LINNEAN SOCIETT OF LONDON. XXIIU 



Greeks, as described by Dioscorides and Theophrastus. He iuves- 

 tigated the agricultural resources of the plains of India, with a 

 view to the improved culture and introduction of various grains, 

 and of plants yielding fibres and other useful products ; and he 

 endeavoured to direct attention to the capabilities of the valleys 

 and slopes of the Himalaya for the growth of tea, which has been 

 so successfully carried out by his successors. Dr. Boyle's principal 

 work, " The Illustrations of the Botany, &c. of the Himalaya 

 Mountains," is a storehouse of valuable facts and information, 

 bearing on all these and other allied subjects, and has been largely 

 drawn from by every writer of authority who has since devoted 

 his labours to the properties and uses of plants. The favourable 

 situation of Saharunpoor provided other tempting fields of 

 natural investigation, which his ardent zeal would not permit him 

 to neglect. Single-handed he undertook the severe task (for a 

 tropical climate) of horary observations of the thermometer di'y- 

 and wet-bulb, and of the barometer, on a single day in each month 

 throughout the year, besides the regular ordinary observations twice 

 a day, and by these means attained excellent data for determining 

 the meteorological conditions of the cHmate, and fixing one of the 

 standard stations by which the range of mean temperature over 

 the continent of India has been ascertained. He made collections 

 of the mammalia, birds, reptiles, and insects of the northern plains 

 and mountains of India, in themselves so valuable and extensive 

 that they furnished materials for two important and distinct me- 

 moirs, by eminent British naturalists, upon the fauna of India, 

 contained in his great work before referred to. During his 

 various journeys through the Himalayan mountains, he carefully 

 collected specimens of all the rocks he met with, marked the 

 direction and measured the inclination of the strata, ascertained 

 the elevations of the successive ridges, and the depressions of the 

 intervening valleys, by barometrical measurement, and recorded 

 the whole of the observations with such care, that, gleaning 

 materials from other sources, and aided by Sir Henry De la Beche, 

 he was enabled to produce a very creditable approximative geolo- 

 gical section across the chain of the Himalayas, from the plains of 

 Hindostan on to the snowy range, which was also brought out in 

 his ' Illustrations.' All these varied and extensive researches 

 were condensed within the comparatively short period of eight 

 years. Patient of labour, and self-exacting to the full measure of 

 his physical powers, he never remitted his exertions, nor yielded 

 to the enervating effects of a tropical climate. Gifted by iiatui-e 



LINN. PROC. C 



