From Joseph Hooker¹    2 March 1896

March 2 /96

The Camp.

Sunningdale .

My dear Baron

I have not yet thanked you for your [acceptable] letter of the New Year,² with its kind felicitations, which I cordially accept & respond to.

Only today I have received your Address³ to the Geograph. Sect. of the Australn. Ass. for A. of Sc. ⁴ at Brisbane. I have read it with very great pleasure & hot interest. It is capital, & worthy of you; so full of sound matter & of sound sense, & all so well put, that one "runs as one accord"; & what a store of information it contains. The summary of a world's ways & means from an antipodeal point of view, & that a British standpoint, is verily refreshing, & makes one's blood course faster. Thank you very much for it & its contents .

You may guess how doubly welcome your letter was, when I tell you that it as yet the only intimation I hear of Brian's⁵ discovery of mercury at Coolgardie.⁶ I had heard from him only very shortly before (I suppose) the happy find. He told me that he had a good billet as manager of the "White Feather mine" with £600 a year.

I am still struggling with the Indian Grasses, & Stapf is preparing the same order for the Flora of Trop. Africa & of S. Africa;⁷ so we have much work in common. That benefits us both. The chaotic condition of the African Grasses in the Herbarium is inconceivable, & I only wish that I could withhold publication till Stapf's work is over, for I can foresee that his work will throw great light on the Indian that cannot appear till his is completed.

I am also busy with Banks' narrative, which necessitates a great deal of work in detail.⁸ Happily I am actively assisted in this by my son Reginald (now in the Agricult. Dept), as to which appt I thank you heartily for your kind congratulations.⁹ I shall have excellent portraits of Banks from that in the R. Sy.¹⁰ Rooms, & of Solander from that in the Lin Socy¹¹ Rooms. The valuable feature of the work is, the revealing¹² Banks' his right place as a "working naturalist," the pioneer of the illustrious band of Naturalist Voyagers of which Darwin is the culminant. It nowhere appears in the accounts of Banks' life & work that he was a bona fide naturalist, in which respect Hawkesworth¹³ does him no justice. Banks was further the interpreter of the Expedition; the commissariat-officer so to speak; & the thief catcher to whose energy was due the recovery of the stolen Quadrants, but for which the Expedn would have been a failure. — In short but for Banks the results of Cook's voyage would have been confined to Geograph. discovery. — His subsequent position as the Maecenas of Science¹⁴ has eclipsed hitherto all he did in his early days as a scientific worker. Had he but published his collections what a mark he would have made in the scientific world proper! As it was he gave every one liberty to make use of them, & except for the fragment of the Botany published by Brown,¹⁵ there was nothing gained by those magnificent collections.

The conclusion of the "Index"¹⁶ was indeed a relief, for which, at my age, I am more thankful than I can express: for I had always the fear of Saturn's scythe¹⁷ at my heels during the long period of its gestation. In one's 79th year the inevitable stares one in the face so long as unfinished work is in hand — & so it is with the Indian Grasses,¹⁸ but as nearly half of this is printed I may hope to see it concluded by midsummer.

I still go three days a week to Kew, & work here for the rest of the week. The medallion of my father goes by next mail.

Ever sincerely yrs

Jos D Hooker.