?o8 



NA TURE 



[July 26, 1894 



Jansscn't photographs. One point confirmed by the pictures 

 is that the difference between the brightness of the solar disc 

 and that of the spots and faculx is more marlced the 

 greater the refrargibilily of the light employed. The bright 

 lines due to the vapour of calcium, gave a different set of 

 results. Such reversed lines do not represent incandescent 

 solid or liquid, as in the preceding case, but are emitted 

 by gaseous calcium at a higher level. Their light there- 

 fore imprints the image of the chromosphere upon the 

 photographic plate. Dr. Deslandres' photographs of 

 this kind agree with those previously mentioned as regards 

 disposition and general forms of (acula;, but they differ in the 

 fact that ihey show faculre near the centre of the disc as clearly 

 as facul.Te near the edge, and also by greatly extending the 

 areas of these bright patches. Using the light from a portion 

 of the d.irk and wide calcium line, and exposing the photo- 

 graphic plate a little longer than when the bright reversal in 

 the middle ol the line was employed, a curious and altogether 

 different result was obtained. The same facula; appear upon 

 the photograph, but they are not so clearly marked, and are of 

 less extent. On the other hand, spots are shown verydistincily, 

 with their penumbra; sharply defined. Dr. Deslandies has 

 obtained similar photographs by using absorption lines of iron, 

 aluminium, and carbon, which are wide enough to permit them 

 to be isolated by means of his spectrograph. The results of 

 further work in this direction will be awaited with interest. 



THE ROYAL BOTANIC GARDEN, 

 CALCUTTA.^ 



"TTHE ponderous and important .-liina/s of the Royal Botanic 

 ■'■ Garden, Cahutta, are known to all students of Indian 

 flora. We have from time to time referred in terms of praise 

 to these solid monuments of Dr. King's industry, and to the 

 skill of the native lithographers and printers. The fourth 

 volume of the Annals is before us, and is of equal excellence 

 to the preceding ones. It is concerned with " The Anonace.'v 

 of British India," a family of about six hundred species of woody 

 plants. Although Dr. King, in an admirable introduction, 

 gives an outline of the arrangement of the whole family, the 

 present monograph only contains "a detailed account of those 

 species which are indigneous to British India proper, to that 

 part of the Malayan I'eninsula which is under British protec- 

 tion, to the Islands of Singapore, Hangkore and Penang, and to 

 the Nicobar and Andaman groups. This is the geographic area 

 covered in the latter volumes of Sir Joseph Hooker's Flora of 

 British India ; and it may in the broad sense be considered for 

 botanical {ihoughnot for political) purposes a^ British India, as 

 distinguished Itom Diilih or Netherlands India, which consists 

 of the .Malayan Archipelago. The majority of the species in- 

 digenous to the British Indian area have already been dealt 

 with by Sir Joiieph Hooker and the late Dr. T. Thomson in 

 that splendid fragment their Flora Indica (published in 1855). 

 and still more recently by Sir Joseph Hooker in the first volume 

 of his Ilota of British India. It is with no idea of improving 

 upon the work of these distinguished authors that I have re- 

 described the same species in the following p.iges, but chiefly 

 in order that the species which have been discovered since the 

 order was dealt with by them may be described, and that the 

 relations of the new to the older species may be understood." 

 Dr. King points out that the .Malayan Peninsula remains even 

 now but partially explored, and that its complete examination 

 must bring to m^iny new .\nonace,t. liui as there was an 

 opportunity of printing a fully illustrated account of the family 

 at the present time, and as there is no knowing when the moun- 

 tain range which forms the backbone of the I'eninsula may he 

 explored, it was decided to publ sh the monograph, and risk the 

 charge of having done so prematurely. 



The great importance of such a work as that under notice 

 can only be adcquaiely judged by botanical experts. Alto- 

 gether there are 220 lithographic plates, a figure of c.ich species 

 being given. These are accompanied by 169 pages of text, in 

 addition to an index and the useful iiiiroduction, to which re- 

 ference has been made. For the immense lal>our involved in the 

 publication of such a volume, 1 'r. King deserves the thanks of 

 all lystematic botanists, and the Government of Bengal has 



• Annutt 0/ Itte Royal Bclanic Garden, Calcutta, v.»I. iv. Tlic Anon* 

 •ceasof BnlKb India. By Dr. George King, K.R.S., &c.. Superintendent 

 of the Garden, Calcutta. (Printed atlhc Bengal Secretariat PrcM, |S'>3.J 



done a great service to science by enabling the work to be! 

 published. 



