Hooker, Sir Joseph Dalton
JHC567
Hotel de Londres, Rue des Petitstits Augustins, Paris, [France]
JDH/2/8 f.11-14
Hooker, Sir William Jackson
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
5-2-1845
© Descendants of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker
Letters during a tour in Paris and Leyden
The Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
English
Original MS
8 page letter over 4 folios
 
Transcript

recovered, the latter is perhaps the best Botanist in Paris except Webb, that I have seen; his knowledge appears extraordinary to me on all points, specific, generic, & Physiological, I judge, not from what he said, but from answers to my questions, his were full of zeal & enthusiasm. Montagne*12 knows an extraordinary quantity of species of Crypt.[Cryptogamic?] -- but no more of their structure I speak of mosses & algae than an owl; he pays not the least attention to that; form is his guide, & he has not been able to help me in any physiological point which Decaisne has most. On the other hand, he is an excellent little fellow, reads Italian, Spanish, German & English & is something of a classic also. his collection is in excellent order, illustrated with innumerable drawings (villainously[?] done) & he has many with his specimens. He is, as all are, extremely kind & attentive. Delessert's*13 Herbaria is in one respect in order, that is, all the supposed genera are in supposititious places, it occupies an immesurable[sic] space & might I should think be fairly squeezed into your great room at the outside. It is horribly named, I find Myzodendron amongst Calitris[Callitris] & Casuarina in Cupressus, Trichomanes & Hymenophyllum are all jumbled under the former & as to really authentic names has a very small proportion -- The specimens are all in between different sheets, promiscuously named, & arranged, according to the names, by Sprengel*14. Except the numbers outside the boxes in which they are, Lasegue Lasegue*15 knows no more of the collection of his master th he does of yours. He asked me to name & correct nomenclature, I soon got sick of that, as amongst Hymenophyllum hardly any

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5 Hotel de Londres Rue des Petits Augustins ? Wednesday night
Feb[ruary]: 5. 1845.
My dear Father
I wrote a short note this afternoon, telling that I accepted the Edinburgh affair*1, & as I do not intend to let that interfere with any present pleasures; I need say no more on the subject; [ex]cept that it would be as well to let Mr Reeves know that the lora*1a will conclude with P[ar]t 10.
I have seen a great many persons & things here, which have given me an immense deal of pleasure & none more than the Museum of the Jardin des Plantes, which is quite full of wonders. It is so large as I expected, nor so beautiful, i.e. the garden the main part facing the is laid out in a great oblong, with 3 straight avenues of trees, enclose two parallel rows of school garden, said to contain plants, but I should doubt it, on the left of this (with the your back to the river) are is the gallery of Botany & Geology, in front are Zoological galleryes[sic], & on the right the great stoves. At this nothing is beautiful, nor perhaps even so good as such should afford & money pay for. The School stripes of garden are bounded by nasty high sort of trellis work paling, very light but black with dust, & green with mould, not painted, there is no grass & the walks have too public an appearance. The great avenues quite hide either the Galleries or Hot-houses, but are perhaps necessary for coolness in summer. behind the stoves

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are the officers homes & lecture rooms, rather a heterogeneous set of buildings amongst which it is very difficult to find ones way. The houses are bad & inconvenient / so the officers say / but they look large & airy. The smaller part of the gallery opposite the stoves is devoted to Botany, there are two stories, the upper lighted by roof & sides, the lower given up to one large Museum of woods, fruits &c this is the most wonderful collection I ever saw, & yet not half so good as English one of the same age would have been. The wood[s] and fruits are beautifully arranged & displayed, tolerably named & well polished. The collection of fossils is extremely beautiful & well displayed, the whole length is perhaps 100 yards, with 4 or 5 windows & one each side & as many salient buttresses between each between the buttresses are drawers, it is on the buttresses that the shelves are displayed & many tiers filled with great taste -- above are huge boards with full sized specimens of Fucus buccinalis, Davilla, Laniara[?] & the like, displayed upon them. The cerealia are in long glass tubes arranged by Seringe2. the cases are hung or laid, the wood tilted up to view both horizontal and vertical sections. Down the middle of the room are glass cases with simillitudes[sic?] of Fungi, copied in wax from Bulliard*3, extremely well done in general & excellently displayed. The Fossils are perhaps the most wonderful part of the collection. Upstairs is a room perhaps 80 feet long for the dried plants, lighted from above & with ? as many little rooms on each side as there are windows. The partition walls answering to those of the buttresses of the

