lin:nea>' society of loxdox. 93 



vivid. The Gtirdeii was carried 011 with imicli trouble, upon a 

 precarious retail business in plants and seeds, and it is much 

 to his credit that when in 1892 he handed it over to the munici- 

 pality it was witb a small credit balance, after defraying costly 

 improvements. 



The Herbarium in connection with the Garden was badly lioused 

 and had been greatly neglected. It was not till 1892 that a 

 couple of rooms were assigned to it ; in that year he reported that 

 he had now 31 cabinets, against 7, which was the number in 1881, 

 with 3U00 sheets, and containing the types of the Cape Flora as 

 far as Campanulacea3, mounted by Dr. Har\ey in 18G-1. The basis 

 of the collection was once the property of Zeyher, and afterwards 

 of Dr. Pappe, and dated from 1825 to 1841) ; the specimens, besides 

 being old, liad suffered much from want of care, and even Harvey's 

 set had been allow ed to lie for years unpoisoned, and it is due to 

 Sir Henry Barkly that this measure of preservation was adopted. 

 By 11)01 there were 61 full cabinets, the increase entirelv due to 

 jNIacOwan's own hard work. In 1904, to his great delight, his old 

 herbarium was presented to the Albany Museum by the Trustees 

 of Gill College, where it had lain entirely unused since his time. 

 Although it had somewhat dwindled, it still contained 14,000 

 sheets of phanerogams, many of them types, and 1800 fungi. 



In 1884 he began with Dr. Bolus the issue of his ' Herbarium 

 normale Austro-Africanum,' which was continued till 15 centuries 

 had been issued ; five more were issued by MacOMan single- 

 handed. 



He resigned the Directorship of the Bolianic Garden at the end 

 of 1891, but retained the post of Curator of the Herbarium till 

 his retirement in 1905 ; when he left the sheets had increased to 

 44,000. of which 25,500 were Cape plants. For about two years 

 subsequent he worked about (5 to 7 hours daily in the Herbarium 

 of the Albany IMuseum, chiefly gettiug the Gill College herbarium 

 into creditable order once more. In 1907 he had a slight paralytic 

 stroke, and finding the climate of (xrahamstown too cold in winter, 

 he moved to iriienliage. lie gradually weakened till the end 

 came last year, as previously noted, and passed away in the house 

 of a son-in-law, Mr. Chase of Uitenhage. 



He took his degree of B.A. before leaving England, and he 

 never revisited his native land. Frequently acting as examiner to 

 the Cape of Good Hope University in Ciiemistry, Botany, Geology, 

 and Zoology, the Council bestowed upon Iiim in 1902 tlie honorarv 

 degree of Doctor of Science. He was elected Fellow of our 

 Society on the 2nd April, 1885. 



For the particuhirs of the foregoing sketch the writer would 

 acknowledge his indebtedness to Dr. Schonland's obituary of his 

 father-in-law which came out in the ' Kew Jhilletin,' 1910, pp. 84- 

 90, and to the sketcli with ])ortrait which appeared in the ' South 

 African Journal of Science ' for January last, pp. 71-79, above the 

 initials of Dr. Juritz, the Editor ; the latter article contains a 

 partial bibliography of Prof. MacOwan's writings. [B. D. J.] 



