220 THE GEOLOGICAL SUEVEY 
(and man of business), you may be glad to hear the reasons for 
my preference ' — and to the man of business rather than to 
the affectionate grandfather sets forth their mutual suitability, 
her industry, energy, education, good principles and scientific 
sympathies, her literary helpfulness, for ' she is much cleverer 
than I am.' But enough of * reasons ' ; there was another 
and more personal side to all this, and if he should not speak 
of it, the sister friend might perhaps speak more warmly, so 
• for the rest I must refer you to my sister Elizabeth.' 
The high-stepping Johnsonese chosen by Sir William 
for discussing ' Joseph's attachment and his prospects ' with 
Dawson Turner is irresistible. ' I believe,' he writes, ' Miss 
Henslow to be an amiable and well-educated person of most 
respectable, though not high connections, and from all that I 
have seen of her, well suited to Joseph's habits and pursuits. 
He him_self seems well pleased with his choice.' Formal 
propriety could go no further in concealing a warm heart. 
The work already mentioned on the Antarctic and Niger 
Floras and travel on Survey business alternately occupy the 
rest of 1846 and most of the next year. March saw him in 
Ireland. From South Wales, his mother notes, he returns 
brown and well, carrying out his grandfather's dictum that 
six hours' sleep is enough for any healthy man. In August he 
w^as away again ; ' busy and happy he seems.' For most of 
the first three months of 1847 his father was ill ; ' Joseph,' 
writes Lady Hooker, * is most helpful to me with his father ; 
always glad to assist, calm and quiet. He knows too what is fit 
to be done and is very handy.' He would not, however, take 
the opportunity of his father's temporary absence from work 
to * put himself forward at the Garden,' as his mother inwardly 
wished, with a view to the future. 
On April 17 he went to Cambridge for a fortnight to see a 
collection of coral plants from Australia ; then after a few 
days with Berkeley ^ the mycologist at Oundle, proceeded on 
1 The Rev. Miles Joseph Berkeley (1803-89) as a botanist devoted himself 
to the Cryptogams. He wrote the volume on Fungi in Smith's English Flora, 
1836, Outlines of British Fvngology, 1860, and a Handbook of British 3Iosses, 
1863, besides an Introduction to Cryptogamic Botany, 1860. The collections of 
fungi made by Darwin and other travellers came to him for description. His 
