[[1]]
The Camp Sunningdale
Nov[ember] 15/[18]87
My dear friend [Asa Gray]
I have been meditating a letter to you for some time, but my news in chief being
dolorous I have put it off & off. Nath'less you will be so interested & so will your wife
that I must recapitulate it often as I have had to do so to others. You I think know
that we had a telegraph from Sydney about 3 weeks ago with the two words "Frank
died" -- when or where we know not, but a great friend of his, the Edinburgh Coutts
Trotter, who had lived with him at Samoa, informed us that he too had a telegraph
informing him of the date of the death 3? October, but not of the place. So weeks
wore on til yesterday, when we are tantalized by the receipt of two letters from Tonga to
Mrs Symonds both dated before his death, & written in a hopeful strain! We shall thus
have probably another month to wait before we get particulars. Poor Mrs Symonds
is in a nervous excited
[[2]] state but bears up wonderfully & busies herself with the children & in the garden,
but she cannot sleep at night or rarely
I have no other news but the, to me startling intelligence, of the award of the Copley
medal, [William Turner Thiselton--]Dyer tells me how kind & generous, I fear too
generous, you were about it. The secret was [1 word crossed out, illeg.] well kept. for I
heard not a whisper till the award was made. It is an honor which I never expected;
often as I have had to award it as P[resident]. R[oyal]. S[ociety]. and oftener to take
part in awarding it. I never for a moment put myself into a thought of it & I am not
now clear that it is a "statutory" award being intended for bona fide discovery. As
however I am informed that my name was brought forward last, & all preceding ones
at once withdrawn, I must concede that there are some good grounds for this
departure from precedent. I do feel it to be a tremendous honor.
Darwin[']s life is not out yet, but the last sheets are now posted to you -- we are
disgusted with the action of the Pall Mall in printing extracts from it, surreptitiously
supplied by the man employed to translate
[[3]] it into French. Read Bonney's, article in Nature on Huxley & the D. of Argyle a
reference to Darwin & Murray's coral reef theories, it is wonderfully good -- I had no
idea he could write so well -- the Duke's article in the 19th Century (I think) was a
very stupid one, -- but what struck me most was, the Duke not seeing that Darwin's
theory was, whether right or wrong, a stroke of genius unaided by that knowledge we
now possess of land sea, sea--bottom, Chemistry & Corals; whereas Bentham
Murray's is a conclusion arrived at through the labour of a staff of most Eminent
fellow--workers on the ocean & a knowledge of all the facts & data that they were
collecting around him during the Challenger voyage. As we say "the greater truth, the
greater libel" -- so we may say of Darwin's theory "the" greater error the greater
genius" but I expect the truth will lie between them & that there will prove to be two
perhaps more ways of making coral islands.
I am printing the last sheet of the Euphorbiaceae for Fl[ora]. B[ritish]. I[ndia]. -- just
18 months work. -- the next part will hardly take all in. I am getting on with the
Urticae
[[4]] & making a list of the Monocots -- so as to see how I am to get all in. Two thirds
of my synonymy & citations are perfectly useless, but King, Thomson & others
thought I should make a sweep up of all so that the had local Indian departmental
floras need not do so. I have had a labor putting King's mss description of the Indian
Figs into terse & clear technical language -- He does not study style & sequence of
characters. I have begged him to do so in future works. He has nearly concluded the
2nd part of his Fica & is far on with Oaks &c he will supply me with the Indians. His
work is very good.
Huxley & I & some others are disgusted with Stokes going into Parliament without
informing his Council, & offering to resign his chair. I am averse to having an MP.
President on any grounds. The Cambridge Conservatives want him because he is a
safe man to oppose reforms, &c. in the university. A more unfit man of great ability
for a Parliamentary life cannot well be imagined & he must be a party man. which is
bad for the R[oyal] S[ociety].
I am kept busy about this Australian Antarctic Expedition, for which the Colonial has
asked our Gov[ernmen]t to subscribe £5000.
[[5]] The Gov[ernmen]t has applied to the R[oyal].S[ociety]. to know its opinion as to
the scientific results to be obtained. & I have at its request drawn up a Memo
embodying my views, which are that the before any attempt is made to explore
beyond the pack, a pioneer ship should circumnavigate the globe between 60° & 70
S. & determine the position of the ice in every longitude -- for that in my view the
pack moves in enormous masses leaving open sea here & there for uncertain
periods. I am convinced that if Wilkes had pushed on a few miles to the East he
would have got down to where we did -- & that if we had tried a little to the West of
where we did we might have got south without entering the pack at all. Again wherein
the longitude where Weddel sailed south to 74° 30' & returned (owing to lateness of
season)from a clear open sea without seeing even the pack, Ross in that same
latitude longitude met in 63° 15' a Pack of old ice so heavy that he could not even enter it.
So my advice is to subscribe to the Colonials sending a ship to look out for soft
places, previous to sending properly equipped exploring vessels to do battle with the
ice. The whole circumnavigation could easily be accomplished in one season -- &
one naturalist to use the tow net & to dredge at depths would be able to bottle up a
splendid harvest of pelagic life. But I do not envy the voyagers
[[6]] a more desolate boisterous dangerous sea does not exist harassed throughout
summer by gales fogs & snow storms -- I find that we were once 6 weeks without
getting an observation of the Sun! I suggest that our Gov[ernmen]t should subscribe
the £5000in aid of scientific objects & make it clearly understood that it accepts no
responsibi[li]ty[sic].
We are all well & in state quo. | With dear love to your wife | Ever dear old Gray | yr
affectionate| J D Hooker [signature]
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