2 A BRIEF MEMOIR OF 
devotion to it; and there can be little doubt that the daily intercourse of two such 
men in an unfamiliar country, where every plant was comparatively new to them, must 
have afforded the greatest mutual satisfaction, as ‘well as the strongest mutual stimulus 
to work. The researches of the two friends into the botanical sources of the indigenous 
economic products of the Carnatic impressed the Madras Government so favourably that, 
from 1778, the Madras Board made a monthly allowance to Dr. Koenig to enable him 
to extend his enquiries to Siam and the Straits of Malacca, and in 1780 he was 
formally admitted into the Company’s service. Koenig died of dysentery on the 26th 
of June 1785; he was attended during his last illness by Roxburgh, who makes a 
touching allusion to him in the following note appended to his description of Rozburghia 
gloriosoides, Dryand. (Fl. Ind. II, 236). “ This,” writes Roxburgh, “was one of the last 
plants Dr. Koenig saw. It was brought in when he was on his death-bed. He did attempt 
to examine it, but was unable; for the cold hand of death hung over him. He desired 
that I would describe it particularly, for he thought it was new, and uncommonly 
curious and beautiful. This observation from a worthy friend, a preceptor, and 
predecessor has made me more than usually minute in describing and drawing it.” 
Koenig was immediately succeeded in his appointment as Government Botanist by 
Dr. P. Russel, who, however, held the office for but a short time, and he in turn was 
succeeded by Dr. Roxburgh. Roxburgh, who was presumably attached to a regiment 
(I can, however, find no definite information on the point) was moved about from place 
to place; but, from his first arrival in the Madras Presidency until his transfer to the 
Calcutta Botanic Garden in 1793, his service was confined to the Northern Circars, and a 
great deal of it was at Samulcotta,* a small station about seven miles from the town of 
Coconada, and about twenty-two from one of the mouths of the Godavery river. 
Samulcotta stands on the edge of a hilly region possessing a very interesting Flora. 
For years it had been the practice, both of Koenig and of Roxburgh, to describe and 
make drawings of every plant they met. ‚During his life-time Koenig had transmitted 
many specimens of plants to Europe, some of which had been published in the Supple- 
mentum Systematis Plantarum of the younger Linnzus and іп Retz's Observationes 
Potanice; while others had been described by Schrader and by Vahl. Papers written by 
Koenig himself had also been published in the Transactions of the learned Societies of 
berlin, Copenhagen, and Lund; and one in the first volume of the Transactions of the 
` Linnean Society of London. Ву Koenig's will, all his letters, papers, and unpublished 
manuscripts, as well as his dried specimens of plants, were bequeathed to Sir J oseph 
Banks, President of the Royal Society of London. Up to the time of Koenig’s death 
Roxburgh had, so far as can be learnt, sent по plants to Europe, and had himself pub- 
x lished nothing. Between the years 1791 and 1794, however, he transmitted, to the Court 
of Directors in London, descriptions and figures of no fewer than five hundred species. 
- "The Court placed these in the hands of Sir J oseph Banks, who selected three hundred 
_ them which were published, at the Company’s expense, in three large folio volumes 
2. under the title The Plants of the Coast of Coromandel, This was Roxburgh’s earliest 
book ; the first part of it appeared in 1795, the last not until 1819. Contemporary with 
Ды‏ — 77575856 و وس سس ہہ 
In the article on Roxburgh in Knight’s Cyclopedia of Biography, it is stated that he was stationed at Samul.‏ * .2 
cotta from 1781 until his transfer to Calcutta; and also that at Samuleotta he established a garden where he intro-‏ 
duced the plants yielding coffee, cinnamon, nutmeg, arnotto, and Sappan wood as well as the bread-fruit tree, the‏ 
mulberry tree, and various kinds of pepper vines, He is also said to have interested himself in the improvement of the‏ 
s cultivation of sugar, in the rearing of silkworms and in the manufacture of silk. 
