lAnruBan Society, 417 



sive collection ; and having joined Major Pemberton at Goalpara, tra- 

 versed with him above 400 miles of the Bootan country, from which 

 he returned to Calcutta about the end of June 1839. In November 

 of the same year he joined the army of the Indus in a scientific ca- 

 pacity, and penetrated, after the subjugation of Cabool, beyond the 

 Hindoo Khoosh into Khorassan, from whence, as well as from Aff- 

 ghanistan, he brought collections of great value and extent. During 

 these arduous journeys his health had several times suffered most 

 severely, and he was more than once reduced by fever to a state of 

 extreme exhaustion ; but up to this time the strength of his consti- 

 tution enabled him to triumph over the attacks of disease, and the 

 energy of his mind was so great, that the first days of coiivalescence 

 found him again as actively employed as ever. 



On his return to Calcutta in August 1841, after visiting Simla and 

 the Nerbudda, he was appointed to the medical duties at Malacca ; 

 but Dr. Wallich having proceeded to the Cape for the re-establish- 

 ment of his health, Mr. Griflfith was recalled in August 1842 to take, 

 during his absence, the superintendence of the Botanic Garden near 

 Calcutta, in conjunction with which he also discharged the duties of 

 Botanical Professor in the Medical College to the great advantage of 

 the students. Towards the end of 1844 Dr. Wallich resumed his 

 functions at the Botanic Garden. In September Mr. Griffith mar- 

 ried Miss Henderson, the sister of the wife of his brother. Captain 

 Griffith, and on the 11th of December he quitted Calcutta to return 

 to Malacca, where he arrived on the 9th of January in the present 

 year. On the 31st of the same month he was attacked by hepatitis, 

 and notwithstanding every attention on the part of the medical of- 

 ficer who had officiated during his absence and who fortunately still 

 remained, he gradually sunk under the attack, which terminated 

 fatally on the 9th of February. ** His constitution," says his at- 

 tached friend, Mr. MacClelland, in a letter to Dr. Horsfield, " seemed 

 for the last two or three years greatly shattered, his energies alone 

 remaining unchanged. Exposure during his former journeys and 

 travels laid the seeds of his fatal malady in his constitution, while 

 his anxiety about his pursuits and his zeal increased. He became 

 care-worn and haggard in his looks, often complaining of anomalous 

 symptoms, marked by an extreme rapidity of pulse, in consequence 

 of which he had left oflf wine for some years past, and was obliged 

 to observe great care and attention in his diet. In Affghanistan he 

 was very nearly carried off by fever, to which he had been subject in 

 his former travels in Assam. No government ever had a more de- 

 voted or zealous servant, and I impute much of the evil consequences 

 to his health to his attempting more than the means at his disposal 

 enabled him to accomplish with justice to himself." 



The most important of Mr. Griffith's published memoirs are con- 

 tained in the Transactions of the Linnean Society. Previous to 

 starting on his mission to Assam, he communicated to the Society 

 the first two of a series of valuable papers on the development of the 

 vegetable ovulum in Sanialum, Loranthus, Viscum, and some other 

 plants, the anomalous structure of which appeared calculated to 