The hundredth anniversary of the death of Colonel Kyd, the; 

 founder and first superintendent of the Royal Botanic Cjarden 

 at Calcutta, occurred last year, and Dr. King has taken advan- 

 tage of the occasion by putting on record as much as can be 1 

 traced of the early history of the Garden, and the career of its; 

 founder. The volume is dedicated to Colonel Kyd (of whom a 

 portrait is also given), and prefaced with an interesting account, 

 from which we have taken the following extracts : — 



" Robert Kyd belonged to an old Forfarshire family, several 

 membeis of which had preceded him in the service of the , 

 Honourable East India Company, He was born in 1746, At 

 the age of eighteen he became a cadet of the Bengal Engineers, 

 and on October 27, 1764, he received his commission as Ensign 

 in that corps. His promotion to the rank of Lieutenant fol- 

 lowed in the year after. Two and a half years later he became 

 Captain, getting his majority on May 29, 17S0, and his 

 Lieutenant-Colonelcy on December 7, 17S2. He died at Cal- 

 cutta on May 26, 1793. From the fraginentary evidence which 

 is still extant it appears that Colonel Kyd was a man of wide 

 and varied sympathies and experience, and that, during the later 

 years of his service he attained a position of so much influence 

 that his suggestions on various weighty matters were not only 

 listened to but promptly acted upon. Himself a keen gardener, 

 he had brought together, round his country house at Shalimar, 

 a collection of various plants of economic and horticultural 

 interest «hich had been sent to him, partly by correspondents 

 in the interior of the country, but which had chiclly been 

 brought to him by Captains of the Company's ships returning 

 from their voyages to the .Straits and to the Malayan Archi- 

 pelago. Colonel Kvd conceived the idea of supplying the 

 Company's Navy with leak timber grown near the ports where 

 it could be used in shipbuilding, and of increasing tlieir com- 

 mercial resources by introducing into India the cultivation of 

 the spices which, in those days, formed so important an item in 

 their trade, but for supplies of which they had to depend on j 

 their factories in Sumatra and Penang. He communicated j 

 this idea to the Governor-General of the day ; and, in a letter 

 written on June I, 17S6, he officially submitted a scheme for 

 the establishment of a Botanical Garden, or Garden of Accli- 

 matisation, near Calcutta. This scheme also included proposals 1 

 for introducing, into territories subject to the Company, the 

 cultivation of cotton, tobacco, coffee, tea, and various other 

 commercial products. To have suggested to the local repre- j 

 sentatives of what was then practically a trading Company, 

 the provision (at a considerable annual cost) of facilities for the 

 pursuit of pure, as distinguished from economic, botany would 

 probably not have increased the chances of the acceptance of 

 the Garden scheme. The scientific aspect of the matter was 

 therefore, with commendable s.agacity, excluded from mention 

 in the original proposal. So much, in fact, were the local 1 

 Government impressed with the advantages of Colonel Kyd's 

 proposed scheme that, without waiting fur a reply to this letter ' 

 from the Board, they secured land lor the Garden ' in anti- , 

 cipation of sanction '; and, in a letter dated July 27, 1 7871 1 

 they reported this action to the Directors. This second letter, 

 however, must have crossed a dispatch, dated London, July 31, 

 17S7, in which the Board not only conveyed their sanction to ■ 

 itc formation of the Garden suggested by Colonel Kyd, bijt , 

 warmly approved his action in bringing the proposal to their I 

 notice. ' 



" Colonel Kyd's country house and garden stood near the vil- 

 lage of .Sibpur, on a piomontory round which the llooghly 

 bends in passing the site o( the present I'ort William (at that 

 lime only recently complete<l), and which was known then (as 

 it is now) as Shalimar. And it was land in the vicinity of 

 Sbalimar, and separated from his own privtite garden only by a 

 ditch, which Colonel Kyd selected for the proposed Botanic 

 Garden. The piece of land thus selected measures more Ih.an 

 three hundred acres in cxieni, and is of rather irregular shape. 

 It consists of a rather narrow strip running along the right 

 bank of the llooghly for about a mile and a half, but expanding 

 towards its lower extremity into a large square block. 



" Colonel Kyd, whose office at this lime was that of Military 

 Secretary to tiovcrnment, was appointed Honorary Super- 

 intendent of the Garden, a post which he retained until his 

 death. He never lived within the Garden. In fact, there was 

 no dwelling-house within its limits until his successor, Dr. Rox- 

 burgh, built the present Superintendent's house in 1795. 



NO. I 29 I, VOL. 50] 



