To J. D. Hooker   [15 or 22 August 1845]1

Down Bromley Kent

Friday

My dear Hooker

I have just received your note: I am sincerely sorry to hear of the state of your venerable grandfather:2 I trust his suffering is not great.—

I enclose the proofs; would you please look over the whole of the Galapagos Ch. as the vegetation is incidentally mentioned in two or three places: you can skip about the tortoises & lizards, tameness of birds which is as before; all the rest is much altered.— I have tryed to make it as little purely scientific as possible— I hope there are no material errors in the Botany part: the proofs have been revised once, but I have not time to look them over again before sending to you.— Wd. you please return them soon, as the Press waits for them.—3

I grieve to hear that the labels are displaced in my plants: I took the greatest care in this respect, whilst they were in my care.— I collected everything in flower in Patagonia & B. Blanca, which latter place I saw was intermediate in character between the N. & S.—

Pray of course send my C. Verd plants & any others whither you like.— I have no separate catalogue of plants, but if you will send me the numbers, in a row I will gladly fill up the localities.—

I know nothing of the C. Pigeon.—

You are most kind to think of giving me a copy of your work:4 but seriously there must be many botanists, on whom it wd. be better bestowed, though none, who will be better pleased at the offer: now I beg you to have no scruples, & keep it & give it to some Botanist if such shd. occur to you: again I thank you.—

I am so stupid, that I forget which way you prefer parcels being sent to you.— I will then return d’Urville &c.— Can you allow me to keep a fortnight or 3 weeks longer Webb & Berthelot;5 I have been so worked with my Journal, that I have not had strength to read it.—

Will you also excuse me having put some pencil-scores to the pamphlet on l’Espèce,6 & will you leave them unrubbed out: so that I cd hereafter borrow it again: the passages do not strike me as worth copying & yet I shd. like hereafter to refresh my memory with them.—

Remember you shall have a copy of my Journal, when complete.

Ever my dear Hooker | Most truly yours | C. Darwin

I heartily wish you success at Edinburgh;7 though it will carry you so far away.—

What a wonderful deal of work you are about!—

1
The conjectured dates are the two Fridays between the announcements of the deaths of Robert Graham and Joseph Hooker, see nn. 2 and 7, below.
2
Joseph Hooker died on 24 August 1845.
3
CD’s Galápagos chapter (Journal of researches 2d ed., pp. 372–401) was due to be published in the third and final number.
4
J. D. Hooker 1844–7.
5
Dumont d’Urville [1841–54], Webb and Berthelot 1836–50, vol. 3, pt 1.
6
Gérard 1844.
7
Robert Graham, whose students Hooker was teaching, died on 7 August 1845. Hooker became the Crown’s official nominee for the vacant professorship at Edinburgh University, competing against John Hutton Balfour, the Town Council’s nominee (Huxley ed. 1918, 1: 204–5).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

2.1 Ch.] interl
2.3 tameness of birds] interl
3.3 latter place] interl
4.1 & any others] interl
4.2 separate] above del ‘duplicate’
4.2 in a row] interl
4.3 gladly] interl
6.4 if such … to you] interl
7.2 then] interl
7.2 fortnight] after del ‘wee’
8.2 unrubbed out] interl
12.1 deal] ‘l’ over ‘d’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-900,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-900