40 
to this interesting work, which should be specially valuable in 
promoting a knowledge of the indigenous economic products of 
this part of the world. 
I have, & 
(8 Dy CrCcIL C. SMITH. 
The Right Hon 
The Lord Knutsford, G.C.M.G., &c., ea &e. 
Mr. J. MACFARLANE, Honorary Secretary to the Asiatic 
Society of Bengal, to the oot tne to Government, Straits 
Settlements, Singapore, 15th April, 1902. 
I am directed by the Council of the Asiatic Society of Ben 
to acknowledge receipt of your letter No. Misc. 292, ’02, of igh 
January, 1902, informing the Society that His Excellency Sir 
Frank Athelstane Swettenham, K.C.M.G, the Governor of the 
Straits Settlements, has been pleased to make them a grant 0 
$2,800 or Rs. 8,750 for the purpose of completing the publication 
of the Materials we Flora of the Malayan Peninsula, by 
Sir George King, K.C.I.E., formerly Superintendent for the 
Botanic Garden near Calcutta. 
2. The series of papers bearing this title is really a monograph, 
modelled on he lines of Hooker’s well-known Flora of British 
India, of the flowering iiants of the Malay Peninsula and the 
rir ted smaller elena. and it is = useful to the student as it is 
o the systematic botanist. The series was commenced in the 
pia of the Asiatic ecioty for 1399, and up to last year nearly 
i= pages including 52 natural orders, or rather more than half 
the work, have been published. One or der, Leguminose, has 
been contributed by Major [now Lt.-Colonel] Prain, and Dr. 
Stapf, of Kew, has dailabocaied in the preparation of the sub-order 
Melastomacee. 
3. In 1897, the aa ie of the Society’s finances came under 
eae and some doubts were expressed as to their ability to 
carry out so Polen an undertaking as the Malayan Flora. At this 
eee the Government of the Straits Settlements, which was 
aturally interested in the completion of the work, held out to 
the Society the prospects of financial aid alae afforded, and 
eventually sanctioned the liberal donation of Rs. 8,750. 
ment of botanical research. The Society desire to offer for the 
scxapeiinol of the Government of the Straits Settlements 30 copies 
) 
be forwarded from time to time. They further ropose to add to 
the title page of the later issues the following Words: :—‘ Published 
with the eee e of His Excellency the Governor of the Straits 
lements,” — 
