From J. D. Hooker [26 or 27 February 1866]1
Dear Darwin
You may care to see the last paragraph of enclosed from John Scott— I hope he has repaid you your money loan.2
I had a long talk with Lyell3 on Sunday— he wants to see my last to you—4 I fear I made some allusion to Busks that may not be showable5—not that there was anything in the letter otherwise worth his seeing. His head is full of Summer apogees, & winter perigees & precession of the Equinoxes & God knows what all. By way of making matters worse, I gave him a dose of radiant-heat, humidity & absorption of Caloric, which will muddle the effect of his astronomical causes of heat & cold on the Globe.6
Poor Harvey is very ill indeed of hæmorrhage from the lungs & I fear we shall lose him.7
I am still very busy in the Garden & hardly ever stir from Kew.8
Ever Yr affte | J D Hooker
[Enclosure]
Royal Botanic Gardens | Calcutta 22d January 1866
Sir,
Dr. Anderson who, I regret to say, has been suffering much of late from attacks of inflammation in the liver with fever, desired me previous to his leaving for Moulmein—where he has been advised to go for a few weeks—to advise you of the despatch of a dry box of plants containing the enclosed enumeration.9
Coelogyne Hookeriana we had sent us only a few weeks ago from Sikkim, and have only retained a few pseudo-bulbs for trial here, as I think there are small hopes of us succeeding in keeping them through our hot season.10 Even now they are impatient to the heat,—a good omen to the cool culturist at home—showing an inaptitude to climate, by a premature disposition to flower and the withering and dropping of these without opening.
I have sent you a few of the Bengal terrestrial orchids11—all my present stock in [pots]—having only lately commenced collecting these with a view to the establishment of an indigenous and exotic herbaceous garden, which Dr. Anderson has long wished to have… In one of the small tins enclosed are seeds of two species of Calami—12 those in the upper portion are C. Jenkinsianus Griff. collected this season by Dr. Anderson in the Terai—13 in the lower portion you have seeds from an unnamed species in our gardens. It seems to approach very closely to, if not identical with C. Lewisianus Griff.—a truly magnificent species though perhaps requiring a little more room than you can well spare. I have already succeeded in raising plants from the same produce as seeds sent you, and am much interested with them under the impression that they are in all probability hybrids—the seeds being produced in a plant with which a male plant of another noble and distinct species, C. angustifolius Griff., is entangled and both of which flowered at the same time,—and likewise at some distance from any others.
I have sent you three young plants of Nipa, along with the ungerminated seed. I wished to have sent you more in the latter state, but as I had only your list of desiderata on the day of packing, there was little time to search for them, and my collectors said that they could find no others ungerminated. I with some hesitation enclosed you three of the youngest in slightly moistened charcoal, trusting that they are sufficiently secured to prevent communicating damp to the other contents. It will be well therefore to get the box secured as early as possible after the arrival of the mail in case of injury by frost.
I would now only express my sincere thanks for the very excellent appointment which through your recommendation has been made me,14 and should further feel obliged by your remembering me at your convenience, to my esteemed benefactor, Mr. Darwin, whom—from the press of incumbent duties, and a consequent want of time to pursue those experimental enquiries in which he takes such a lively interest, I have not lately had the pleasure of communicating with.15
I remain | Sir | Yours respectfully | J Scott
J. D. Hooker Esq. M.D.
Footnotes
Bibliography
Columbia gazetteer of the world: The Columbia gazetteer of the world. Edited by Saul B. Cohen. 3 vols. New York: Columbia University Press. 1998.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
DNB: Dictionary of national biography. Edited by Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee. 63 vols. and 2 supplements (6 vols.). London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1912. Dictionary of national biography 1912–90. Edited by H. W. C. Davis et al. 9 vols. London: Oxford University Press. 1927–96.
Fleming, James Rodger. 1998. Charles Lyell and climatic change: speculation and certainty. In Lyell: the past is the key to the present, edited by Derek J. Blundell and Andrew C. Scott. London: Geological Society.
Lyell, Charles. 1867–8. Principles of geology or the modern changes of the earth and its inhabitants considered as illustrative of geology. 10th edition. 2 vols. London: John Murray.
OED: The Oxford English dictionary. Being a corrected re-issue with an introduction, supplement and bibliography of a new English dictionary. Edited by James A. H. Murray, et al. 12 vols. and supplement. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1970. A supplement to the Oxford English dictionary. 4 vols. Edited by R. W. Burchfield. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1972–86. The Oxford English dictionary. 2d edition. 20 vols. Prepared by J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1989. Oxford English dictionary additional series. 3 vols. Edited by John Simpson et al. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1993–7.
Summary
Lyell wants to see JDH’s last letter [the part on glacial periods]. Lyell full of concern about astronomical causes of heat and cold on the globe.
Encloses letter from John Scott.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-5017
- From
- Joseph Dalton Hooker
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- unstated
- Source of text
- DAR 102: 65–6; Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (Directors’ Correspondence 156: 1048)
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp encl 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 5017,” accessed on 26 September 2022, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-5017.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 14
