Letter and/or further information available at http://jdh.aetopia.net/p/jdh?q=jhc388.
Please cite as “JHC388,” in Ɛpsilon: The Joseph Dalton Hooker Collection accessed on 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/hooker/letters/JHC388
JDH describes his impressions of Sir W. Stirling Maxwell's home at Keir near Stirling, [Scotland], including the interiors of the house, the library & art collections, & garden design & management. JDH is grateful to learn from Sir William Turner Thiselton-Dyer that the Hevea [rubber] matter is settled. He is uncertain what to do about Prestoe's affairs. JDH thanks WTTD for signing cheques for his daughter [Harriet Hooker later Thiselton-Dyer]. JDH approves of WTTD going to the Hereford Fungus Show to maintain RBG Kew's profile. Mentions a Mr Phillips & the British Museum buying Nylander's collection of herbarium specimens. RBG Kew, through Daniel Oliver, should co-ordinate the fungi they are buying with Berkeley so they do not duplicate. Discusses replacing Gammie & Hartog, the latter [as Assistant Director of Peradeniya Botanic Garden] possibly with Traill, thought JDH does not think that [George Henry Kendrick] Thwaites will be happy with anyone as his deputy. JDH is scathing of Edgeworth's work published in the Linnean Society Transactions, calling his species 'Chimaeras…seen in wood-cuts of SCIENCE GOSSIP' but advises WTTD to maintain silent contempt rather than denounce Edgeworth. JDH blames Curry & Allman [as officers of the Linnean Society] & W. Smith for not giving his opinion in writing to the Linnean Society Council. JDH notes that he is considering making his Royal Society address about fossil botany, with allusions to Williamson's papers & Hector's discoveries in New Zealand, Sapoteas & the question of temperate forests in arctic regions. He would also like to caution against introducing subjects such as spiritualism to scientific meetings.
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