IBur 



ELECTED F.E.S. 221 



vey work to Wolverhampton, Manchester, Leeds, Barnsley, 

 and Birmingham, stealing a few days off his Survey duty 

 to spend at pure Botany at Warrington with Wilson the 

 botanist, who had been working at the mosses in his Flora 

 Antarctica. ' We are now pulling my Tasmanian specimens 

 of Dawsonia to pieces, and can hardly make out whether it be 

 a new species or variety ' (May 20). 



On April 21 of this year he was elected to the Koyal Society, 

 as Wallichi described it, ' by a vast majority, ... a majority 

 much greater than any among the eight candidates that were 

 successful. He had ninety-five votes, nor was any one can- 

 didate's certificate so amply and gloriously filled up as his ! ' 



Of this scientific success he writes with his usual diffidence 

 in his own powers to his grandfather, to whom he owed so 

 much scientific encouragment. 



St. John's College, Cambridge : April 26, 1847. 



My deak Grandfather,— I thank you very much for 

 the kind congratulations you have sent me on my election 

 to the K.S. You I can thank with more ease than any one, 

 for you are one of the very few who can see to the full how 

 entirely I am indebted to those who have gone before and 

 stood by me, for what superiority in position over my con- 

 temporaries their good offices have obtained for me. My 

 advantages in Boss's voyage ; the procuring of the after 

 grant ; the launching of my book into the world in the 

 form it boasts and the continuation of that work in a credit- 

 able state up to the present day ; my testimonials for 

 Edinburgh ; my appointment to the Government Survey 

 (small though it be)— are all advantages for which I am 

 indebted to the position my father has gained for himself 

 and which has enabled him to lay my Uttle merits before 



special knowledge was of great value to the Commission on potato disease, 

 1845. On his retirement in 1879 he presented his herbariium of fungi and his 

 books to Kew. He was elected F.L.S. 1836, F.R.S. 1879, receiving the Royal 

 Medal in 1863. 



^ Nathaniel Wallich (1786-1854) was a Danish surgeon at Serampore who, 

 when the place fell into English hands in 1813, entered the service of the E.I.C., 

 and in 1815 was made superintendent of the Calcutta Botanical Garden, a post 

 he held till 1850. He returned finally to England in 1847, having done immense 

 work as a botanical explorer, and brought back vast collections, the final 

 distribution of which was completed by Hooker. 



