xx Obituary Notice of Fellow deceased. 



little opportunity of keeping in touch. The arrangement was to dine 

 on a Thursday in each month on which the Koyal Society met. Three of 

 the members were destined to be Presidents in succession, and three Copley 

 medallists. It was the opinion of the smoking room of the Athenaeum that 

 " they govern scientific affairs, and really, on the whole, they don't do it 

 badly." Huxley repudiated this, and thought the " tone of our ordinary 

 conversation " was " sadly frivolous " (H.L.L., vol. 1, p. 259). There was 

 doubtless a method in the frivolity. Anyhow the club was a power, and 

 the nine formed a sort of dynasty while it lasted ; and dynastic vigour has 

 its merits. It died out in 1893. Hooker, as well as Huxley, was also a 

 member of " The Club," and occasional attendance at its dinners was in 

 Jater life one of the few social pleasures he allowed himself (H.L.L., vol. 1, 

 p. 259). 



He had never lost his interest in glacial phenomena. July of 1865 

 was spent in Teesdale, and the result was a paper on ' The Moraines of the 

 Tees Valley.' On August 12 his father died. The circumstances were 

 tragic : the illness was sudden ; Hooker sent to London for the best advice, 

 but to no purpose. He relates, " I saw him no more, for, sleeping on the 

 floor by his bedside that night under an open window, I was suddenly 

 prostrated with rheumatic fever." Hooker succeeded to the directorship, 

 and for the next twenty years administrative duties of the most varied kind 

 limited still more the time available for scientific work. Official scientific 

 positions in this country are apt to be regarded as sinecures ; perhaps this is 

 because their occupants often achieve as much as more leisured men. 



The elder Hooker had carried the Government with him in a wave of 

 enthusiasm in reorganising Kew on a scale worthy of a national establish- 

 ment. It was not, therefore, to be expected that Hooker's directorship 

 would be signalised by any great undertakings of equal magnitude. Much, 

 however, was done in detailed development, and some notable features were 

 added. In 1869 the " New Eange " replaced eight obsolete " stoves," and in 

 1877 a new wing relieved the intolerable congestion of the Herbarium. 

 Various additions were the result of liberality independent of the Govern- 

 ment. The Jodrell Laboratory was built (1876) at the expense of 

 T. J. Phillips Jodrell, to give effect to a recommendation of the Com- 

 mission on Scientific Instruction and the Advancement of Science "that 

 opportunities should be afforded for the pursuit of investigations in 

 Physiological Botany." It has amply fulfilled its purpose, and has been 

 the scene of much memorable work. The North Gallery, completed in 

 1880, was erected at the expense of Miss Marianne North, to contain the 

 pictures which she had made of tropical vegetation in various parts of the 

 world. In the following year an extension was made to the Museum, at 

 the expense of the India Office, to allow space for the botanical collections 

 removed from the Indian Museum, and the Bock Garden was formed to receive 

 the collection of Alpine plants bequeathed by George Curling Joad, P.L.S. 

 A hailstorm on August 3, 1879, was the greatest trial to which Kew has 



