/^ 



PETER :MArO\VAX. 



began to fail and so he migrated to South Aiiica. here to pass 

 through the by no means unique experience of finding that under 

 the influence of Afric's sun fading youth had given to it the oppor- 

 tunity of ripening into a useful prime and a hale old age. And 

 so it came about that in 1862 MacOwan accepted the Principalship 

 of Shaw College, Grahamstown. Seven years later he was ap- 

 pointed Professor of Chemistry at Gill College, Somerset East, 

 and retained that post for twelve years. During his stay at 

 Somerset East, in 1874. Professor MacOwan was elected a member 

 of the United States Academy of Natural Sciences. 



In 1881 he severed his connection with Gill College, and hence- 

 forth betook himself exclusively to botanical studies. He thereupon 

 received the appointment of Director of the Government Botanical 

 Gardens at Cape Town and Curator of the Government Herbarium, 

 with which was very soon coupled the chair of Botany at the South 

 African College. These positions were occupied by Professor 

 MacOwan until 1889. Ever of an active and energetic disposition, 

 those eight years were the days of his prime. In 1885 he was 

 elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society, and of the Royal Horti- 

 cultural Society : three years later he joined the Deutsche 

 Botanische Gesellschaft. and in 1889 he became a member of 

 the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. 



Professor MacOv/an finally relinquished the teaching profession 

 in 1889, but continued in charge of the Botanic Gardens and Herb- 

 arium. In 1888, shortly after the establishm.ent (»[ the Cape 

 Government Department of Agriculture, Professor MacOwan 

 was given a retainer as Consulting Botanist to that Department. 

 In 1892 this became a permanent appointment under the title 

 of Government Botanist, carrying with it the office of Curator 

 of the Herbarium, the Directorship of the Botanic Gardens now 

 dropping away. Thus he continued until June, 1905, when, 

 owing to accession of the infirmities of age, he found it necessar}' 

 to retire from active service. 



With Professor MacOwan's retirement the office of Cape Govern- 

 ment Botanist ceased to exist, and in the last of his interesting 

 series of reports there is a pathetic reference to a 



"hereafter when the stress of an enforced economy no longer compels the 

 Government to hold in abeyance the oldest of the few scientific offices the 

 Colony possesses." 



On taking up the appoimtment of Government Botanist, Professor 

 MacOwan found himself housed, together with the exceedingly 

 valuable Herbarium whereof he was Curator, in a building con- 

 structed largely of wooden partitions, vertically above the Govern- 

 ment Laboratories. This caused him a constant restlessness of 

 mind : he made it his special business to send all the duplicate 

 plant specimens he could to the Albany Museum, 500 miles away, 

 and, in characteristic fashion, he thus expressed his reason for 

 so doing in one of his Annual Blue Books : 



"It is undoubtedly a wise policy that there should, as far as possible, be 

 a replica of the Government Herbarium. In the ever present fear of fire 

 in a building full of paper and plants at top, and a chemical laboratory at 

 the bottom, it is some sort of a solace that we are sending all available dupli- 

 cates to vigilant curation elsewhere. Anil if the experience of fire assurance 



