I have read the pages (356/1. The paper on Arctic plants in Volume XXIII. of the Linnean Society's "Transactions," 1860-62.) attentively (with even very much more admiration than the first time) and cannot imagine what makes Dr. D. accuse you of asserting a subsidence of Arctic America. (356/2. The late Sir J.W. Dawson wrote a review (signed J.W.D) of Hooker's Arctic paper which appeared in the "Canadian Naturalist," 1862, Volume VII., page 334. The chief part of the article is made up of quotations from Asa Gray's article referred to below. The remainder is a summary of geological arguments against Hooker's views. We do not find the accusation referred to above, which seems to have appeared in a lecture.) No doubt there was a subsidence of N. America during the Glacial period, and over a large part, but to maintain that the subsidence extended over nearly the whole breadth of the continent, or lasted during the whole Glacial period, I do not believe he can support. I suspect much of the evidence of subsidence during the Glacial period there will prove false, as it largely rests on ice-action, which is becoming, as you know, to be viewed as more and more subaerial. If Dawson has published criticisms I should like to see them. I have heard he is rabid against me, and no doubt partly in consequence, against anything you write in my favour (and never was anything published more favourable than the Arctic paper). Lyell had difficulty in preventing Dawson reviewing the "Origin" (356/3. Dawson reviewed the "Origin" in the "Canadian Naturalist," 1860.) on hearsay, without having looked at it. No spirit of fairness can be expected from so biassed a judge.
All I can say is that your few first pages have impressed me far more this reading than the first time. Can the Scandinavian portion of the flora be so potent (356/4. Dr. Hooker wrote: "Regarded as a whole the Arctic flora is decidedly Scandinavian; for Arctic Scandinavia, or Lapland, though a very small tract of land, contains by far the richest Arctic flora, amounting to three-fourths of the whole"; he pointed out "that the Scandinavian flora is present in every latitude of the globe, and is the only one that is so" (quoted by Gray, loc. cit. infra).) from having been preserved in that corner, warmed by the Gulf Stream, and from now alone representing the entire circumpolar flora, during the warmer pre-Glacial period? From the first I have not been able to resist the impression (shared by Asa Gray, whose Review (356/5. Asa Gray's "Scientific Papers," Volume I., page 122.) on you pleased me much) that during the Glacial period there must have been almost entire extinction in Greenland; for depth of sea does not favour former southerly extension of land there. (356/6. In the driving southward of the vegetation by the Glacial epoch the Greenland flora would be "driven into the sea, that is, exterminated." (Hooker quoted by Gray, loc. cit. page 124.) I must suspect that plants have been largely introduced by sea currents, which bring so much wood from N. Europe. But here we shall split as wide as the poles asunder. All the world could not persuade me, if it tried, that yours is not a grand essay. I do not quite understand whether it is this essay that Dawson has been "down on." What a curious notion about Glacial climate, and Basques and Finns! Are the Basques mountaineers—I hope so. I am sorry I have not seen the "Athenaeum," but I now take in the "Parthenon." By the way, I have just read with much interest Max Muller (356/7. Probably his "Lectures on the Science of Language," 1861-64.); the last part, about first origin of language, seems the least satisfactory part.
Pray thank Oliver heartily for his heap of references on poisons. (356/8. Doubtless in connection with Darwin's work on Drosera: he was working at this subject during his stay at Bournemouth in the autumn of 1862.) How the devil does he find them out?
I must not indulge {myself} with Cypripedium. Asa Gray has made out pretty clearly that, at least in some cases, the act of fertilisation is effected by small insects being forced to crawl in and out of the flower in a particular direction; and perhaps I am quite wrong that it is ever effected by the proboscis.
I retract so far that if you have the rare C. hirsutissimum, I should very much like to examine a cut single flower; for I saw one at a flower show, and as far as I could see, it seemed widely different from other forms.
P.S.—Answer this, if by chance you can. I remember distinctly having read in some book of travels, I am nearly sure in Australia, an account of the natives, during famines, trying and cooking in all sorts of ways various vegetable productions, and sometimes being injured by them. Can you remember any such account? I want to find it. I thought it was in Sir G. Grey, but it is not. Could it have been in Eyre's book?
LETTER 357. J.D. HOOKER TO CHARLES DARWIN. {November 1862}.
...I have speculated on the probability of there having been a post-Glacial Arctic-Norwego-Greenland in connection, which would account for the strong fact, that temperate Greenland is as Arctic as Arctic Greenland is—a fact, to me, of astounding force. I do confess, that a northern migration would thus fill Greenland as it is filled, in so far as the whole flora (temperate and Arctic) would be Arctic,—but then the same plants should have gone to the other Polar islands, and above all, so many Scandinavian Arctic plants should not be absent in Greenland, still less should whole Natural Orders be absent, and above all the Arctic Leguminosae. It is difficult (as I have told Dawson) to conceive of the force with which arguments drawn from the absence of certain familiar ubiquitous plants strike the botanists. I would not throw over altogether ice-transport and water-transport, but I cannot realise their giving rise to such anomalies, in the distribution, as Greenland presents. So, too, I have always felt the force of your objection, that Greenland should have been depopulated in the Glacial period, but then reflected that vegetation now ascends I forget how high (about 1,000 feet) in Disco, in 70 deg, and that even in a Glacial ocean there may always have been lurking-places for the few hundred plants Greenland now possesses. Supposing Greenland were repeopled from Scandinavia over ocean way, why should Carices be the chief things brought? Why should there have been no Leguminosae brought, no plants but high Arctic?—why no Caltha palustris, which gilds the marshes of Norway and paints the housetops of Iceland? In short, to my eyes, the trans-oceanic migration would no more make such an assemblage than special creations would account for representative species—and no "ingenious wriggling" ever satisfied me that it would. There, then!
I dined with Henry Christy last night, who was just returned from celt hunting with Lartet, amongst the Basques,—they are Pyreneans. Lubbock was there, and told me that my precious speculation was one of Von Baer's, and that the Finns are supposed to have made the Kjokken moddings. I read Max Muller a year ago—and quite agree, first part is excellent; last, on origin of language, fatuous and feeble as a scientific argument.
LETTER 358. TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, November 12th {1862}.