Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker. 



IX 



congratulatory telegram. This, with pardonable pride, he hung framed in his 

 dining-room. Hooker's geological observations were the first (as they are 

 still a principal) source of our knowledge of the physical structure of Sikkim. 

 He had had " a very extensive experience of ice in the Antarctic Ocean," and 

 in the Himalayas he was confronted with glacial phenomena on the largest 

 scale. He thought that " very few of our geologists appreciate the power of 

 ice as a mechanical agent " (' Him. Journ.,' vol. 2, p. 121). He gives a clear 

 explanation of the terracing of mountain valleys, like the " Parallel Koads of 

 Glen Eoy," as the beaches of glacial lakes. He appears to have sent this 

 home to Darwin with some expectation of publication. Both he and Lyell 

 thought the " evidence ought to have been given more distinctly " (L.L., 

 vol. 1, p. 376). But at this time Darwin held the view, which Lyell adopted, 

 that the Glen Boy terraces were the result of marine action. Hooker seems 

 to have felt discouraged, and spoke " of giving up Geology " (M.L., vol. 2, 

 p. 152). But twelve years later (1861) Darwin had abandoned his early 

 theory and wrote significantly to Hooker, " It is, I believe, true that Glen 

 Boy shelves (I remember your Indian letter) were formed by glacial lakes " 

 (M.L., vol. 2, p. 190). Hooker by continued and laborious observations laid 

 the basis of the meteorology of Sikkim. He succeeded in introducing into 

 cultivation through Kew its splendid Bhododendrons, which were worthily 

 illustrated from his drawings in a work edited by his father (1849-51) and 

 published during his absence. 1850 was spent in travelling with his old 

 Glasgow class-mate, T. Thomson, in Eastern Bengal and the Khasia Hills, 

 returning to England the following year. A vast collection of some 

 6000 to 7000 species of plants represented by copious duplicates was brought 

 back. The Treasury made him a grant of £400 annually for three years to 

 name and distribute his specimens (some sixty herbaria in Europe, India, 

 and the United States were recipients), and to write the ' Himalayan 

 Journals,' which appeared in 1854, and were dedicated to Darwin ; never, 

 probably, were the results of an expedition dealt with so swiftly or so rapidly 

 made available for work of permanent scientific value. Darwin declared it to 

 be " a first-class book." Douglas Ereshfield, in dedicating to Hooker (1903) 

 his own, describes him as " the pioneer of mountain travel in the Eastern 

 Himalaya," and as " still our chief authority on Sikkim." It is singular 

 how few have been tempted to follow his footsteps. They might have been 

 so, for Freshfield writes, " The only European who had stood on Chungjerma 

 before me, Sir Joseph Hooker, has described the scenery and the effects 

 of atmosphere he witnessed on the road in what is perhaps the most 

 eloquent passage in his admirable volumes " (p. 196). 



In 1855 Hooker published 'Illustrations of Himalayan Plants,' from 

 drawings at Kew, made at Darjeeling, at the expense of J. F. Cathcart, 

 including Hodgsonia, the gigantic Cucurbit which he dedicated to his 

 friend Hodgson. He had now been able to resume work on his Antarctic 

 collections, and (1853-5) published the 'Flora Novae- Zelandise,' forming the 

 second instalment of the ' Botany of the Antarctic Voyage.' On its completion 



