WIGHT S BOTANICAL LETTERS. 157 



have been addressed by Dr Wight, to his friend and coadju- 

 tor Dr Arnott, on the subject of Indian Botany. 



We shall merely premise that Dr Wight is still in the prime 

 of life, and enjoys an excellent constitution, although he has 

 been upwards of twenty years a resident in the Madras Pe- 

 ninsula. He entered the Company's service at an early a^e 

 as assistant-surgeon, and embarked for India, we believe, 

 with little or no more knowledge of Botany than usually falls 

 to the lot of a well-educated medical man. During: the first 

 three years, we have heard him say, he began to direct his 

 attention to the vegetable productions with which he was 

 every way surrounded; but in scientific Botany, he could 

 make very little progress from being utterly destitute of books. 

 At length he had the good fortune to become possessed of 

 Willdenoufs Species Plantarum, of persoon^s Synopsis, and oF 

 the Lichfield Society's translation of the Genera Plantarum of 

 Linnaeus. With these aids he proceeded joyously to inves- 

 tigate the Botany of the Madras Presidency; and, in 1823, 

 found himself enriched with a herbarium of from five hun- 

 dred to six hundred species, to all of which he had attached 

 names to the best of his ability. With his characteristic 

 generosity, and with that ardent desire to distribute his vege- 

 table treasures wherever he thought they would be really 

 useful, he despatched the whole of this collection to Edinburgh, 

 as a present to Dr Graham ; but these, unfortunately, never 

 reached their place of destination, having perished in the 

 wreck of the vessel in which they were embarked, off the Cape 

 of Good Hope. From that period, till 1826, Dr Wight's 

 professional duties, and the continual movement of his regi- 

 ment, were a hinderance to his Botanical studies : neverthe- 

 less, he continued to form another considerable collection, 

 partly at Vellore, and partly at Madras, (where he spent 

 three months for the recovery of his health,) which was sent 

 to England by Dr Shuter ; and which, through the kindness 

 of the late Robert Barclay, Esq., came into the possession of 

 the Editor of this journal. On Dr Shuter's return to Eng- 

 land, where he survived but a short period, Dr Wight was 



