Hooker, Sir Joseph Dalton
JHC392
San Francisco, [United States of America]
JDH/2/16 f.40a
Thiselton-Dyer, Sir William Turner
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
23-8-1877
© Descendants of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker
Letters to Thiselton-Dyer
The Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
English
Original MS
8 page letter over 2 folios
 
Transcript

but have not nearly so varied or grand an arboreous vegetation. The as the Nevada. The tree vegetation of the Sierra Nevada is indeed unrivalled for a temperate climate, especially (indeed almost entirely) due to the magnificence of the conifers which far exceeded my imagination in stateliness & bulk, though I cannot call them beautiful, & feel sure that as ornamental features they will be utter failures & worse.
Your letter has been a great pleasure to me. I thank you especially for your interest in Charlie in respect of whose future I intensely agree with you. I did hope that I should have interested him in some higher branch of his profession -- or at least in the theory of it. I so keenly feel the deficiencies of my own early education & fancy (perhaps quite wrongly) that if I had had the advantages that modern thought & education has extended to Medicine & Surgery, I should have been

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San Francisco
Aug 25/1877
My dear Dyer*1
I received your's[sic] of July 27th last night on my arrival here, after a splendid trek across the Sierra Nevada, during which I added greatly to my knowledge of the Pines & of the vegetation general. The range as a geographical feature disappointed me much; it wants most elements of grandeur, & though the winter snow fall averages 58 feet x Last winter was quite exceptional! only 8 feet of snow I hear, no spring rains whatever & drought ever since! The whole country is burnt up.*2 The Mts reach 13-14900 ft elevation. There is no perpetual snow or any but most minute glaciers in California or Nevada states. The Rocky Mts form a broader belt with far more numerous high peaks, i.e. peaks above 13000 though none quite reaching 14500,

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but have not nearly so varied or grand an arboreous vegetation. The as the Nevada. The tree vegetation of the Sierra Nevada is indeed unrivalled for a temperate climate, especially (indeed almost entirely) due to the magnificence of the conifers which far exceeded my imagination in stateliness & bulk, though I cannot call them beautiful, & feel sure that as ornamental features they will be utter failures & worse.
Your letter has been a great pleasure to me. I thank you especially for your interest in Charlie in respect of whose future I intensely agree with you. I did hope that I should have interested him in some higher branch of his profession -- or at least in the theory of it. I so keenly feel the deficiencies of my own early education & fancy (perhaps quite wrongly) that if I had had the advantages that modern thought & education has extended to Medicine & Surgery, I should have been

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a much better naturalist than I am. I also cannot help thinking that the time will come when Charlie will (as I do) regret the loss of a good foundation in physiology & organic chemistry, & in the history of medicine & surgery. However I must content myself with what he chooses to think enough for his purposes, & be thankful if he uses it well.
There is I fear some bungling[?] about Willy's position at I[ndia]. Office which was to have been in the shipping dept. he had better see Strachey about it, who was to sail on 21st of this month.
Thanks for the Telegraphs & Echo the last of which has diverted us amazingly -- Mr Proctor has so overdone it that it can only do us all good -- but I do regret to see an English paper adopt the unscrupulous tone & language of all American ones, & be ready to give publicity to any communication without any enquiry into its truth[.]
I am sorry that the delay of news of me caused any anxiety but it

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was not my fault as you know by this time.
Yes I took the Camera, & wrote explaining my blunder in so doing. Strachey lent his Camera to Harriet & asked me to bring it -- I found this in the drawer where she was sitting & took for granted it was what Strachey wanted. It is all safe at Boston. I hope that I have not inconvenienced you.
I cannot tell you how pleased I am to hear that you have had the wall carried out. I did not in the least expect it seeing the mood 1s Comm[issioner]. was in: & I feel much aggrieved at the thought of you being troubled. In fact I had been rally down in the mouth about it. not daring to hope hat you would succeed with the Board in getting it continued.
I do not wonder that you quake at [John] Smith's absence -- but we must remember how he quaked at my much longer absences, & how