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lower apartment. The middle room, or that appropriated to the general collection, is lighted from above, the ante rooms as I said before by the side windows, each ante room has table[?] rich & complete & they are devoted to the Partial Herbaria. The plants are all in pigeon holes with a curtain before them which drawing up exposes perhaps 100 holes at once all very full. The height is perhaps 6 feet, but I will look at their particulars more carefully. From a first inspection I should think the general collection perhaps 1/2 larger than yours, & adding the partial, the whole may be treble at the least. A gallery runs round above, with draws[sic] and ante--rooms for duplicates. The plants are in very poor order, the species between whole sheets & whole sheets for each specimen, so that the space covered is enormous great. I have only seen two or three genera & the number of species is very great, but I am not prepared to compare with yours, I should not think them much more rich from what I have seen, though, as I said the space covered is very much greater. They complain themselves of bad order & so it must be bad. specimens are pinned down, the pros & cons of which are too manifest to be dwelt upon. All are poisoned, & they say they have no insects. Webb[']s*4 are so also & he says the same thing. Of good Botanists there are few here. Jussieu*5, all say, does not love the science, nor does Brongnart [Brongniart]*6, nor Richard*7 either, it is only because they are their fathers sons that they study it. Gaudichaud*8 is [1 word illeg.] Mirbel*9 has lost some relation: Tulasne*10 ill. Decaisne*11 just

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recovered, the latter is perhaps the best Botanist in Paris except Webb, that I have seen; his knowledge appears extraordinary to me on all points, specific, generic, & Physiological, I judge, not from what he said, but from answers to my questions, his were full of zeal & enthusiasm. Montagne*12 knows an extraordinary quantity of species of Crypt.[Cryptogamic?] -- but no more of their structure I speak of mosses & algae than an owl; he pays not the least attention to that; form is his guide, & he has not been able to help me in any physiological point which Decaisne has most. On the other hand, he is an excellent little fellow, reads Italian, Spanish, German & English & is something of a classic also. his collection is in excellent order, illustrated with innumerable drawings (villainously[?] done) & he has many with his specimens. He is, as all are, extremely kind & attentive. Delessert's*13 Herbaria is in one respect in order, that is, all the supposed genera are in supposititious places, it occupies an immesurable[sic] space & might I should think be fairly squeezed into your great room at the outside. It is horribly named, I find Myzodendron amongst Calitris[Callitris] & Casuarina in Cupressus, Trichomanes & Hymenophyllum are all jumbled under the former & as to really authentic names has a very small proportion -- The specimens are all in between different sheets, promiscuously named, & arranged, according to the names, by Sprengel*14. Except the numbers outside the boxes in which they are, Lasegue Lasegue*15 knows no more of the collection of his master th he does of yours. He asked me to name & correct nomenclature, I soon got sick of that, as amongst Hymenophyllum hardly any

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right. I would not give Webb[']s Herb[aria]. for Delessert[']s, it is beautifully arranged & admirably named, very extensive; Delessert[']s Library is splendid, the Botanical one infinitely before yours, there is really no comparison. I was surprised at the quantity, especially of books of Cryptogamic specimens that he has. He has a small collection of things such as you have in drawers, but not a good one, there are however some very good things amongst them. Lasegue is a good natured little man who toasts his toes at the fire the live-long day, his magnum opus is done & he calls the Herb[aria]. arranged. My Fingers Fingers do itch to put it in better order, for it is an Augean stable of bad naming & want of room. Of all Cuming's*16 Hymenophylla I do not think one is right, either from Cuming's numbers being wrong, or the names wrong applied to the numbers. The whole affair disappointed me terribly, it is in no way to be compared to yours, Bentham's*17 and Arnott[']s*18, but the Library is superb. I do not doubt the European [1 word illeg.] is very good, but that is so easy to a continental man who pays any money & has so many European Botanists about him that I should never judge of a large Herb[aria]. by that. No poison is ever used -- the insects have their own way. It is almost too bad so to decry the Herb[aria]. of a man so kind to me as Delessert, but, it is no use my disguising the fact, that from what I have yours is the superior in amount of species as in arrangement & all other points. At the Jardin des Plantes they have a

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a collection of drawings of Plants on Vellum, these are done by a person attached to the garden, who is forced to do 40 a year (form life) for 100 francs a piece & give two courses of lectures. Redoute*19 had the situations a lady has now; this collection is one of the wonders of the wonders of the Jardin, & I assure you they are vile, all done in body--colors, heavier than Chinese drawings & no depictions; even Redoute's are poor affairs. you certainly would not give 2/6 a piece for any 20 out of the lot, that I saw. Another man does the animals, the series of which are splendid & most beautifully done -- Webb thinks the Botanical Drawings very bad also, such a contrast as they are to Bauer's*20 or Fitch's*21. By the bye had you not better this[?] to secure Fitch to the gardens somehow by getting the W[oods]. & F[orests]. to allow you to have so many drawings a year done of the garden plants at £1 a piece -- I assure you there is here no one to compare with him, in any one respect, indeed they have but one good artist Riocreux*22 a very good one, he draws remarkably well but he & the bad ones too are frightfully dear. Many draw animals[?] well but few plants at all. I assure you that I think you ought to have something in view for Fitch lest he should prove too wise. Your books are very highly thought of here the Magazine, Icones & Journal: by the bye some think the review of Hombron*23 & Jacquinot*24 too strong, but I think I have undeceived them, they ask who wrote it, & I always say, that that is nothing to them, but that you and & are fully responsible for all of it, as conductors of the periodical, & that should have been refused admittance had we not thought it just. Above all they admire here the regularity with which works appear in England & deprecate their own sadly.

