40 THE ANTAECTIC VOYAGE : PEELIMINAEIES 
some Van Diemen's Land plants which the boy had been 
studying with considerable attention. We dined yesterday 
at the Koyal Soc. Club and attended the meeting in the 
evening. 
Thus he can add : 
My jom'ney has been fully answered in respect to Joseph. 
. . . Humanly speaking, his way is clear before him for an 
honourable scientific career. 
And on Juno 18 : 
Should it please God that Joseph returns safe from his 
present expedition, and if I have the same friends I have 
now, it may be in my power to keep this appointment [the 
Glasgow professorship] in the family by applying to have it 
made over to Joseph. 
As it turned out the preparations took nearly five months 
longer ; part of this time Hooker spent at Haslar, ' a most 
improving situation under Dr. Eichardson's eye,' just as his 
future friend, Huxley, was to do seven years later, while waiting 
for his appointment, so long delayed because the discerning 
Eichardson kept him back till a scientific post offered in the 
BaUlesnake. The remainder of the time from the middle 
of June, Hooker spent as x\ssistant Surgeon attached to the 
Erebus at Chatham, where the ships were fitting out — Assist- 
ant Surgeon and Botanist — for it was in this capacity that 
he went after all, not Naturalist to the expedition, as he had 
confidently hoped. For that responsible post Eoss finally 
determined to take a man of longer standing and some estab- 
lished repute, albeit the young Hooker pressed him very 
shrewdly, as appears from the following descriptions of some 
official interviews. 
physiological as well as systematic botany. In 1810, on the death of Dr. 
Dryander, he succeeded to his post as librarian to Banks, who, djnng in 1820, 
left Brown his librarj^ and herbarium, with reversion to the British Museum, 
and £200 per annum, with his house in Soho Square, In 1827 he arranged 
for the library and herbarium to pass immediately to the British Museum, 
while he was appointed Cui'ator. In this position he had an official influence 
comparable to the influence of his strong character and intellectual powers 
among his friends. 
