liv 



HENRY JOHN CARTER was born at Budleigh Salterton, Devonshire, on 

 the 18th August, 1813. He studied medicine from the age of sixteen, 

 when he entered the Devon and Exeter Hospital as an indoor pupil, 

 and in 1835 he became a student at University College, where he 

 gained two silver medals for Comparative and Human Anatomy. In 

 1839, after passing his examination at the College of Surgeons, he 

 was appointed House Surgeon at University College, but shortly 

 afterwards he gave up this appointment on account of a temporary 

 failure of health, and became Conservator of the College Museum. 

 In 1841 he studied in Paris, at the Ecole de Medecine, and in the 

 following year received the appointment of Surgeon, in the service of 

 the East India Company. 



Carter's Indian career began on the 12th February, 1842, when 

 he landed in Bombay, and terminated in 1862. In the earlier portion 

 of the twenty years he was engaged on military duty, in the course 

 of which he was dispatched from Bombay to Calcutta by sea, and he 

 returned by way of Mauritius, encountering a cyclone on each 

 voyage. Soon after returning he was placed in medical charge of a 

 battery of artillery that was ordered to join the army in Sind, under 

 Sir C. Napier, and he was present at the battle of Hyderabad, on 

 March 24th, 1843, for which he received the medal. Later in the 

 year he was sent with a detachment of troops to Umarkot, and sub- 

 sequently he proceeded in medical charge of H.M.'s 21st Regiment, 

 to Nasirpur, in pursuit of Shah Mahomed. These expeditions, 

 carried out in the Indian desert, at a very hot season of the year, 

 entailed great sickness and mortality amongst the troops, and severe 

 exertions on the part of the medical staff. When, towards the close 

 of 1843, Carter returned with the 21st Regiment to Karachi, nearly 

 every man was on the sick list. 



His next service was of a pleasanter description and may be 

 regarded as virtually the commencement of his scientific career. In 

 1844 he was appointed Medical Officer of the surveying brig, " Pali- 

 nurus," then commanded by Captain Sanders, I.N"., and for the next 

 two years he remained with the vessel during the survey of the 

 South East Coast of Arabia, from the entrance of the Persian Grulf, 

 to the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, at the southern extremity of the 

 Red Sea. The geological notes made by Carter, during these two 

 years, were published in the Journal of the Bombay Branch of the 

 Royal Asiatic Society, in 1852, and it may be remarked that even to 

 the present day but few additions of importance have been made to 

 them ; for our knowledge of the Eocene and Cretaceous rocks, and of 

 the associated igneous formations of Southern Arabia, we have still 

 in great measure to depend upon Carter's account. 



From July, 1846, when he was appointed Assistant Civil Surgeon 

 in, Bombay, the remaining sixteen years spent by him in India were 



