1912] BRIEFER ARTICLES 439 
atmosphere, it was but natural that his life work should be in botany 
rather than in the medical profession for which he was educated primarily, 
having taken the degree of M.D. at the University of Glasgow in 1839. 
Hooker’s botanical work began in his father’s herbarium, and his 
early interests were mainly in the lower groups of plants, particularly 
the mosses. In 1837, at the age of 20, he published his first contribution 
to botanical literature. Two years later he was commissioned botanist 
to the Antarctic Expedition under the command of Sir JAMES CLARK 
Ross, and in this capacity acquired in a comparatively short time an 
extensive knowledge of the 
floras of the south temperate 
and sub-antarctic regions; 
the results of this expedition 
were embodied in six large 
quarto volumes under the 
general title of The botany of 
the Antarctic voyage of H.M. 
discovery ships Erebus and 
Terror in the years 1839-1843 
under the command of Captain 
Sir James Clark Ross, pub- 
lished 1844-1860. Although 
Hooker had concerned him- 
self chiefly with the lower 
groups of plants, yet he early 
developed an interest in fossil 
botany, and this interest was 
fostered by the appointment 
in 1845 to the position of 
botanist to the Geological 
Survey of Great Britain; he remained in the service of the survey for 
about two years and made important contributions to paleobotanical 
literature. 
The desire for a more extended knowledge of the flora of the Old 
World tropics led Hooker to organize a botanical expedition to India. 
The project received recognition and favor, and accordingly he entered 
this little known field in 1848. Some of the results of his early observa- 
tions in India were published in The Himalayan journals and in a single 
volume under the title of Flora Indica, the latter work being collaborated 
with Dr. Toomas THOMSON and issued in 1855. In this year HOOKER 