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Homb. & Jacq. are 'non inventus' the book is not yet finished, there are more new plants & old ones too, 3 or 4 plates, nothing particular all very poor indeed as to execution. Everyone calls them charlatans, Montague especially calls them cuchons & that they[sic] trouble their bad specimens have given him is inconceivable D'Urville*25 seems to have made a splendid collection but he was dreadfully selfish. Brongnart [Brongniart] is going to send you some Guadaloup [Guadalupe] Ferns but except Goudot[']s*26 Madagascan things they have nothing at all remarkable here & I have not seen them well yet. The trunks of Ferns in the Jardin des Plantes are superb, some 40 feet long.
With regard to the stoves I have twice been very carefully through them from what I have seen there are an enormous quantity of species & an excellent proportion named; there must be at least double what you have & better named but all are in a very inferior condition as far as luxuriance of growth is concerned -- none look at all better than those in your old smoke houses do except the green house ones which are dreadfully crowded but splendid things. Indeed the whole stoves are full of grand things especially the orangery but grow as they ought to do. ? The construction of the [1 word illeg.] is partially faulty especially as regards the great square houses, of the form of the walls I need say nothing but the roofs have almost no pitch & 3 chimneys in the back wall pour out

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volumes of smoke on the roof itself -- this latter is not sloped enough for the water to wash it in rain time & is now covered with a wire protection from hail, it is all black now, than all this they have no ventilation whatever & are surprised that their things burn in summer, I told them both Decaisne [&] the Gardner[sic] one reason for this, they seemed to believe it but never have thought of it before. I must break off this long yarn as have to spend the day with young Brongnart [Brongniart]. Ever with best[?] love to grandpapa & all. Your most affectionate Son.
Humboldt is extremely kind to me he sends every morning for me | JosDHooker [signature] |

ENDNOTES


1. May refer to Joseph Hooker's unsuccessful application for the position of Professor of Botany at Edinburgh University in 1845.
1a. There is damage to the left edge of the manuscript of page 1. Page 1 text transcribed in angle brackets is missing text which has been retrieved from a contemporary 19th century copy in the archive of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. This copy, JDH/2/18 f.27-29, does contain some changes to grammar, spelling and phrasing of the original letter authored by Hooker. It has not been made available online as part of the correspondence project.
2. Nicolas Charles Seringe (1776--1858). French botanist.
3. Jean Baptiste François Pierre Bulliard (1742--1793). French physician and botanist and author of Dictionnaire Elémentaire de Botanique (1783).
4. Philip Barker--Webb[?] (1793--1854). English botanist.
5. Adrien-Henri de Jussieu (1797--1853). French botanist.
6. Adolphe-Théodore Brongniart (1801--1876). French botanist.
7. Achille Richard (1794--1852). French botanist and physician.
8. Charles Gaudichaud-Beaupré (1789--1854). French botanist.
9. Charles-François Brisseau de Mirbel (1776--1854). French botanist and politician.
10. Louis René Étienne Tulasne, a.k.a. Edmond Tulasne (1815--1885). French botanist and mycologist.
11. Joseph Decaisne (1807--1882). French botanist and agronomist.
12. Jean Pierre François Camille Montagne (1784--1866). French military physician and botanist.
13. Jules Paul Benjamin Delessert (1773--1847). French banker, naturalist and botanist.
14. Karl or Philipp Carl Sprengel[?] (1787--1859). German botanist.
15. Antoine Lasegue (1793--1873). French botanist and curator of Delessert's botanical collections.
16. Hugh Cuming (1791--1865). English collector interested in natural history, particularly in conchology and botany.
17. George Bentham (1800--1884). English botanist.
18. George Arnott Walker-Arnott (1799--1868). Scottish botanist.
19. Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759--1840). Belgian painter and botanical illustrator.
20. Franz Andreas Bauer (later Francis) (1758--1840). Austrian microscopist and botanical illustrator.
21. Walter Hood Fitch (1817--1892). Scottish botanical illustrator.
22. Alfred Riocreux (1820--1912) French scientific and botanical illustrator.
23. Jacques Bernard Hombron (1798--1852). French naval surgeon and naturalist.
24. Honoré Jacquinot (1815 --1887). French surgeon and zoologist.
25. Jules Sébastien César Dumont d'Urville (1790--1842). French explorer and botanist.
26. Justin Goudot (1822--1845). French explorer and naturalist.

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