They are marked by a temporary pause in the stream of publication. None of his own larger works belong to this period. It happens only too often in this country that our ablest men are thus paralysed in their scientific careers by the potent vortex of administration. Not a few succumb, and cease altogether to produce. They are caught as in the eddy of the Lorelei, and are so hopelessly entangled that they never emerge again. They fail to realise, or realise too late, that the administration of matters relating to a science is not an end in itself, but only a means to an end. Some, the steadfast and invincible seekers after truth, though held by the eddy for a time, pass again into the main stream. Hooker was one of these. The Presidency of the Royal Society ended at the usual term of five years. Seven years later he demitted office as Director of Kew. He was thus free in 1885, still a young man in vigour though not in years. For over a quarter of a century after retirement he devoted the energy of his old age to peculiarly fruitful scientific work. Thus the administrative tie upon him was only temporary. So long as it lasted he faithfully obeyed the call of duty, notwithstanding the restrictions it imposed.
No exhaustive catalogue need be given of the works upon which the reputation of Sir Joseph Hooker as a scientific systematist was founded. It must suffice briefly to consider his four greatest systematic works, The Antarctic Flora, The Flora of British India, The Genera Plantarum, and the Index Kewensis.
We have seen how on the Antarctic voyage Hooker had the opportunity of collecting on all the great circumpolar areas of the Southern Hemisphere. His Antarctic Flora was based on the collections and observations then made. It was published in six large quarto volumes. The first related to the Lord Auckland and Campbell Islands (1843—1845); the second to Fuegia and the Falkland Islands (1845—1847); the third and fourth to New Zealand (1851—1853); and the fifth and sixth to Tasmania (1853—1860). They describe about 3000 species, while on 530 plates 1095 species are depicted, usually with detailed analytical drawings. But these volumes did not merely contain reports of explorations, or descriptions of the many new species collected. There is much more than this in them. All
