I have driven Oakes so absolutely into a corner that I think he will work for once. The man’s preparations and materials are enormous! and for his sake I hope he will. If he does not, I shall know in time,--that is, as soon as I can use the knowledge,--and then the plan may take such form as may be deemed best. I should then wish to make it more absolutely a supplement of “Botanical Text-Book;” but only for the proper North. In the way in which it would then be done, with Persoonish[144] compactness and brevity, I doubt if you would care to engage in it. As soon as we can get out the proper Botany of the United States, I should wish it to supersede this to a great extent. In my hands, I would sell it so cheaply as to make very little, except as it promotes the sale of the “Botanical Text-Book.” I would sell the “Text-Book” with it for $2, or less even. The great object is to keep the ground clear by running an uncompromising opposition against the threatening interlopers. My lectures are to commence January 13th. TO J. D. HOOKER. CAMBRIDGE, 31st December, 1845. I was much pleased to receive your pleasant letter of the 29th October last, and I read with interest the account of the debate on the occasion of the election by the Edinburgh Town Council. Such defeats can do you no harm. I suppose you are now going on with the “Flora Antarctica.” I need not say that I should be very glad to see the Antarctic plants of the Wilkes Expedition in your hands. The botanist who accompanied the expedition is no doubt perfectly incompetent to the task, so greatly so that probably he has but a remote idea how incompetent he is. I have not seen him nor the plants. Certainly I would not touch them (any but the Oregon and Californian) if they were offered to me, which they are not likely to be. I consider myself totally incompetent to do such a work without making it a special study for some years, and going abroad to study the collections accumulated in Europe. Of course if they are worked up at all in this country, they will be done disgracefully. I publicly expressed my opinion on the subject in “Silliman’s Journal.” But I have long been convinced that nothing can be done. The whole business has been in the hands till now of Senator----, the most obstinate, wrong-headed, narrow-minded, impracticable ignoramus that could well be found.... If to this you add an utter ignorance of those principles of comity and the spirit of interchange that prevail among naturalists, and a total want of comprehension of what is to be done in the scientific works in question, and you will see that nothing is to be expected from such sources. They have thrown every obstacle they could in the way of their naturalists--Dana and Pickering, for instance--so much so that Pickering, though a patient man, once threw up his position in disgust, I have heard, but, by some concessions made to him, was finally persuaded to retain it.