494 



NA TURE 



[February 25, 1909 



the confidence which King's organising powers 

 inspired. 



The cinchona department was just passing beyond 

 the experimental stage when King was given control. 

 Natural causes render the cultivation of cinchona in 

 northern India unprofitable to private enterprise. 

 Notwithstanding this fact, King so administered the 

 Government plantations and factory that the Govern- 

 ment was able, without incurring pecuniary loss, to 

 place the remedies against malaria which cinchona 

 barU yields within the reach of the poorest peasant in 

 India. 



The extent and gravity of King's administrative 

 duties did not prevent him from prosecuting the 

 botanical studies which made him one of the leading 

 systematic botanists of the last quarter of the nine- 

 teenth century; but with rare self-denial he forbore 

 the publication of his results until the tasks of restor- 

 ing the gardens and organising the plantations and 

 factory under his charge had progressed so far as to 

 justify his giving the time that was needed to the pre- 

 paration of ordered statements. But the fact that his 

 scientific attainments were on a level with his 

 administrative powers could not remain concealed 

 from those with whom he corresponded on botanical 

 subjects, and in 1.S84 he was promoted to the degree 

 of LL.D. by his own university, while in 1S87 he was 

 elected into the Royal .Societv. 



In the last-mentioned year the enlightened policy 

 of the Government of Bengal enabled King to found 

 the " Annals " of the Calcutta gardens, a series of 

 sumptuous volumes in which he proceeded to enrich 

 systematic study by providing monographs of diffi- 

 cult and important genera like Ficus, Ouercus, Cas- 

 tanopsis, Artocarpus, Myristica, and "families like 

 Magnoliaceae, Anonacea, and Orchidacete. These 

 contributions to natural knowledge are characterised 

 by the accuracy, lucidity, and completeness which 

 marked everything he did. But as regards the branch 

 of botany of which he thus became so distinguished 

 an exponent. King was influenced by the sense of 

 duty that had so long delayed the publication of his 

 results. His personal predilections were towards 

 problems other than systematic, and, as might be 

 expected in one who had been a favourite pupil of 

 the late Prof. Dickie, F.R.S., these were problems 

 associated with cryptogamic studies. But King's 

 practical mind realised that, important and enticing 

 as such studies are, the path of duty for him led else- 

 where. The greatest immediate service he could 

 render to the official and commercial interests of 

 India lay in the provision of recognisable descriptions 

 of hitherto unknown or imperfectly understood 

 phanerogamic plants of economic importance, and 

 especially, as his experience as a forest official had 

 taught him, recognisable descriptions of trees, too 

 frequently neglected by workers whose study of 

 herbaceous plants and shrubs may leave nothing to 

 be desired. To this task King devoted himself in the 

 most single-minded fashion, and in furthering it he 

 commenced in 1889 the publication of the results of a 

 sustained floristic study of the vegetation of the 

 Malayan peninsula, issued from time to time in 

 fascicles that were professedly intended to serve as 

 precursors to a flora of that region, but are so admir- 

 ably executed that they serve as an efiicient substitute 

 for such a work. In i8qi, when the various botanical 

 officers in India were linked together in one depart- 

 ment. King became the first director of the Botanical 

 Survey of India. 



During his Indian career King was able to render 

 much additional service to the country and its 

 Government. He was long a trusted member of the 

 Senate, and served for a term on the syndicate of the 



N'O. 2052, VOL. 79] 



University of Calcutta. He was a member of the 

 board of visitors of the Bengal Engineering College, 

 .an institution in which he took a warm and effective 

 interest. He Vias an original member of the com- 

 mittee of management of the Zoological Gardens at 

 Calcutta, the site of which he found occupied by a 

 collection of hovels, and converted into a singularly 

 attractive place of public resort. He was for manv 

 years a trustee of the Indian Museum, and for a time 

 was chairman of the trust. He was president of the 

 central committee appointed by Government to in- 

 vestigate the indigenous drugs of India, from its in- 

 ception in 1894 until his retirement in 189S after 

 thirty-three years of devoted service to the people and 

 the Government of India. 



After his retirement King gave all his energies to 

 the continuation of his " Materials for a Flora of the 

 Malayan Peninsula." But his health, severelv tried 

 by his long residence in the East, became gradually 

 more and more impaired, and he realised that he 

 might never see the completion of the work 

 he had allotted himself. His friend Mr. H. N. 

 Ridley, F.R.S., director of the Botanic Gardens, 

 .Singapore, stepped into the breach and undertook the 

 elaboration of the monocotyledonous families while 

 King was engaged on the remainder of the dicotv- 

 ledonous ones, and after 1902, when the thirteenth 

 fasc'culus, completing the Calycifloras, was issued, 

 another friend, Mr. J. S. Gamble, F.R.S., became 

 associated with him in working out the Corolliflorae. 

 Increasing infirmity gradually led to King taking less 

 and less of an active share in the work, and the later 

 families have been elaborated by Mr. Gamble alone. 



King's skill as a landscape gardener led to the 

 award of its Victoria medal by the Roval Horticul- 

 tural Society. His services to humanity in connection 

 with the manufacture and distribution of the alkaloids 

 of cinchona bark were recognised by honorarv mem- 

 bership of the Pharmaceutical .Society, by the grade 

 of " OfBcier d'Instruction publique," and by the gift 

 of a ring of honour by H.I. Si. .Mexander III. of 

 Russia. His invaluable contributions to natural 

 knowledge brought him honorary association W'ith a 

 number of learned societies, and the award of medals 

 by the University of Upsala and the Linnean Society 

 of London, while his administrative qualities were 

 recognised, on the eve of his retirement, by the 

 Government of India. 



King was keenly interested in art, in literature, and 

 in many branches of science other than that in the 

 promotion of which he took so active a part. With 

 wide and accurate knowledge he combined a kindly 

 sense of humour and a magnetic charm of manner 

 which rendered intercourse with him a privilege never 

 to be forgotten, and to his many friends his death 

 leaves a blank that cannot be filled. 



NOTES. 



At the meeting of the Royal .Society on Thursday, 

 February 18, telegrams of congratulation on the hundredth 

 anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin were read from 

 the University of Christiania, the University, Kharkoff, 

 the Naturalists' Students' Association, Kharkoff, the 

 Society of Naturalists, Kharkoff, the council of lecturers, 

 Moscow Women's University, and the Swedish Academy 

 of Sciences, Stockholm. The president reported that 

 telegraphic acknowledgments and thanks had been trans- 

 milted to the senders on behalf of the Royal Society. 



M. H. PoiNCARfi has been elected president of the French 

 Bureau des Longitudes ; M. Bigourdan becomes vice-presi- 

 dent, and M. Deslandres secretary. 



