LIXNEAX SOCIETY 05 LONDOX. xlv 



liberality is made in the * Musee Botanique de Delessert,' p. 142. 

 This earlier extensive herbarium he afterwards took to the East-Iudia 

 Company's Museum, Leadenhall Street, and the numerous duplicates 

 were distributed by himself, in 1832 and 1833, along with Dr.Wal- 

 lich's collection, to various bodies in Britain and Europe interested in 

 the promotion of science. The details of this collection, of which a 

 lithographed catalogue, comprising 2400 species, was issued in 1833, 

 are enumerated in the ' Prodromus ' of Wight and Arnott, and many 

 of the specimens are described in that work. It was at Negapatam 

 that Dr. Wight formed the wish of publishing an illustrated work on 

 Indian plants, similar to Sowerby's ' English Botany.' Many of the 

 figures and descriptions made on the spot were published in 1830-32 

 by Sir W. Hooker in the ' Botanical Miscellany,' vols. ii. and iii., and 

 in the companion to the ' Botanical Magazine,' under the head of 

 " Illustrations of Indian Botany, particularly of the Southern Parts 

 of the Peninsula " ; but the pubKcation in this form ceased on 

 account of the expense. 



Dr. Wight obtained leave to return to England on sick certificate 

 in 1831, when suffering from the effects of jungle-fever ; but he still 

 kept up in India his private establishment of plant-collectors and a 

 draughtsman. During this furlough of three years he lived chiefly in 

 Edinburgh, and, in conjunction with the late Dr.G. A. Walker- Arnott, 

 prepared the ' Prodromus Florae Peninsulae Indiae OrientaHs,' con- 

 taining descriptions of the plants found in the peninsula of British 

 India, arranged according to the Natural System, a work highly 

 praised by Drs. Hooker and Thomson in the introduction to their 

 ' Flora Indica.' One volume only was published, the work having 

 been interrupted by Dr. Wight's return to India in 1834, when he 

 was appointed to the 33rd regiment N. I, at BaUary, of which he 

 continued in medical charge for three years. 



Early in 1836 Dr. Wight was removed from military duty, and 

 employed in the Eevenue Department to inquire and report on the 

 cultivation of cotton, tobacco, senna, and generally of all Indian 

 products, an appointment involving a large amount of correspondence 

 with district officers, and also a careful personal observation of many 

 points not detailed in reports. 



The results of the experimental farm at Coimbatore, which Dr. 

 Wight superintended from 1842 to 1850, are summarized in Royle's 

 work on the ' Culture and Commerce of Cotton in India.' His 

 reports and correspondence on this subject are very voluminous, and 

 his protracted exertions in the experimental farm yielded a store of 



