Letter from Jos. D. Hooker [Joseph Dalton Hooker] to George Maw
Information
Title
Letter from Jos. D. Hooker [Joseph Dalton Hooker] to George Maw
Record type
Archive
Original Reference
MAW/1/102
Date
8 Dec 1871
Scope & content
Written from Royal Gardens, Kew. Manuscript
He thanks Maw for the [geological] section and marvels at how much he made out; it appeared to him that the porphyries and shales were intercalated; there could be no question of the porphyries bursting through the slatey rocks on that Jezi [possibly Djebel, meaning mountain]; he did not follow the porphyritic tuffs as closely as Maw did; the Marocco [Morocco] plants are not done yet thanks to Mr Ayrton [Acton Smee Ayrton, politician, first commissioner of works]; he is still without a herbarium assistant, and they are all in arrears; Ball [John Ball, botanist] is working slowly at the collections however; under the circumstances, he thinks he should return the bundles, and ask for them again when theirs are named; he is completely overwhelmed with the garden, herbarium and correspondence work; he has just sent off good collections of living plants to Boissier [Pierre Edmond Boissier, botanist], White [Horace Philips White, consul at Tangier, Morocco], Dupuis [Hanmer Lewis Dupuis, vice consul at Casablanca], Carstensen [Frederick Carstensen, consul at Mogador, later Essaouira, Morocco] and Grace [William Grace, vice consul at Essaouira]; Marocco is fast slipping his memory, and if he does ever write his book he will need Maw’s notes as offered; he had got as far as Ceuta [Morocco] when this ‘wretched fight’ with Ayrton began; he has appealed to Mr Gladstone [William Ewart Gladstone, prime minister], who has put the matter ‘under consideration’; he is getting tired of waiting and is disgusted with his position; Gladstone cannot make up his mind; he asks if he should return the plan