Australia, Fuegia, and the Falkland Islands, 

 occupied the ensuing three years, years of severe labour 

 and much hardship, but of opportunities such as probably 

 never before fell to the lot of a young naturalist, or were 

 ever turned to better account. 



The botanical fruits of this expedition are mainly 

 garnered in the " Flora Antarctica," the " Flora Novre 

 Zelandia;,"and the " FloraTasmanica," six quarto volumes, 

 the last of which appeared in the year 1S60. These 

 do not contain mere reports of explorations, with descrip- 

 tions of whatever was novel or of peculiar interest, but 

 are systematically elaborated and complete floras, in 

 which all that had been gathered from every source is in- 

 corporated. The excellent analyses of the plants, and in 

 particular those of the cryptogams, are for the most part 

 from the author's own drawings, many of them made 

 during the progress of the voyage. 



During the preparation of the first of this series of 

 floras, Sir J. D. (then Dr.) Hooker, being then attached 

 to the Geological Survey of Great Britain, brought out 

 several important papers upon points in fossil botany. 

 They need not be here particularly enumerated, but they 

 attracted much attention, and evinced remarkable aptitude 

 for dealing with a difficult class of questions. 



In the interval between the publication of the second 

 volume of the " Flora Antarctica," in 1847, and the first 

 volume of the "Flora Novas Zealandix," in 1853, Sir 

 J. D. Hooker, aided by Government, but mainly on his 

 private resources, accomplished his botanical mission to 

 India. A general account of this undertaking is given in 

 his " Himalayan Journals ; or, Notes of a Naturalist in 



I since these lines were written her Majesty has signiliej her appreciation 

 of Dr. Hooker's services, especially those in relation to the Indian Empire, 

 by conferring upon him the honour of Knight Commander ol the Slar'of 

 Ind'a. — A. G. 



Vol. XVI.— No. 417 



Bengal, the Sikkim and Nepal Himalayas, the Khasia 

 Mountains," &c., in two volumes, Svo., 1854. 



His journey occupied three and a half years, and was 

 not without hardship and adventure. After spending two 

 seasons in exploring geographically and botanically the 

 loftiest Himalayan mountains and valleys, unaccompanied 

 by any European, he was, when on the Tibetan frontier, 

 joined by his friend. Dr. Campbell, the political agent 

 resident in a neighbouring British province ; this led to 

 the capture of both by the Rajah of Sikkim, and they 

 were imprisoned for some weeks, during which time they 

 were treated with great indignity and their lives were 

 threatened. During his journey in Sikkim he made a 

 survey of the whole country and the bordering districts of 

 Nepal, from the plains of India to Tibet ; this was pub- 

 lished by the Trigonometrical Survey Office of Calcutta, 

 and is still the standard map of the country. It is a 

 curious fact that though nearly thirty years have elapsed 

 since Sir J. D. Hooker was in the country, many of the 

 trans- Himalayan passes which he then discovered and 

 measured have not since been visited by any other 

 traveller. 



Of the scientific results, the first fruits were given to the 

 world in various papers communicated to the Asiatic So- 

 ciety of Bengal ; these were followed by the " Rhododen- 

 drons of the Sikkim Himalayas," a folio, with splendid 

 illustrations from the author's own pencil ; and in a volume 

 of the " Flora Indica," by himself and his friend and 

 schoolmate, Dr. Thomas Thomson. A series of papers 

 upon certain groups, or discussing special points, followed 

 later ; and at length the systematic elaboration of Indian 

 botany has been hopefully renewed, and the " Flora of 

 British India," upon the model of the " British Colonial 

 Floras," has reached the second volume. Although 

 "assisted by other botanists," some of the ablest of these 

 died before their contributions were completed, and a 

 large part of the labour and responsibility has devolved 

 upon Sir J. D. Hooker. 



In 1869 Sir J. D. Hooker held the presidency of the 

 British Association at Norwich. In his address he advo- 

 cated the recognition of the Darwinian hypothesis as the 

 best means of advancing the study of the natural sciences, 

 and dwelt at length on the subject of provincial museums, 

 showing by what means they can be rendered both in- 

 structive to the general public and be adapted to the 

 needs of scientific men. 



On an earlier occasion, at the meeting of the Associa- 

 tion at Nottingham in 1866, he was selected to give one 

 of the two public lectures that form part of the programme 

 at these annual meetings. Choosing "Insular Floras" 

 for his subject he gave the results of his own wide per- 

 sonal experience in a discourse which attracted much 

 attention on account of the soundness of the views he 

 advocated and the originality of the illustrations by which 

 he supported them. 



Of special memoirs, such as test a botanist's capabili- 

 ties, four of Sir J. D. Hooker's are particularly noteworthy. 

 These are, in the order of publication ; first, the essay 

 " On the Structure and Affinities of Balanophorea?," a 

 peculiar and puzzhng group of phasnogamous root-para- 

 sites, here for the first time well investigated upon suffi- 

 cient material, admirably illustrated, and their affinities 

 acutely discerned. The second is a shorter paper " On 



DD 



