



i860.] AUSTRALIAN FLORA. 257 



C. Darwin to J. D. Hooker. 



Down, January 3rd [1860]. 



MY DEAR HOOKER, I have finished your Essay.* As 

 probably you would like to hear my opinion, though a non- 

 botanist, I will give it without any exaggeration. To my 

 judgment it is by far the grandest and most interesting essay, 

 on subjects of the nature discussed, I have ever read. You 

 know how I admired your former essays, but this seems to 

 me far grander. I like all the part after p. xxvi better than 

 the first part, probably because newer to me. I dare say you 

 will demur to this, for I think every author likes the most 

 speculative parts of his own productions. How superior your 

 essay is to the famous one of Brown (here will be sneer 1st 

 from you). You have made all your conclusions so admirably 

 clear, that it would be no use at all to be a botanist (sneer 

 No. 2). By Jove, it would do harm to affix any idea to the 

 long names of outlandish orders. One can look at your con- 

 clusions with the philosophic abstraction with which a mathe- 

 matician looks at his a X ;r + \/ z 2 , &c. &c. I hardly know 

 which parts have interested me most ; for over and over again 

 I exclaimed, " this beats all." The general comparison of the 

 Flora of Australia with the rest of the world, strikes me (as 

 before) as extremely original, good, and suggestive of many 

 reflections. 



.... The invading Indian Flora is very interesting, but I 

 think the fact you mention towards the close of the essay 

 that the Indian vegetation, in contradistinction to the Ma- 

 layan vegetation, is found in low and level parts of the Malay 

 Islands, greatly lessens the difficulty which at first (page 1) 

 seemed so great. There is nothing like one's own hobby- 

 horse. I suspect it is the same case as of glacial migration, 

 and of naturalised production of production of greater area 



* ' Australian Flora. 

 VOL. II. S 



