248 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
from it. In the case of the * Icones Plantarum Indie Orientalis,' this 
is to be accounted for to a great extent by the fact, that the author 
and printer were severed by many hundred miles of mountains and 
jungles, and that the penny postage is still only a probability in India. 
That the printing therefore has improved in like manner with the en- 
gravings is but another proof of the surpassing perseverance of the 
author, who is not only the director of the artists, but of the lithogra- 
phic press, and to whose exertions both the establishment and improve- 
ment of the art of botanical drawing on stone in the peninsula of India 
is wholly due. In the preface to the last part, the author’s own avowal 
of the imperfections of his work shows the singular candour and mo- 
desty with which a man of such energy, and one who has attained such 
great eminence in Botanical science, surveys the fruits of thirteen 
years’ unremitting, well-directed labours, and a work of which any one 
may be proud to be called the author. It is with peculiar pride that 
we call attention to these facts, for it was in our own plant-rooms at 
Glasgow that the scheme of illustrating Indian plants in India was 
matured, now nearly twenty years ago, by Dr. Wight, when with cha- 
racteristic energy he visited the lithographic establishments in Glasgow, - 
made himself thoroughly acquainted with the machinery, tools, and 
manipulations, purchased at large expense, from his own resources, the 
necessary materials, and took them out to India. His first letters 
thence recorded disappointments and discouragements under which any 
. other person would have succumbed, but always ended with further 
evidence of his indomitable perseverance, and of his hopes being un- 
clouded still; and when, after innumerable failures, from the damp and 
heat of the climate, clumsiness and prejudice of the natives, warpings 
of presses, breaking of stones, moulding of paper, drying of printing- 
ink, and cracking of rollers, he at last produced a few recognizable 
plates of Indian plants, they were forwarded first of all to Scotland, 
and received more as proofs of what man may do under whatever diffi- 
culties, than as the earnest they really were of the volumes now lying 
before us. For our own part, we cannot join in a wish that the author 
has expressed to us, that the early plates of this work, or of the * Ilus- 
trations of the Genera of Indian Plants,’ should be cancelled: they are 
most interesting records of the difficulties he overcame, and an example 
to all fature labourers in the same field. 
Dr. Wight is about to establish himself near Kew, and devote him- 
