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From J. D. Hooker   19 October 1877

Kew

Octr. 19/77.

Dear Darwin

I have just got back to Kew & the 2d letter I opened was from your Willy giving me the joyful news of his engagement.1 I am indeed glad of it & congratulate you & him & all of you most warmly. I met Miss Sedgwicks sister (I believe) at Cambridge Massts on the penultimate evening of my being in America & can well imagine how nice any sister of her’s may be. I saw a good deal of Mr Norton too—who is in much better health & sent affectionate remembrances, many & warm, to all at Down2

I have indeed had a splendid journey; & thanks to A. Gray a most profitable one.— nothing could or can ever reach his unwearied exertions to make me master of all I saw throughout the breadth & not a little of the length of the U. States. The Geog. distrib of the Flora is wonderfully interesting & its very outlines are not yet drawn. We have materials for a most interesting Essay. I have brought home upwards of 1000 species of dried specimens for comparison of the Rocky mts & Sierra Nevada & Coast range Floras.—an investigation of which should give the key to the American Flora migrations.3

I heard a Report at Boston of Mr Litchfield being very ill abroad, but know no more & William says nothing of it.4

As usual with me when at Sea I caught the Equinoctials & we had the longest Eastward Voyage that the Captn. had ever known! 13 days of heavy contrary gales & a high sea continuously, from Boston Harbor to Cork!

Dyer has done uncommonly well in my absence.—& goes for the last 3 quarters of his honeymoon on Monday.5 Crowds of people asked for you in America:—so pray accept the national greetings through me for I can’t individualize.

Ever affy yrs | J D Hooker

Footnotes

1
Hooker had been on a three-month botanical trip in America (L. Huxley ed. 1918, 2: 204–17). William Erasmus Darwin was engaged to Sara Sedgwick at the end of September (see letter to Sara Sedgwick, 29 September [1877]).
2
Probably Sara Sedgwick’s sister Theodora. Charles Eliot Norton had been married to Susan Ridley Sedgwick; the Nortons had visited Down several times in 1868 and 1869 (see letter to C. E. Norton, 16 March 1877 and nn. 3 and 4).
3
Hooker had travelled with Asa Gray in July and August 1877, studying North American plant distribution (L. Huxley ed. 1918, 2: 205–15). The results of their botanical investigations were published in J. D. Hooker and Gray 1880.
4
Richard Buckley Litchfield had developed acute appendicitis while travelling in Switzerland in September 1877 (see letter to H. E. Litchfield, 4 October [1877] and n. 2); Hooker may have learned of Litchfield’s illness from Norton or Theodora Sedgwick (see n. 2, above), who could have heard the news from Sara Sedgwick or William.
5
William Turner Thiselton-Dyer had married Hooker’s daughter Harriet Anne on 23 June 1877; they had only one week of honeymoon before having to return to Kew so that Thiselton-Dyer could oversee the botanic gardens during Hooker’s trip to America (L. Huxley ed. 1918, 2: 206).

Summary

JDH has just returned from U. S., where he worked on N. American geographical distribution with Asa Gray.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-11190
From
Joseph Dalton Hooker
To
Charles Robert Darwin
Sent from
Kew
Source of text
DAR 104: 95–6
Physical description
ALS 4pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 11190,” accessed on 20 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-11190.xml

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