Williamson, plant-fossil, long ago begged us to come to British Association at Manchester, and be his guests. If I do, what think you of my preparing a paper for Botanical Section; and will you join me in it? two venerables—anglice old fogies—on Nomenclature and Citations.
There are some points I should like to argue out and explain; to put on record, though it may be of no use. Not that one wants to get up a discussion in such a body—that would never do....
Cambridge, February 22.
Thank you for sending me your edition of Bentham’s “Handbook,” which looks well in its more condensed shape, and in which I dare say you have put a good deal of conscientious work. But it seems to me that Reeve & Company give it poor type and paper.
I am putting through a rehash of my “Lessons in Botany,”[140] more condensed, yet fuller, and with a new name. This, with the companion book, which I must live to do over, Deo favente, is the principal thing for bread, and I need it for an endowment to keep up the herbarium here, after my time.
Well,—don’t speak of it aloud,—we have secured our passages for April 7, and if I can get present work off my hands in time, we may be on your soil soon after Easter.
You may imagine me very busy, indeed.
Yours affectionately,
A. Gray.
Dr. Gray, with Mrs. Gray, landed in England, April 18, and went from Liverpool to stay at Sunningdale with Sir Joseph and Lady Hooker, where a quiet, restful week was most pleasantly passed. He went to London the first of May for a few days, meeting again old friends, dining with them, and dropping in for calls, “to report himself,” as he said. He did a little work at Kew, going back and forth; then crossed to Paris, finding at the Jardin des Plantes what he had especially wanted to see, Lamarck’s herbarium, which had been acquired since he was last there. It completed satisfactorily his studies in Asters, as he had now seen everything of the genus to be found in herbaria of importance.
A journey in Normandy with Sir J. D. Hooker had been planned for May, but Sir Joseph was unable to leave England, so Dr. Gray arranged to go to Vienna. He greatly enjoyed the railroad journey from Bâle, in May, the fruit-trees white with blossoms about Lake Zurich, then the wilder mountain scenery, and Salzburg, all bringing back the memories of his first European journey forty-eight years before.