5i6 



NA TURE 



[Oct. 24, 1872 



they lead to conclusions which we know to be geographically 

 false, and we therefore refuse to accept them. 



Royal Naval College, Oct. 16 J. K. Laughton 



Fossil Oyster 



Ostrea raUifira from the Hampstead beds is described at page 

 145, and figured on Plate I., of Forbes's "Tertiary Fluvio-marine 

 Formation of the Isle of Wight. " Perhaps this is the one " In- 

 quirer " has found. T. G. B. 



THE PENNATULID FROM WASHINGTON 

 TERRITOR V 



I PRESUME this disputed organism, referred to in two 

 communications in your nunrber for September 26, is 

 specifically identical with a specimen from Frazer River, 

 British Columbia, presented to me in the autumn of last 

 year, for the Museum of the University, by I\Ir. Selwyn, 

 Director of the Geological .Survey of Canada, and which 

 had been obtained by Mr. Richardson, one of his assistant 

 geologists. I at once recognised it as the axis of a Virgu- 

 laria, or some similar creature ; but there being no means 

 of reference here for the West Coast species, I submitted 

 it to Prof. Verrill, of Yale College, who had no doubt as to 

 its nature, but believed it probably to belong to an undc- 

 scribed species. There being no sufficient materials for 

 its description, Mr. Whiteaves of this city, who undertook 

 the description of the marine animals procured by the 

 Survey in British Columbia, merely noticed it in his report 

 as an undescribed pennatulid. Its characters were stated 

 by him in a paper read before the Natural History Society 

 of Montreal last winter, and printed in abstract at the time. 

 Mr. Richardson, who returned to British Columbia in the 

 spring, has undertaken to procure, if possible, a perfect 

 specimen, and to have it preserved in alcohol. Should he 

 succeed, we may hope soon to have materials for the de- 

 scription of the species. Mr. Selwyn's specimen, though 

 it has probably lost several inches of its length, being 

 broken at both ends, is five feet one inch in length. It 

 retains, attached to the granulated lower extremity, some 

 traces of animal matter, in which I think 1 can detect, 

 under the microscope, a few club-shaped spicules. 

 McGill College, Oct. 11 J. VV. Dawson 



DR. HOOKER'S REPLY TO PROF. OWEN 



THE Blue Book issued in August last, containing the 

 correspondence between Dr. Hooker, Mr. Ayrton, 

 and others respecting the management of and control 

 over Kew Gardens, included also, in the form of an ap- 

 pendix, a statement addressed to Mr.Ayrtonby Prof. Owen, 

 containing various allegations detrimental to the present 

 management of the gardens, herbarium, and museum. 

 The following reply by Dr. Hooker to these allegations has 

 just been printed by order of the House of Commons : — 



" Prof. Owen divides the ' aims and applications ' of 

 the Royal Gardens of Kew, according to his view of 

 them, under seven heads. 



" It is sufficient to state that some of these are recognised 

 by the Government, and specified in their instructions 

 under which the Director carried out his duties ; but th.at 

 others, and those of a most comprehensive nature, have 

 no place there, and are not such as pertain to botanical 

 gardens elsewhere. Amongst these are the agricultural 

 operations specified by Prof. Owen, ' the application of 

 manures, demonstrations of the fittest species of grasses 

 for particular soils . . . methods of irrigation, sub- 

 terranean pipe, conveyed liquid manures, and so forth,' 

 all of which arc being carried out with vigour and success 

 by various agricultural societies and private individuals 

 throughout the country. 



" To establish such operations at Kew would involve an 

 enormous e.xpenditure, and occupy many acres of ground 



now devoted to the legitimate purposes of a botanical 

 garden. 



" Illustrations of rock-works,garden sculpture, and orna- 

 mental waters, also recommended by Prof. Owen, appear 

 to be equally out of place. 



" Prof. Owen is in error in stating that the arrangement 

 of plants in natural groups, with conspicuous labelling, 

 &c., is at Kew ' at present limited to the herbaceous 

 grounds ; ' as he is also in implying that there is no illus- 

 tration of ' geographical distribution,' which is, in truth, 

 carried out to an incomparably greater extent at Kew 

 than in any other garden known to me at home or abroad. 

 Prof. Owen cannot have visited the houses devoted to 

 ferns, orchids, succulents, aroids, &c., nor the arboretum, 

 fruiticetum, and pinetura, nor observed the arrangement 

 on the shelves of the two great buildings, the palm stove 

 and the temperate house. 



" The fact that a first-rate herbarium and library must be 

 maintained for the purposes of a botanical garden, and in 

 immediate pro.ximity to it, has not only been uniformly 

 admitted and acted upon by successive Governments, 

 but is so universally recognised by naturalists everywhere, 

 that I am surprised that Prof. Owen should dispute it. 



" I am sure that were he acquainted with the nature and 

 amount of the duties devolving on this establishment, he 

 would abandon his opinion without hesitation. 



" In support of the contrary opinion he refers to that 

 early period in the history of Kew, when its new and rare 

 plants were named at the Banksian herbarium in London. 

 But the naming of a few new and rare plants cultivated 

 at the beginning of the century in a private garden of 

 nine acres, probably at no one time containing more than 

 4,000 species, is a very different matter from keeping ac- 

 curately named public collections that occupy 300 acres, 

 and are estimated to contain 20,000 species ; and this in 

 an establishment that is annually called upon to name 

 literally thousands of plants from other botanic gardens 

 and nurseries in England and similar institutions abroad. 

 A great deal of the naming, and keeping correctly named, 

 the plants at Kew, can be conducted only by skilled 

 botanists visiting the grounds daily. Large classes of 

 plants are now cidtivated that must be named in the 

 houses where they grow ; and many more, the tropical 

 especially, could not be sent to a distance to be named, 

 without serious damage /// transitu. 



" To this must be added the necessity of naming and 

 ticketing with copious information the vegetable products 

 of economic interest, in three museum buildings, the illus- 

 tration of which products by specimens, Prof. Owen ad- 

 mits to be a legitimate object of the Gardens of Kew. 



" Nor was the naming of the Kew plants carried out in 

 London, as is supposed ; there was a large herbarium in 

 constant use at the Royal Gardens at the very period 

 alluded to, the breaking up of which, when it was pro- 

 posed to give up the Gardens, necessitated the formation 

 of another. 



" No comparison whatever can be instituted between the 

 needs in these respects of the Royal Gardens at Kew and 

 the Zoological .Society's Gardens in the Regent's Park. 



" The reflections that follow on the conduct of the late 

 and present Directors of Kew Gardens are not suited for 

 official discussion. 



" Prof. Owen is in error in asserting that the main end 

 or drift ' of Dr. Hooker's evidence before the Scientific 

 Commissioners is to impress upon them the necessity of 

 the transfer of the collection of dead plants ' from the 

 British Museum to Kew. 



" My evidence is unequivocally opposed to such a 

 transfer. 



" Herbaria are not costly establishments, but the least 

 expensive of all natural history collections ; and the ob- 

 jects and appUcations of. botany in its largest sense, are 

 now so numerous and so important, as to render a divi- 

 sion of the subject necessary ; whence the expediency of 



