Volume I Part 48 (1/2)

LETTER 316. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, March 19th [1845].

...I was very glad to hear Humboldt's views on migrations and double creations. It is very presumptuous, but I feel sure that though one cannot prove extensive migration, the leading considerations, proper to the subject, are omitted, and I will venture to say even by Humboldt.

I should like some time to put the case, like a lawyer, for your consideration, in the point of view under which, I think, it ought to be viewed. The conclusion which I come to is, that we cannot pretend, with our present knowledge, to put any limit to the possible, and even probable, migration of plants. If you can show that many of the Fuegian plants, common to Europe, are found in intermediate points, it will be a grand argument in favour of the actuality of migration; but not finding them will not, in my eyes, much diminish the probability of their having thus migrated. My pen always runs away, in writing to you; and a most unsteady, vilely bad pace it goes. What would I not give to write simple English, without having to rewrite and rewrite every sentence.

LETTER 317. TO J.D. HOOKER. Friday [June 29th, 1845].

I have been an ungrateful dog for not having answered your letter sooner, but I have been so hard at work correcting proofs (317/1. The second edition of the ”Journal.”), together with some unwellness, that I have not had one quarter of an hour to spare. I finally corrected the first third of the old volume, which will appear on July 1st. I hope and think I have somewhat improved it. Very many thanks for your remarks; some of them came too late to make me put some of my remarks more cautiously. I feel, however, still inclined to abide by my evaporation notion to account for the clouds of steam, which rise from the wooded valleys after rain. Again, I am so obstinate that I should require very good evidence to make me believe that there are two species of Polyborus (317/2. Polyborus Novae Zelandiae, a carrion hawk mentioned as very common in the Falklands.) in the Falkland Islands. Do the Gauchos there admit it? Much as I talked to them, they never alluded to such a fact.

In the Zoology I have discussed the s.e.xual and immature plumage, which differ much.

I return the enclosed agreeable letter with many thanks. I am extremely glad of the plants collected at St. Paul's, and shall be particularly curious whenever they arrive to hear what they are. I dined the other day at Sir J. Lubbock's, and met R. Brown, and we had much laudatory talk about you. He spoke very nicely about your motives in now going to Edinburgh. He did not seem to know, and was much surprised at what I stated (I believe correctly) on the close relation between the Kerguelen and T. del Fuego floras. Forbes is doing apparently very good work about the introduction and distribution of plants. He has forestalled me in what I had hoped would have been an interesting discussion--viz., on the relation between the present alpine and Arctic floras, with connection to the last change of climate from Arctic to temperate, when the then Arctic lowland plants must have been driven up the mountains. (317/3.

Forbes' Essay ”On the Connection between the Distribution of the Existing Fauna and Flora of the British Isles and the Geological Changes which have affected their Area,” was published in 1846. See note, Letter 20.)

I am much pleased to hear of the pleasant reception you received at Edinburgh. (317/4. Sir J.D. Hooker was a candidate for the Chair of Botany at Edinburgh. See ”Life and Letters,” I., pages 335, 342.) I hope your impressions will continue agreeable; my a.s.sociations with auld Reekie are very friendly. Do you ever see Dr. Coldstream? If you do, would you give him my kind remembrances? You ask about amber. I believe all the species are extinct (i.e. without the amber has been doctored), and certainly the greater number are. (317/5. For an account of plants in amber see Goeppert and Berendt, ”Der Bernstein und die in ihm befindlichen Pflanzenreste der Vorwelt,” Berlin, 1845; Goeppert, ”Coniferen des Bernstein,” Danzig, 1883; Conwentz, ”Monographie der Baltischen Bernsteinbaume,” Danzig, 1890.)

If you have any other corrections ready, will you send them soon, for I shall go to press with second Part in less than a week. I have been so busy that I have not yet begun d'Urville, and have read only first chapter of Canary Islands! I am most particularly obliged to you for having lent me the latter, for I know not where else I could have ever borrowed it. There is the ”Kosmos” to read, and Lyell's ”Travels in North America.” It is awful to think of how much there is to read. What makes H. Watson a renegade? I had a talk with Captain Beaufort the other day, and he charged me to keep a book and enter anything which occurred to me, which deserved examination or collection in any part of the world, and he would sooner or later get it in the instructions to some s.h.i.+p. If anything occurs to you let me hear, for in the course of a month or two I must write out something. I mean to urge collections of all kinds on any isolated islands. I suspect that there are several in the northern half of the Pacific, which have never been visited by a collector. This is a dull, untidy letter. Farewell.

