JDH writes to Sir William Turner Thiselton-Dyer from Castellammare, where he & Lady Hooker have just arrived after spending some time in Rome & Naples. At Naples he visited [Anton] Dohrn's aquarium. He describes some animals of particular interest he saw there: Crinoids, Sepia [cuttlefish], Octopus & Loligo [squid]. He also mentions seeing fish, Ascidia, Corals, Madrepores, Melobesias, Diptera, Beroe, Crustacea, Meduseus & Ulva. In the Naples museum JDH admired the statuary especially a head of Homer & a Venus after Milo. He found the collection of paintings inferior to those at the Vatican & preferred the murals & artefacts from Pompeii, especially: a pane of glass, a surgeon's instrument, a glass plate & a blue glass flagon. JDH has visited Pompeii & tried to understand exactly how it was preserved by the volcanic eruption, he is puzzled why there are not more charcoal remains of the wooden upper stories of buildings & speculates that the town was only partially buried & the exposed material later carried away. Castellammare is where Pliny the elder died during the eruption. JDH is keen to see Herculaneum & understand how its artefacts were not all destroyed by the lava. He also wanted to see Professor Luigi Palmieri at the observatory on Vesuvius but Palmieri is in Rome. JDH intends to ascend Vesuvius the next day. JDH visited the Naples botanical garden but did not see Vincenzo de Cesati or Giuseppe Antonio Pasquale. JDH calls the garden 'wretched' but he did learn something there about Mediterranean Pini. JDH will next go to Amalfi, Salerno & Paestum but not to Capri or Monte St Angelo because of the poor weather. Odoardo Beccari was in Rome appealing against the removal of a herbarium in Florence. JDH comments on the news of Mrs Meade's death & on the poor botanical knowledge of Sir John Lubbock. JDH has asked [John] Smith to give Dyer a list of all RBG Kew garden staff. JDH comments briefly on vegetation in the area, including sour oranges.
JDH informs Sir William Turner Thiselton-Dyer that he has asked [John] Smith to send William Govett Romaine some green house things, Romaine was helpful to RBG Kew as Secretary of the Admiralty. JDH mentions some correspondence with Sir Charles Wyville Thomson. Since last writing JDH & his wife [Hyacinth Hooker] have been to Amalfi, Sorrento, Paestum & up Vesuvius & have visited Anton Dohrn's aquarium & museum in Naples. Next they will go to Rome & Florence. JDH has also written to Reverend William Samuel Symonds & his son 'Willy' [William Henslow Hooker]. Letters can be addressed to JDH as follows: Maquai, Hooker &c Care of Bankers.
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JDH writes to Sir William Turner Thiselton-Dyer from Florence, about visiting [Anton] Dohrn's laboratory at Naples. He was interested in their method of rearing fish, molluscs & ascidians & impressed by the library. Dohrn gets little investment from England but is more concerned by lack of interest from the United States of America. The lab has a room for selling microscopic preparations & a popular aquarium. Lady [Hyacinth] Hooker has visited Mrs Dohrn. JDH got tired of sightseeing in Rome, he admires the Christian builders for turning material from temples into churches but thinks the original buildings were probably more impressive. He marvels at how lifelike he found bronze sculptures compared to those of marble. But the dying gladiator in marble at the Vatican is the most impressive sculpture JDH has ever seen. At the Vatican he also admired Raphael's 'Transfiguration' but in general was not impressed with the paintings & frescos of Rome. Though some of the old Roman paintings are fine, he suspects there were greater ancient Greek masterpieces in paint that have not survived. He saw some Etruscan artefacts at Cortona including painting of a muse quite unlike the Etruscan frescoes found at Orvieto, which closely resemble those of Pompeii. JDH describes his impressions of St Peter's Basilica, especially the mosaic inside the dome, which he compares to the dome of the Duomo & St Paul's in London. JDH was already familiar with the ancient arches & colosseum from the renderings of Piranesi & Panini, so they had less impact. Mentions visiting Tivoli & the crater lake at Albano. Writes of a Trappist monastery he visited in the Campania, where Eucalyptus is credited with curing fever & the land is cultivated by monks & convicts. He mentions various works being done at RBG Kew including dragging the lake, & the care of Araucaria rulei. JDH comments on the need for reform in the Linnean Society, he does not want to be the chair & Lubbock will do no harm in that role.
JDH sympathises with Sir William Turner Thiselton-Dyer's suffering with ague. JDH has seen the sights in Venice & is leaving for Milan & then Zurich via the Lakes & St Gotthard pass. After visiting [Oswald?] Heer JDH will go to Paris & stay at the Hotel St Romains, Rue St Roch. JDH is tired of looking at churches & Madonas but was more impressed even than on previous visits by the grandeur of Venetian art. Titian's 'Assumption' & 'Presentation' are the finest paintings JDH has ever seen. JDH & his party also visited Florence & Sienna with the Miss Horners & Annie Parry & met the Miss Cobdens, also Bologna & Ravenna. The famous pine forest, Pinus pinea, had been killed by the cold of 1879 to 1880 & the devastation reminded JDH of the great Eucalyptus forest of the subalpine plateaus in Tasmania, killed off in 1835. JDH reports that the weather has been fair but cold. The Grays [Asa & Jane] have been enjoying the trip, commetns particularly on Jane Gray's enthusiasm for churches and art. Her brother [General Charles C. Loring] is keeper of the Boston Art Museum. JDH gives instructions for how WTTD can get I touch if he needs JDH.