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much more of my work he did in my absence than I did in his absence. Thanks for Kirks very interesting N.3 letter. I sent a note on the Dacrydea to the Icones with a figure of the new one he sent -- & hope that all is right about them.
As to Astilbe & Spiraea I well remember having great difficulty in unravelling them in the collections when I did the Saxifrageae, & can quite believe that I made amess -- I am not surprised at Clarke's method of work -- but am much disgusted, as he promised faithfully to follow the precepts laid down as to my referring him to you as "Subeditor". The idea is absurd, what I told him was, that in any doubt or difficulty as to citations & methods & s forth you would I felt sure gladly tell him what my practice was, as you had followed it in regard to the Dipterocarpeae & in correcting proofs of other orders for me. We shall have difficulty I fear in working with the man & possibly the best solution

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will be that he publish in the Linnean according to his own sweet will. As to his bothering you on the official correspondence on the subject, it is intolerable.
The Railway disturbances have not affected us, & indeed we have had no let or hindrance hitherto of any kind -- as to Indian I have not seen a score of them altogether; we have killed but one rattlesnake (that had gorged itself & could scarce move); seen one grizzly bear (in confinement at a Railway station) -- had no earthguages[?] here yet & altogether had a hum-drum life of very hard work indeed.
San Francisco is a horrid place & the country about it vile looking -- bare ref=d hills all around: still the quantity of interesting herbaceous plants one sees is astonishing, & in spring the whole country is said to be enamelled with flowers (which I can well believe) where nothing but red earth & dust is now to be

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seen. Bolander has cut Botany & taken to education, we called twice on him to day -- but he was out both times & has not ever returned our call: he may yet, but Gray has reason to think him strange. We go hence to Monterey to see the forest of Cup[ressus]. macrocarpa & P[inus]. insignis, then N. to Mendocino County to visit the forests of Red wood (Sequoia) &c; then if possible to Shasta Butte to find out what is meant by Picea grandis: & I hope to get away from Boston on the steamer of the 22d. -- What with narrow gauge lumber trains, 2 --, 4--, 5-- horse wagons, ponys[sic], mules & our legs we get over a monstrous deal of ground regardless of expense, fatigue, & wear & tear sleep & food, & pick up an enormous deal of Botany en-route.
This is a queer climate, fancy my being cold during the day, with an overcoat on & my thick scotch plaid -- all through the strong W. wind over the Pacific: which blows, usually with thick fog at this season, every afternoon. You see ladies wrapped in furs every where[sic].
I was delighted to see the Pacific again

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& pick up macrocystis on it's shores, a plant I had not seem for 35 years & which brought back a host of memories of perils of sea shores with messmates long since gathered to their fathers. Also I found to day for the first time Nereocystis, a magnificent algae I had long hoped to see "in the parenchyma". -- The sandy sea banks were clothed with Fragrans Chilensis, a Bahia, Baccharis, Tanacetum & a Tree Lupin (ie bush Lupin) with yellow flowers & a Franseria, & in rocky places the enormous roots of Megarhiza with great prostrate woody branches (foliage all burnt up). I have a great lot of cones &c & am enquiring for Mr Lister Young's agents to send them home by one of his ships.
I hope to write from this to Willy (who thank for his letter) & Mr Smith -- With Give much love to Harriet, Willy & Charlie & many congratulations on the latter having passed the college -- I wish he had written to me. --
Ever affect[ionatel]y yours | JosDHooker[signature]

ENDNOTES


1. Sir William Thiselton-Dyer (1843--1928). British botanist and third Director of the Royal Botanic gardens, Kew (1885--1905). He succeeded Joseph Hooker in the role after serving as his Assistant Director for ten years. He also married Hooker's eldest daughter Harriet in 1877.
2. The preceding sentence from 'x' is written vertically in the left hand margin of the page, the x in the original manuscript indicates that the text is to be read at this point in the letter.

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