Notes of a tour in the plains of India, the Himala, and Borneo: being extracts from the private letters of Dr. Hooker, written during a government botanical mission to those countries / [Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker].

  • Hooker, Joseph Dalton, 1817-1911.
Date:
1848-1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes of a tour in the plains of India, the Himala, and Borneo: being extracts from the private letters of Dr. Hooker, written during a government botanical mission to those countries / [Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    DR. HOOKER'S MISSION TO INDIA. [The object of this. Mission has been already stated, as fully as its nature will allow, in the sixth volume-of the London Journal of Botany. It will suffice here to remark, that Dr. Hooker, at the recommendation of the .Chief Commissioner of H.M. Woods and Forests, &c., has been appointed by H.M. Government to investi¬ gate the vegetable productions of certain portions of India, parti¬ cularly the mountainous regions of Himala. He is afterwards to proceed to Borneo, with a similar object in view. That the public may be in possession of some particulars relating to Dr. Hooker’s progress and success, previous to the fuller narrative which will appear on his return, is the Editor's object in publishing the following extracts from the necessarily hastily written and familiar letters addressed to his friends at home. The First Lord of the Admiralty, with the consent of His Excel¬ lency Lord Dalhousie, the newly appointed Governor General of the East Indies, kindly granted a passage to Alexandria^ in H.M. Steam-Frigate “ Sidon, destined to convey his Lordship to that place, en route for Calcutta. From Suez, our traveller formed part of Lord D/s suite; and it is not a little gratifying to the writer of this notice to reflect, that, as he was himself indebted to the late Countess Dalhousie for a rich Herbarium of East Indian and Himalayan plants, collected by her when accompanying her noble husband then Commander-in-Chief, on his official tours; so will Dr. Hooker owe still greater obligations to the son of that distinguished lady, for the amplest means of prosecuting his botani¬ cal researches in the East.—Ed.] I. Overland route to Calcutta. H.M. Steam Frigate “ Sidou,” off Gibraltar, Nov. 20th, 1847. The Rock of Gibraltar is a truly noble object, whether in Nature B