THE AWARD OF MEDALS 417 
Lindley and Bentham in this country deserve a medal, 
infinitely before myself in Botany — men who are famous 
abroad but thought comparatively httle of in this country 
from various motives. I should have been better pleased 
still if you or some other naturahst had proposed Forbes, 
for Grove ^ has no more real appreciation of Forbes's or of my 
claims than Graham ^ or De la Eue ^ have, and acted simply 
out of a vague sense of Geology being something more physical 
than Botany. In an abstract point of view I think Forbes's 
claims far superior to mine : but the R.S. should not look 
solely to abstract claims, but seek to distribute their rewards 
judiciously over all classes of science and the different 
branches of the classes, e.g. taking a hypothetical case— a 
man who (hke you) works out a point of abstract science 
during the difficulties and discouragements of a voyage, has 
in my opinion an equal claim at least with a man who works 
the same in his easy chair ; even though the latter works 
it better. 
Bell told me of all the proceedings after I left Council 
on Thursday and spoke with undisguised satisfaction and 
pleasure of the parts you had taken. 
Ever, dear Huxley, yours, 
J. D. Hooker. 
Anything in the nature of sectionalism in making these 
awards was very repugnant to him; and he was doubtless 
1 Sir William Robert Grove (1811-96), a man of science and judge, was 
educated at Brazenose College, Oxford, subsequently receiving the D.C.L. in 
1875, and the Cambridge LL.D. in 1879. Ill-health, which checked his early 
career at the bar, gave him time to follow his scientific bent. He became a 
member (1835) and subsequently Vice-President of the Royal Institution, and 
Professor of Experimental Philosophy in the London Institution. His invention 
of the gas voltaic battery in 1839 brought him election to the Royal Society the 
next year and a Royal Medal in 1847. His most important work on the Correla- 
tion of Physical Forces (1846) anticipated Helmholtz's essay on the same 
subject. Later, his scientific eminence brought him much legal work in patent 
cases. He was raised to the bench in 1871, retiring in 1887. 
2 Thomas Graham (1805-69), chemist; M.A. Glasgow 1824; Professor of 
Chemistry, Glasgow, 1830, at Univ. Coll., London, 1837-58 ; Master of the Mint, 
Keith prizeman and Gold Medallist of the Royal Society, first president of the 
Chemical and Cavendish Societies; F.R.S. 1836, and twice vice-president; 
Bakerian Lecturer 1850 and 1854; D.C.L. Oxford 1853. 
3 Warren De la Rue (1815-89) was one of those successful men of business 
with whom science came first. He was the author of various successful in- 
ventions, both for commercial purposes and for scientific research, and was 
especially distinguished for his work in celestial photography. 
