Sir William Jackson Hooker. 3 
botanist, and one in which Hooker, with quick eye, skilled hand, 
and intuitive judgment, was not only to excel but to lay the 
foundation of high excellence in general descriptive botany. 
When arranging for a prolonged visit to Ceylon, it appears 
that he sold his landed property, and that his investment of the 
proceeds was unfortunate ; so that the demands of an increasing 
family and of his enlarging collections, for which he always lav- 
ishly provided, made it needful for him to seek some remunera+ 
tive scientific employment. Botanical instruction in Great Brit- 
ain was then, more than now, nearly restricted to medical classes ; 
the botanical chairs in the universities therefore mainly belonged 
to the medical faculty, and were filled by members of the pro- 
_fession. But, through the influence of Sir Joseph Banks, as is 
understood, the Regius Professorship of Botany in the Univer- 
sity of Glasgow was offered to Hooker, and was accepted by 
im. He removed to Glasgow in the year 1820, and assumed 
the duties of this position. Here, for twenty years—the most 
productive years of his life—he was not only the most active 
and conspicuous working botanist of his country and time, but 
one of the best and most zealous of teachers. The fixed salary 
was then only fifty pounds; and the class-fees at first scarcely ex- 
eded that sum. But his lecture-room was soon thronged with 
ardent and attached pupils, and the emoluments rose to a consider - 
able sum, enabling him to build up his unrivalled herbarium, to 
patronize explorers and collectors in almost every accessible 
region, and to carry on his numerous expensive publications, 
very few of which could be at all remunerative. 