As you care so much for insular floras, are you aware that I collected all in flower on the Abrolhos Islands? but they are very near the coast of Brazil. Nevertheless, I think they ought to be just looked at, under a geographical point of view.

LETTER 318. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, November [1845].

I have just got as far as Lycopodium in your Flora, and, in truth, cannot say enough how much I have been interested in all your scattered remarks. I am delighted to have in print many of the statements which you made in your letters to me, when we were discussing some of the geographical points. I can never cease marvelling at the similarity of the Antarctic floras: it is wonderful. I hope you will tabulate all your results, and put prominently what you allude to (and what is pre-eminently wanted by non-botanists like myself), which of the genera are, and which not, found in the lowland or in the highland Tropics, as far as known. Out of the very many new observations to me, nothing has surprised me more than the absence of Alpine floras in the S[outh]

Islands. (318/1. See ”Flora Antarctica,” I., page 79, where the author says that ”in the South...on ascending the mountains, few or no new forms occur.” With regard to the Sandwich Islands, Sir Joseph wrote (page 75) that ”though the volcanic islands of the Sandwich group attain a greater elevation than this [10,000 feet], there is no such development of new species at the upper level.” More recent statements to the same effect occur in Grisebach, ”Vegetation der Erde,” Volume II., page 530. See also Wallace, ”Island Life,” page 307.) It strikes me as most inexplicable. Do you feel sure about the similar absence in the Sandwich group? Is it not opposed quite to the case of Teneriffe and Madeira, and Mediterranean Islands? I had fancied that T. del Fuego had possessed a large alpine flora! I should much like to know whether the climate of north New Zealand is much more insular than Tasmania. I should doubt it from general appearance of places, and yet I presume the flora of the former is far more scanty than of Tasmania. Do tell me what you think on this point. I have also been particularly interested by all your remarks on variation, affinities, etc.: in short, your book has been to me a most valuable one, and I must have purchased it had you not most kindly given it, and so rendered it even far more valuable to me.

When you compare a species to another, you sometimes do not mention the station of the latter (it being, I presume, well-known), but to non-botanists such words of explanation would add greatly to the interest--not that non-botanists have any claim at all for such explanations in professedly botanical works. There is one expression which you botanists often use (though, I think, not you individually often), which puts me in a pa.s.sion--viz., calling polleniferous flowers ”sterile,” as non-seed-bearing. (318/2. See Letter 16.) Are the plates from your own drawings? They strike me as excellent. So now you have had my presumptuous commendations on your great work.

LETTER 319. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, Friday [1845-6].

It is quite curious how our opinions agree about Forbes' views. (319/1.

See Letter 20.) I was very glad to have your last letter, which was even more valuable to me than most of yours are, and that is saying, I a.s.sure you, a great deal. I had written to Forbes to object about the Azores (319/2. Edward Forbes supposed that the Azores, the Madeiras, and Canaries ”are the last remaining fragments” of a continent which once connected them with Western Europe and Northern Spain. Lyell's ”Principles,” Edition XI., Volume II., page 410. See Forbes, op. cit.) on the same grounds as you had, and he made some answer, which partially satisfied me, but really I am so stupid I cannot remember it. He insisted strongly on the fewness of the species absolutely peculiar to the Azores--most of the non-European species being common to Madeira. I had thought that a good sprinkling were absolutely peculiar. Till I saw him last Wednesday I thought he had not a leg to stand on in his geology about his post-Miocene land; and his reasons, upon reflection, seem rather weak: the main one is that there are no deposits (more recent than the Miocene age) on the Miocene strata of Malta, etc., but I feel pretty sure that this cannot be trusted as evidence that Malta must have been above water during all the post-Miocene period. He had one other reason, to my mind still less trustworthy. I had also written to Forbes, before your letter, objecting to the Sarga.s.sum (319/3. Edward Forbes supposed that the Sarga.s.sum or Gulf-weed represents the littoral sea-weeds of a now submerged continent. ”Mem. Geol. Survey Great Britain,” Volume I., 1846, page 349. See Lyell's ”Principles,” II., page 396, Edition XI.), but apparently on wrong grounds, for I could see no reason, on the common view of absolute creations, why one Fucus should not have been created for the ocean, as well as several Confervae for the same end. It is really a pity that Forbes is quite so speculative: he will injure his reputation, anyhow, on the Continent; and thus will do less good. I find this is the opinion of Falconer, who was with us on Sunday, and was extremely agreeable. It is wonderful how much heterogeneous information he has about all sorts of things. I the more regret Forbes cannot more satisfactorily prove his views, as I heartily wish they were established, and to a limited extent I fully believe they are true; but his boldness is astounding. Do I understand your letter right, that West Africa (319/4. This is of course a misunderstanding.) and Java belong to the same botanical region--i.e., that they have many non-littoral species in common? If so, it is a sickening fact: think of the distance with the Indian Ocean interposed! Do some time answer me this. With respect to polymorphism, which you have been so very kind as to give me so much information on, I am quite convinced it must be given up in the sense you have discussed it in; but from such cases as the Galapagos birds and from hypothetical notions on variation, I should be very glad to know whether it must be given up in a slightly different point of view; that is, whether the peculiar insular species are generally well and strongly distinguishable from the species on the nearest continent (when there is a continent near); the Galapagos, Canary Islands, and Madeira ought to answer this. I should have hypothetically expected that a good many species would have been fine ones, like some of the Galapagos birds, and still more so on the different islands of such groups.

