Kew
Aug[ust] 2/[18]79
Dear [Asa] Gray
I enclose a cheque for £16.10.1, being for what I owe you $24.50 = 4.18.0
Sales of your books &c 11.12.1 £16.10.1
I enclose Mr Browns accounts of the sale.
What the "Mr Millar's check" is, which you paid to me Feb[ruary] 26/[18]78, for $26.25 I [1 word crossed out, illeg.] cannot recollect.
Yours of July 15 received two days ago crossed one of mine -- I thought it so likely that you had been generously

extravagant enough to send me a copy of your Text-book that I had written before your letter came asking the Secretary of the P.O. to have search made for it amongst the books with lost or defaced addresses: so I doubt not that I shall recover it.
I am in mourning (as you see) for my dear little niece Willielma Campbell*1, who died a few hours after giving birth to a still born infant, apparently from embolism -- it is a dreadful blow to us all, as she leaves 6 children, the eldest only 14. My wife & I went down to Glasgow, I to the funeral, my wife to comfort poor Isabella

Hooker*2. I cannot tell you how desolate I felt in Glasgow, now that this last living link to the old place of so many memories is so suddenly & sadly snapped.
Per contra, we have had Bessy*3 with us for 6 days from Torquay, much better than usual. She was on her way to visit my aunt Mrs Brightwen in Norfolk.
What a splendid time you had of it in the Alleghenies, I should indeed like to have been with you both.
I am much interested in what you tell me of Hayden, & quite feel that if he had all he wanted he would no doubt have broken down. I feared he would have been thrown overboard altogether. Shall I send him the "Athenaeum" &

other books for the Survey Libr[ar]y? I withheld them till I should see what "turned up".
Dare I ask what has become of our Report? I will do any thing you like but have my name put before your's[sic].
Geo[rge] Bentham looks wonderfully well, & went two days ago to Munro's for a fortnight -- We are printing P[ar]t. ii[?] of Vol iii of Gen[era] Plant[arum] -- I do hope you will approve of what I have done, I have spared no pains with Chenopodiaceae & think my arrangement is really natural & good.
Have you seen Muller's imbecile "Native Plants of Victoria". He boasts of his intercalation of the Monosplanes[?] with the "Choripetaleae" & says of the definition "Exceptions rare". I made a rough estimate & find that

of his 18 128 Choripetalous genera just 49 have no petals, & 24 others have them united! & that of his 340 species 162 are exceptional. His Nyctagineae have Calyx-tube aduate & starchy albumen; & Boerhavia is any figured with epigynous stamens! The poor man is such an enthusiast & has done so much good useful work that it is a pity he should ruin his reputation by such bad writing.
Poor G. Henslow -- if you make his weeds cross-fertilizers he will not have a leg to stand upon: but he really courts criticism too impudently. It is curious, for he is one of the quietest most amiable & best of men.
So next year you are normally due in England -- come then! I have thought much of my next trip to America -- & of my great obstacle, which is Bentham -- If I do not go, & he continues as active as now (& I really see no dimming of intellect or cessation of power of work) we really should get on well with monocots. Except yourself there is no one who can work like him. I have been closely observing all he has been

doing with the genera of Coniferae & can only marvel. Now that I am rid of R[oyal]. S[ociety]. we see more of one another, & I of his work & he of mine with the Gen[era] Plant[arum] in hand I cannot think I ought to leave him.
You should really confine yourself to the N[orth] Am[erican] Flora & 4th Ed of the text book not forgetting Hayden[']s report!
Do read Bales' Lecture on Alpine Floras in Gard[eners']. Chron[icle] -- delivered before R[oyal]. Geog[graphical]. Society. I did all I could to restrain him, but in vain.
Darwin is much better, & gone to the Lakes! -- he has hardly made such a journey since he went to S[outh] America!
Engelmann writes now that he is almost disposed to give up Pinus pungens as different from Menziesii alias Sitchensis & Engelmannii too!! We are dreadfully impatient for the continuation of Watson's Bibliography -- nothing short of it will mitigate

the curse that hangs over American Botanists -- you can have no idea of the labor[sic] you cost all hands at the Herbarium when we revise a sheet of Gen[era] Plant[arum] for checking the references.
I wish you could see our Herbarium & Library arrangements before you begin to build; for which I quite saw the need.
I must confess that I am surprised at your President's narrow mindedness about Sargent, it is unEnglish & more emphatically unAmerican, to indulge in such prejudices -- he must be a weak man. Sargent however must bestir himself.
I have not seen young Clarke yet: I will send the list of books soon.
The luckless "Tour in Marocco" is a loss of £102.13.3! but I suppose a few more copies will be sold yet.
Charlie goes up now for his second[?] fourth trial to pass at the R[oyal] Coll[ege] of Phys[icians] &

Surgeons, Edinburgh. He has been working up his Medicine, Therepeutics & Mat[eria]. Med[ica]. for 3 months past diligently, but whether that will cover the requirements of the Examiners remains to be seen.
We have had a tremendous hail storm that has devastated the glass. Some 14,000 squares are smashed & the cost of repairs will be very great. It is the first time we ever lost a pane from hail! --
Ev[e]r y[ours] aff[ectionately] | J.D. Hooker [signature]