WCP3909

[1]¹

Broadstone, Wimborne

March 3rd. 1907

Sir Joseph Hooker,² G.C.S.I.

My dear Sir Joseph

You probably know that the R. S. has granted me £.10 towards the cost of copying Spruce's³ Letters & Journals. I do not think I should have got anything if it had not been for the kind recommendation of yourself and Sir C. Markham,⁴ on account of its not being for an exclusively scientific work. However, it covered the cost of copying the Kew Letters, & [2] about one third that of copying the "Journals", & other letters. I am copying ^proposing to separate the purely botanical matter as much as possible by printing it in smaller type, so that the ordinary reader can cross ^skip it, and the botanist have his attention called to it.

Can you tell me if Mr. Bentham,⁵ or any other botanist, has printed any general estimate of Spruce's collections in S. America, as compared [3] with those of other botanical collectors in the same region, both as regards amount of material, ^and number of species and especially of forest-trees, to which he gave so much attention. I should like to give some such estimate in an introduction.

I find the work very interesting now I am getting into it, though it is difficult to piece together Letters, Journals, and Botanical ^{& other} notes, without repetition — & also to decide what to include & what to omit. There is an immense deal in the Journals [4] of the Rio Negro & Upper Orinoco region, about the Indian Tribes, their migrations, customs, &c. &c. that I shall have to omit, but which would be interesting to future travellers. I have had ^greatly to condense the "Journals" here.

In the whole of the "Andes" portion, unfortunately, he either never kept a Journal (which I can hardly believe) or it has been mysteriously lost, so I shall have to trust almost wholly to letters and a few fragmentary notes. Did Dr. Jameson⁶ of Quito ever publish anything about Ecuador, or do you know of any other writer ^{not too recent} who might be of use in filling up gaps caused by absence of Spruce's Journals?

Yours very truly | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]