ican islands, which are
still farther off; (3) the almost total dissimilarity from the Cape
flora." For Sir J.D. Hooker's general conclusions on the Cameroon plants
see "Linn. Soc. Journ." VII., page 180. More recently equally striking
cases have come to light: for instance, the existence of a Mediterranean
genus, Adenocarpus, in the Cameroons and on Kilima Njaro, and nowhere
else in Africa; and the probable migration of South African forms along
the highlands from the Natal District to Abysinnia. See Hooker, "Linn.
Soc. Journ." XIV., 1874, pages 144-5.) Your remarks on my regarding
temperate plants and disregarding the tropical plants made me at first
uncomfortable, but I soon recovered. You say that all botanists would
agree that many tropical plants could not withstand a somewhat cooler
climate. But I have come not to care at all for general beliefs without
the special facts. I have suffered too often from this: thus I found in
every book the general statement that a host of flowers were fertilised
in the bud, that seeds could not withstand salt water, etc., etc. I
would far more trust such graphic accounts as that by you of the mixed
vegetation on the Himalayas and other such accounts. And with respect to
tropical plants withstanding the slowly coming on cool period, I trust
to such facts as yours (and others) about seeds of the same species
from mountains and plains having acquired a slightly different climatal
constitution. I know all that I have said will excite in you savage
contempt towards me. Do not answer this rigmarole, but attack me to your
heart's content, and to that of mine, whenever you can come here, and
may it be soon.

LETTER 383. J.D. HOOKER TO CHARLES DARWIN. Kew, 1870.

(383/1. The following extract from a letter of Sir J.D. Hooker shows the
tables reversed between the correspondents.)

Grove is disgusted at your being disquieted about W. Thomson. Tell
George from me not to sit upon you with his mathematics. When I
threatened your tropical cooling views with the facts of the physicists,
you snubbed me and the facts sweetly, over and over again; and now,
because a scarecrow of x+y has been raised on the selfsame facts, you
boo-boo. Take another dose of Huxley's penultimate G. S. Address, and
send George back to college. (383/2. Huxley's Anniversary Address to the
Geological Society, 1869 ("Collected Essays," VIII., page 305). This is
a criticism of Lord Kelvin's paper "On Geological Time" ("Tr