WCP3909

[1]

Broadstone, Wimborne

March 3rd. 1907

Sir Joseph Hooker¹, G.C.S.I.

My dear Sir Joseph

You probably know that the R.S.² 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. Markham⁴, 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 proposing to separate the purely botanical matter as much as possible by printing it in smaller type, so that the ordinary reader can skip it, and the botanical have his attention called to it.

Can you tell me if Mr. Bentham⁵, 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. Jameson 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]