I am going to ask you some questions, but I should really sometimes almost be glad if you did not answer me for a long time, or not at all, for in honest truth I am often ashamed at, and marvel at, your kindness in writing such long letters to me. So I beg you to mind, never to write to me when it bores you. Do you know ”Elements de Teratologie (on monsters, I believe) Vegetale,” par A. Moquin Tandon”? (319/5.

Paris, 1841.) Is it a good book, and will it treat on hereditary malconformations or varieties? I have almost finished the tremendous task of 850 pages of A. St. Hilaire's Lectures (319/6. ”Lecons de Botanique,” 1841.), which you set me, and very glad I am that you told me to read it, for I have been much interested with parts. Certain expressions which run through the whole work put me in a pa.s.sion: thus I take, at hazard, ”la plante n'etait pas tout a fait a.s.sEZ AFFAIBLIE pour produire de veritables carpelles.” Every organ or part concerned in reproduction--that highest end of all lower organisms--is, according to this man, produced by a lesser or greater degree of ”affaibliss.e.m.e.nt”; and if that is not an AFFAIBLISs.e.m.e.nT of language, I don't know what is.

I have used an expression here, which leads me to ask another question: on what sort of grounds do botanists make one family of plants higher than another? I can see that the simplest cryptogamic are lowest, and I suppose, from their relations, the monocotyledonous come next; but how in the different families of the dicotyledons? The point seems to me equally obscure in many races of animals, and I know not how to tell whether a bee or cicindela is highest. (319/7. On use of terms ”high”

and ”low” see Letters 36 and 70.) I see Aug. Hilaire uses a multiplicity of parts--several circles of stamens, etc.--as evidence of the highness of the Ranunculaceae; now Owen has truly, as I believe, used the same argument to show the lowness of some animals, and has established the proposition, that the fewer the number of any organ, as legs or wings or teeth, by which the same end is gained, the higher the animal. One other question. Hilaire says (page 572) that ”chez une foule de plantes c'est dans le bouton,” that impregnation takes place. He instances only Goodenia (319/8. For letters on this point, see Index s.v. Goodenia.), and Falconer cannot recollect any cases. Do you know any of this ”foule”

of plants? From reasons, little better than hypothetical, I greatly mis...o...b.. the accuracy of this, presumptuous as it is; that plants shed their pollen in the bud is, of course, quite a different story. Can you illuminate me? Henslow will send the Galapagos sc.r.a.ps to you. I direct this to Kew, as I suppose, after your sister's marriage (on which I beg to send you my congratulations), you will return home.

There are great fears that Falconer will have to go out to India--this will be a grievous loss to Palaeontology.

LETTER 320. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, April 10th [1846].

I was much pleased to see and sign your certificate for the Geolog[ical Society]; we shall thus occasionally, I hope, meet. (320/1. Sir Joseph was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society in 1846.)

I have been an ungrateful dog not to have thanked you before this for the cake and books. The children and their betters p.r.o.nounced the former excellent, and Annie wanted to know whether it was the gentleman ”what played with us so.” I wish we were at a more reasonable distance, that Emma and myself could have called on Lady Hooker with our congratulations on this occasion. It was very good of you to put in both numbers of the ”Hort. Journal.” I think Dean Herbert's article well worth reading. I have been so extravagant as to order M[oquin] Tandon (320/2. Probably ”Elements de Teratologie Vegetale”: Paris, 1841.), for though I have not found, as yet, anything particularly novel or striking, yet I found that I wished to score a good many pa.s.sages so as to re-read them at some future time, and hence have ordered the book.