Ohituanj — 8ir Joseph Dalton Hooker. 47 



SIR JOSEPH DALTON HOOKER, 

 O.M., G.C.S.I., M.D., D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., ETC. 

 BOKN June 30, 1817. Died December 10, 1911. 



At the advanced age of 94 there has passed away at his home, 

 The Camp, Sunuingdale, in Berkshire, the most eminent of British 

 botanists. By extended observation in all quarters of the globe and 

 prolonged research he threw light on manj' difficult problems in 

 natural history, aiding and supporting Darwin and Lyell on the 

 origin of species, and on the causes which have influenced the 

 geographical distribution of plants and the production of insular 

 floras. He was the second son of Sir William Jackson Hooker, who, 

 born at Norwich, married the eldest daughter of Dawson Turner, 

 r.ll.S., botanist, antiquary, and also banker, of Great Yarmouth. 

 Other daughters of Turner were married I'espectively to Sir Francis 

 Palgrave, the Kev. John Gunn (Rector of Irstead, Norfolk), Bishop 

 Jacobson of Chester, and T. Brightwen of Yarmouth. Having 

 independent means Sir William Hooker settled at first at Halesworth 

 in Suffolk, where his son Joseph was born. Afterwards he removed 

 to Glasgow on being appointed Professor of Botany in the University, 

 and subsequently he became Director of the Boyal Gardens at Kew. 



J. D. Hooker was educated at the High School and University at 

 Glasgow, where he qualified as M.D. in 1839. He inherited his 

 father's tastes for Natural History, and Botany in particular, and 

 was fortunate in being appointed assistant-surgeon and naturalist on 

 board H.M.S. Erebus in the great expedition conducted by Sir James 

 Clark Boss to the Antarctic regions during the years 1839-43. 

 The botanical observations made in the course of that voyage were 

 published in six volumes (1844-60), and dealt with the plants of 

 New Zealand and Tasmania, as well as those of Antarctic lands. 

 The philosophic conclusions bearing on the causes of the geographical 

 distribution of the plants were published in 1859, in a now classic 

 memoir On the Flora of Australia, its origin, affinities, and distrihution, 

 heing an Introductory Essay to the Flora of Tasmania. 



In 1846 Hooker was appointed Botanist to the Geological Survey 

 of Great Britain, under Sir Henry De la Beche. His attention was 

 now directed to the plants of past ages, and in particular to those 

 of the Coal-measures ; and he published an essay O71 the Vegetation 

 of the Carloniferous Period, as compared with that of the present day, 

 and two more special papers on the structure of Stigmaria and of 

 some Lepidostrobi (Mem. Geol. Surv., vol. ii, pt. ii, 1848). 



In 1847 Hooker resigned his appointment on the Geological Survey 

 for the purpose of studying the botany of India, spending the years 

 1847-51 mostly in the higher mountain regions of that country, 

 t<nd publishing the general results in his famous Himalayan Journals 

 (two vols., 1854). Interesting observations were therein included 

 on the delta of the Ganges, and on the parallel terraces in the 

 Himalayas, the formation of which was attributed to the barring 

 of glacier lakes by ice and moraines. 



