To J. D. Hooker   11 March [1844]

My dear Hooker

I am truly pleased in every way at your grant; I hope & have no doubt, that it will give you more satisfaction than mine did me,¹ in as much as you will make a far worthier use of it— Pray never apologise for asking any question, which I can answer; it is a pleasure to me.— With all Sir William’s experience, you will have a good start in publication-affairs— I fear I cannot help you much.— I enclose (which keep as long as you like, but sometime return to me) 1^st. a paper (which read first) containing a scheme of my & Andrew Smith’s system of publication² 2^d rough copies of the account, sent in of 1^s class expences for each number to the Treasury, (which I accompanied by a letter vouching for their accuracy) 3^d a statement of sale & all expences of the Work, when it has more than half completed.— If you could get a sight of the Zoology of Beagle in the numbers, you could then see the cost of each Part.—³ The Drawing is included in the engraving.— Colouring is the heaviest of the second-class expences. If the work had sold well (I think now between 150 & 200 copies are sold) money w^d have been realised for further publication.— I am publishing my geology on the credit of the stock in hand.— If you want any other information, I could give you a note to Smith & Elder & I am sure they w^d give you all information— I have found Smith & Elder a most pleasant, fair, attentive, & obliging firm to have any business with.— You will manage wonderfully well if you produce 500 Plates & any letter press for the grant. Let me caution you, that you will find expences increase beyond any estimate; always bear this in mind.

I sent on Saturday my volumcito to you by Deliverance Company; it is purely geological.—⁴

If you have any further doubts about Malden Is^d. you had better consult Krusentern’s Mem: on the Pacific,⁵ which probably you know—it is in Geograph. Soc.— How capital & satisfactory your conclusions made unknown to yourself about the Flora of this island.

In the Flora of the Pacific, I sh^d think, judging from shells, that the great open space of water between the Low or Dangerous Archipelago & the American coast, was the dividing line; it is wonderfully so with the sea-shells.—⁶

The supposed Asiatic character of the Flora of Oceania, I had thought was connected with the heavy gales, or almost hurricanes, coming from that quarter & being opposed to the trade-winds; not that I suppose the actual species have been transported; but the possibility of communication seems to produce affinity in the organic beings of two regions. If you will look at the map in my Coral-volume, you will see that probably much more land existed within geologically recent times than now exists.—

To return, I know that an artist can almost immediately learn to draw on Lithographic stones.— I believe Hullmandell is a good Lithog. printer; but I found him rather troublesome.⁷

I forgot to tell you before that D^r. Boott has (I believe) all the Carex’s which I collected, & I think one remarkable one from the Galapagos:⁸ he no doubt w^d inform you or lend the specimens, if he still has them.— I do not suppose I paid much attention to collecting the grasses at the Galapagos.— I think I told you there are no large Ferns or Palms or Palmettos. With respect to the different isl^d having different species, the main point appears to me, whether any two or three islands have close representative species of the same genus; the simple fact of one isl^d having a species & another isl^d not having it is far less wonderful. How curious is the distribution in this latter sense of the terrestrial Amblyrhynchus.— The tree Compositæ were, I think, all, certainly most, from the summits of the Isl^ds: do not, pray, forget my question of the summits in these cases, having the most peculiar Flora.—

I suppose you will consider Juan Fernandez: Has not Bertero, in his list in Silliman’s Journal,⁹ published a list of plants of this isl^d? I think M. Gay has also written on this isl^d.—¹⁰ I presume you have Endlicher’s Flora of Norfolk Is^d;¹¹ otherwise I c^d lend it you for any time.—

I must have some more thinking over your curious remarks on distribution of large genera; you have put the case rather differently from that which I had intended; but I will sometime trouble you with another letter. Excuse this untidy letter; as I am not well.

Yours ever | C. Darwin