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Has struggled for months with complexity of structure and distribution of palms for Genera plantarum.
At 63 JDH still works hard to support his family. Many friends have died. Memories of times past spent with CD lift his pessimism.
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Outlines address to York BAAS meeting on history of geographical distribution. Organising theme: advancement in this science based on ideas enunciated by scientific voyagers. Asks CD’s advice.
Working on York BAAS address; finds CD’s comments helpful. JDH writes detailed response and expansion.
Is making final preparations for his address [at York BAAS meeting] and questions CD on specific points.
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Condolences on death of CD’s brother Erasmus. Recalls first meeting CD in Erasmus’ rooms over 40 years ago.
JDH writes to Sir William Turner Thiselton-Dyer about the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, which he is attending in York. He reports that John Lubbock's address was well received & that Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant-Duff is present but unwell. JDH's section of the meeting, on geography, has had some bad papers & speakers, he mentions particularly Trelawney Saunders. A polemical sermon was given at the meeting by the Bishop of Manchester, which JDH felt unnecessary as nobody had 'trodden on toes theological'. He also criticizes Osbourne Reynolds' lecture on rain & hail.
Comte de Paris requests an orchid from CD for his huge collection.
JDH responds to CD’s criticism of York address.
Arruda Furtado could work on mystery of buried cypress trunks in the Azores.
JDH informs Sir William Turner Thiselton-Dyer [WTTD] of various deliveries & correspondence received or anticipated at RBG Kew & notifies him of RBG Kew plants received elsewhere. Some Madras matting has come for John Reader Jackson [of the RBG Kew museum]. JDH has sent some things to Regel. Treub has received his case & is returning it to RBG Kew filled with Dischidia rafflesiana & Kaulfussia. Daniel Morris written, announcing the safe arrival of 2 Wardian Cases from Nancy & expressing his pleasure at the growth of Landolphias in Jamaica. Mr [Johannes Eugenius Bulow] Warming is sending dried Cycad leaves for WTTD, Cameron is sending C. circinalis from the jungles of Deecan, & Kirk a box of bulbs. Arenga saccharifera arrived in the Bahamas in good condition. The Athens Consul is sending Salvia apples from [Theodor Heinrich Hermann von] Heldreich & a footstool of stems of Ferula communis. Alfred Russel Wallace is sending some more Herbaceous plants. JDH declined to supply the Jamaica men with outfits on the behalf of the C.O. [Colonial Office?]. King's cases have arrived but only Magnolia sphenocarpa is in a fit state. Espeut is angling for RBG Kew to recommend his bananas. Henry Trimen has written complaining about his staffing problems at 'Haggalla' [Hakgala] Garden; where Clarke is ill with Typhus. Horne has sent WTTD a copy of his new book. Frederick Currey has died, he left his fungi to RBG Kew.
JDH writes to Sir William Turner Thiselton-Dyer [WTTD], who is in Gavernie, [France]. Since WTTD left, RBG Kew has had many visitors: the French Royal family including JDH's 'old acquaintances' the Comte de Paris & Duc de Chartres, also [George] Bentham's family & Madame Ragnal. The death of [Algernon Freeman-] Mitford's father in law in Denver, Colorado will delay Mitford coming to RBG Kew. Reports that the Palms in the Palm House have recovered after over heating. A box of Cycad leaves has arrived for WTTD from Denmark also Bangalore Cycas specimens from Cameron & 2 cases of palms from Thornton. [Ferdinand von] Mueller, whom JDH calls 'little better than a lunatic', sent some Andersonias; blue flowered Epacridaceae to be figured in the Magazine [CURTIS'S BTOANICAL MAGAZINE?] but all arrived dead. JDH summarises his correspondence with Maw regarding rock gardens. John Smith, [Kew Curator] will soon return from Cornwall, but he need not as JDH gets on well with his deputy George Nicholson & William Watson is also doing well. JDH, in agreement with Walters, has dismissed 2 lads he found messing around in the Palm House. [William] Nock has not yet turned up [at Hakgala, Sri Lanka]. [James] Zohrab has visited RBG Kew, he expects to go to St Thomas, [Danish West Indies, now the United States Virgin Islands]. JDH has not received the 'Report' & has written to Reid. JDH gathers from the newspapers that Colonel Johnston is in India. JDH hopes that Watt will go to Manipur. JDH describes what a struggle it has been for him & his father, William Jackson Hooker, to develop the RBG Kew herbarium over the last 40 years, with the British Museum [of Natural History] as an impediment. Things have improved for Henry Trimen at Hakgala Garden, [Sri Lanka], & he has received the Landolphias & Cinchonas. [Daniel] Morris also received his cases in good order. JDH is working hard in the arboretum & praises Nicholson's work there. JDH must give his list of palm genera to [George] Bentham.