From J. D. Hooker   24 July [1848]

Dear Darwin

I have but time to acknowlege the receipt of your excellent letter.1 most delighted I was to receive it. & will prepare an answer embodying much news on the points you direct attention to, from Hodgson—2 he is reading your journal with great delight & has given me some excellent pamphlets on breeds &c. for you from As. Soc. Jour.3 Do you know Pallas Memoir on degeneration of animals4 —a work not to be procured I suppose.—

I chiefly write to tell you that I never was in better health; have lost all my pains & ailments. Falconer has been very unwell—is better much—trying to commute English time into service.5 (i.e. washing Ethiop.6 &c)!.— How heartily I wish you were all well, & not only so little better as you announce yourself. Thats a startling fact about Barnacles ♂ ♀. I am rejoiced at your work progressing.

I will write you by next mail, but must break away now. Sincere regards to Mrs D. & love to the bairns

Yr affectionate friend | Jos D Hooker. July 24.

Dorjeeling due N. of Calcutta, 27o N., in Sikim Himalayah. [illeg] 40’ S. of crest of Himal. i.e of ⁠⟨⁠    ⁠⟩⁠ 28178 ft. now & now only known to be ⁠⟨⁠the h⁠⟩⁠ighest in the world!— The measurements of ⁠⟨⁠Sur⁠⟩⁠v. Gen. announced yesterday!!! were made last season7

2
Brian Houghton Hodgson, who became a close life-long friend of Hooker. Hooker was staying at Hodgson’s house in Darjeeling at this time (L. Huxley ed. 1918, 1: 248).
3
One of Hodgson’s papers on Indian domestic breeds from the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (Hodgson 1847) is in the Darwin Pamphlet Collection–CUL. It is lightly annotated.
4
Pallas 1780.
6
‘To wash an Ethiop (white): to attempt the impossible’ (OED).
7
In a letter to William Jackson Hooker, dated 19 July 1848 (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Indian Letters 1847–51: 93), Hooker stated: We heard of a grand discovery last night brought by the post—from Col Waugh the Surveyor-General—who was here last season measured the Snowy peaks but took his work away to calculate. he writes that the culminant peak 40 miles off due N. & opposite me is 28178 feet high: the highest mountain in the World! … I do hope to get to the Snow on this Giant yet, which rejoices in the name of Kinchin-junga. It was not until 1852 that the Indian Survey established that Chomolungma (Mount Everest) was the highest mountain in the Himalayas.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-1193,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-1193