632 



NA TURE 



[Oct. 26, 1882 



ence to an allusion of Mr. Sedgwick, he said he should 

 always consider it to be one of the brightest episodes of 

 his career that, having found in Balfour a young man 

 capable of giving instruction, he had afforded him facili- 

 ties. The late Professor was not only an instructor but a 

 student, and no one ever remained so much a student." 



Prof. Williamson proposed " That a committee be ap- 

 pointed to collect subscriptions and to draw up condi- 

 tions under which, with the sanction of the subscribers at a 

 future meeting, the fund shall be offered to the University." 



Dr. Michael Foster proposed the following resolution :— 

 "That the Committee be instructed— (1) that the value 

 of the studentship be not less than 200/. a year ; (2) that 

 while it is desirable that the studentship should be in 

 some way closely connected with this University, persons 

 other than members of this University shall be eligible 

 to it ; (3) that it be not given away by competitive 

 examination ; (4) that in framing regulations both for the 

 conduct of the student and the award of occasional 

 grants, the primary object of the fund— namely, the fur- 

 therance of original research, be closely adhered to." He 

 said he thought the above instructions to the Committee 

 did not need any defence. The object of the memorial 

 was not to keep Prof. Balfour's memory alive, for his 

 works would do that, but to connect his name with some 

 useful thing. The idea in fixing the value of the student- 

 ship at 200/ was that such a sum would be just sufficient 

 to attract men led by enthusiasm to turn their attention 

 to research, while it would be insufficient to induce 

 persons to accept it as a competency. He thought it 

 right not to restrict the studentship to members of the 

 University, for they desired to attract talent from all 

 parts of the country, while he considered that it was a 

 proper condition not to throw it open to a competitive 

 examination, for the studentship was not intended as a 

 reward for past work or an acknowledgment of merit, 

 but to encourage men of promise to undertake research. 



An influential committee was appointed to collect sub- 

 scriptions and draw up detailed conditions under which, 

 after a future meeting of subscribers, the fund may be 

 offered to the University. Mr. J. W. Clark, M.A., 

 1, Scroop Terrace, and Mr. A. Sedgwick, M.A.. Trinity 

 College, Cambridge, were appointed secretaries of the 

 committee, the former to act as treasurer. The fund starts 

 well, with the munificent contribution of 3000/. from the 

 family of the late Prof. Balfour, and to 1000/. which had 

 been left by the deceased to Dr. Michael Foster to be 

 applied according to his discretion for the promotion of 

 biology; nearly 1000/. was subscribed in the room or 

 shortly afterwards. 



DR. THWAITES 



GEORGE HENRY KENDRICK THWAITES, 

 whose death was recorded in a recent number of 

 Nature, was a well-known member of the older genera- 

 tion of British botanists. I do not know the exact date 

 or place of his birth, but suppose it to have been in 181 1. 

 In his early life he followed the profession of Notary 

 Public at Bristol, and apparently had a hard struggle to 

 support and educate numerous younger brothers and 

 sisters. He had a natural passion for botanical studies 

 which he cultivated to such good purpose as to obtain 

 the appointment of Lecturer on Botany and Vegetable 

 Physiology at the School of Medicine at Bristol. He 

 was no less ardent as an entomologist, and throughout 

 his life collected assiduously ; some of his earliest papers 

 are on entomological subjects. His principal published 

 work has, however, always been botanical. Till he left 

 England he was mostly occupied with microscopical in- 

 vestigations, and what he published of these were like all 

 that he did later — excellent specimens of careful and 

 intelligent observation. His paper "(in the Cell-mem- 

 brane of plants" (1846) which established many inter- 



esting and at that time novel points, received a good deal 

 of attention. Amongst other things it apparently gave 

 the first accurate interpretation of the mucous investment 

 of the cells of many Palmcllccc, Nostochinea, and Diato- 

 macea; Thwaites was able to show clearly that this was 

 the product of the gelatinisation of the cell-walls. His 

 capital discovery, however, was that of Conjugation in the 

 Diatomacea. This he observed in Eunotia turgida, and 

 the paper describing it bears the date May II, 1847, and 

 was published in the Annals and Magazine of Natural 

 History. It was, as Thwaites himself remarked, "a dis- 

 covery which is valuable as proving that a relationship of 

 affinity as well as of analogy exists between the Diatoma- 

 cca* and the Destnidca: and Conjugates, and will help to 

 settle the question as to whether the former are to be 

 referred to the animal or the vegetable kingdom.'' I 

 have been told nevertheless that when this important 

 discovery was communicated to the British Association 

 at Oxford, it was received with but little attention. 



The present director of the Royal Gardens, Kew, then 

 Dr. Hooker, was about this time attached to the Geologi- 

 cal Survey. At the instance of Sir Henry de la Beche 

 he was engaged in the Bristol Coal Field, endeavouring 

 to ascertain whether any definite relation could be traced 

 between the superficial flora and the underlying rocks. 

 This brought him in contact with Dr. Thwaites, who was, 

 notwithstanding his professional pursuits, in the habit of 

 spending the early hours of the morning in teaching 

 himself the practical details of gardening in the Durd- 

 ham Down nurseries. It was probably this circumstance 

 which brought under his notice the curious instance of 

 hybridity in a Fuchsia, which so much excited the interest 

 of Mr. Darwin, and has often been referred to. A seed 

 of F. coccinea fertilised by F. fulgens contained two em- 

 bryos. These were extremely different in appearance 

 and character, though both resembled other hybrids of 

 the same parentage produced at the same time. What 

 was still more remarkable, was that they were closely co- 

 herent below the two pairs of cotyledon-leaves into a 

 single cylindrical stem. 



In 1847 Thwaites was an unsuccessful candidate for a 

 chair of botany in one of the newly founded Queen's 

 Colleges in Ireland. His combined scientific and practical 

 knowledge, however, indicated his fitness for a botanical 

 post, and on the death of Dr. Gardner, he was appointed 

 in June, 1849, Director of the Royal Botanic Garden, 

 Peradeniya, Ceylon, on the recommendation of Sir William 

 Hooker. He never returned to this country, and from the 

 first threw himself into the duties of his post with great 

 fervour ; under his management Peradeniya became per- 

 haps the most beautiful tropical garden in the world. He 

 continued the labours of his predecessors in investigating 

 the very peculiar flora of the island with great success, 

 and, between the years 185S-64, issued, in parts, the 

 " Enumeratio plantarum Zeylaniffi." This was at the 

 time of its publication the first complete account on 

 modern lines of any definitely-circumscribed tropical 

 flora. The want of affinity which the flora thus worked 

 out was seen to have to the general vegetation of the con- 

 tiguous peninsula of Hindostan and its marked relation- 

 ship to that of the Malayan region established facts ot 

 the greatest significance in the study of geographical dis- 

 tribution. A passage from the preface (1864) is worth 

 quoting, as showing that Thwaites was one of the earliest 

 English naturalists to give his adhesion to the Darwinian 

 theory : — 



" These forms or varieties would probably be viewed 

 by some botanists in the light of distinct, though closely- 

 allied species, and they occupy, in fact, that debatable 

 ground the difficulties and perplexities of which the 

 practical naturalist alone knows, and which in the opinion 

 of many (and I may include myself amongst the number) 

 are only to be got rid of by the adoption of the views 

 enunciated by Mr. Darwin as regards the relationship of 



