From J. D. Hooker 24 May 1867
Kew
May 24/67
Dear Darwin
I do not go to Paris till next Saty or Sunday (tomorrow week)1 I am so glad that Barkly’s letter pleased you—2 I always feel a happier & a better man when I have added a mite to your knowledge.
I do not share your objection to continental extension because you must extend it to all Islands in every ocean— It was the old objection to Lyellism that it must be applied to the most horrid convulsions,— the highest Mountains & so forth. I forget how you account for the chalk in the middle of Great continents except by deep ocean there— & the Limestone fossils at 19000 ft in the Himalaya surely show a much greater continental change since the Silurian than you admit.3
Do not break your heart over your book whatever you do.4
My friend Hodgson, who has elected to live in a state of benighted ignorance saw somewhere a request of Agassiz for information on Domesticated animals, & asked me to give the accompanying (sent by post) to him in Paris!.— H. does not know that Agassiz is in America!—& I have told him that it is better in your hands.5
I shall not fail to come at Gooseberry season6
Ever Yr aff | J D Hooker
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
DAB: Dictionary of American biography. Under the auspices of the American Council of Learned Societies. 20 vols., index, and 10 supplements. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons; Simon & Schuster Macmillan. London: Oxford University Press; Humphrey Milford. 1928–95.
Desmond, Ray. 1999. Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, traveller and plant collector. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Antique Collectors’ Club with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
Summary
Does not share CD’s objection to continental extension, i.e., that it must be extended to every island in every ocean.
Sends paper on domesticated animals by Brian Hodgson [J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal 16 (1847): 1003–26].
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-5548
- From
- Joseph Dalton Hooker
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Kew
- Source of text
- DAR 102: 165–6
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 5548,” accessed on 19 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-5548.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 15