b THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



that of Walter Hood Fitch, for so many years associated with Sir 

 William Hooker's work, on the plates of these groups in the Flora 

 Antarctica. As the Treasury grant towards the publication of 

 that w^ork was only £1000 for five hundred plates. Hooker gave 

 the drawings and the text to the publisher, Lovell Eeeve. Seldom 

 have the results of a botanical expedition been as completely or 

 as promptly published. The whole work, entitled The Botany of 

 the Antarctic Voyage of H.M.S. ' Erehus ' and ' Terror,' was 

 dedicated to the Queen ; ran to six volumes, comprising in all 

 over 2000 pages and 523 plates ; and was not completed until 

 1860. It consists, however, of three works, each in two volumes, 

 and the first two of these, the Flora Antarctica, were published in 

 1844 and 1845. In these, the islands of the Antarctic visited by 

 the expedition are treated in two groups. Lord Auckland's and 

 Campbell's Islands, belonging in the main to New Zealand, whilst 

 all the points visited from the Falklands to Kerguelen's Island 

 are treated as an extension of the Fuegian flora. Their entire 

 vegetation is described, and considerable space is devoted to the 

 distribution of the gigantic kelps. 



As Hooker was starting on his Antarctic voyage in 1839, he 

 had received from Mr. Lyell (Sir Charles's father) an early copy 

 of Darwin's Journal of the ' Beagle ' voyage ; but it was at this 

 period that, over Hooker's examination of Darwin's Galapagos 

 plants, the acquaintance between the two men ripened into inti- 

 macy. Hooker paying frequent short visits to Down, and Darwin 

 first discussing with him his then developing opinions as to the 

 mutability of species. Then too occurred what was, perhaps, the 

 sole failure in Hooker's career, when, in spite of the admirable 

 work he had done, with its abundant promise of what was to come, 

 and in spite of testimonials from Humboldt, Eobert Brown, and 

 other leaders of science, Professor John Hutton Balfour — who 

 was some nine years his senior — w^as, in 1845, preferred to him in 

 the election of a Professor of Botany for Edinburgh. 



In 1846, however. Hooker was appointed botanist to the 

 Geological Survey, an appointment which, though it lasted but a 

 very brief period, led to a valuable series of papers in the second 

 volume of the Memoirs of the Survey (1848), and others later. 

 These include "The Vegetation of the Carboniferous Period," 

 Stigmaria, and Le;pidostrohus in the former ; papers on fossil 

 plants from Keading, Carpolithes and Folliculites, all of Eocene 

 age, in the Geological Society's Journal for 1854 and 1855, and 

 the joint paper with Edward William Binney on Trigonocar^on in 

 the Philosophical Transactions for 1855. 



In 1847 Hooker started on the second great journey of his 

 life. Ever since his return from the Antarctic, with an appetite 

 whetted by ghmpses of Madeira and St. Helena, he had wished to 

 examine in person the difference between polar and temperate 

 floras on the one hand, and those of the tropics on the other. 

 He had been assisting in his father's Niger Flora by drawing up 

 a Flora Nigritiana from the collections of Vogel, Don, and 

 others, and had completed about a third of the work (pp. 203- 



