TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION K. 913 
been appointed to its charge in the person of Mr.. George Gammie, hitherto 
employed in the Cinchona Department of Bengal. 
Reference has already been made to the Botanic Gardens at Seharunpore and 
Calcutta. But to complete this sketch, and especially in order to give a clear idea 
of the apparatus at present existing in India for carrying on the study and prac- 
tice of Systematic Botany, it is necessary again to refer to them. On the retire- 
ment of Dr. Jameson in 1872, Mr. J. F. Duthie was selected by the Secretary of 
State for India as Superintendent of the Seharunpore Garden. Mr. Duthie is still 
at Seharunpore. During his tenure of office he has added to the Herbarium 
previously existing there (which consisted chiefly of the collections of Royle, 
Falconer, and Jameson) a magnificent collection of his own. Mr. Duthie has 
published a valuable book on the ‘ Field and Garden Crops of the North-Western 
Provinces,’ and another on the Grasses of the same area. He is now engaged on 
the preparation of local Floras of the North-West Provinces and of the Punjab. 
The Calcutta Garden at the date of Sir J. D. Hooker's arrival in India in 1848 
was under the temporary charge of Dr. McClelland, who soon made way for Dr. 
Falconer, who, in 1855, was succeeded by Dr. J. Thomson, and he in turn by Dr. T. 
Anderson in 1861. Mr. C. B. Clarke acted as Superintendent during the interreenum 
between Dr. Anderson’s lamented death in 1870 and my own appointment in 1871. 
The Garden and Herbarium at Calcutta have been most liberally supported by the 
Government of Bengal. By funds thus supplied the Garden has been remodelled and 
improved ; the Herbarium has been housed in an excellent fire-proof building (erected 
in 1883), and the collections of which it consists have been greatly increased. The 
chief items of these later acquisitions have been the large contributions of Mr. C. B. 
Clarke; of Dr. D. Prain, for many years Curator of the Herbarium, and now Superin- 
tendent of the Garden and of the cinchona plantation and factory; of Mr. G. A. 
Gammie, formerly one of the staff of the cinchona plantation, and now Lecturer on 
Botany in the College of Science at Poona; of Mr. R. Pantling, Deputy-Superin- 
tendent of the Cinchona plantation, who, in addition to dried specimens of the orchids 
of Sikkim, contributed nearly five hundred drawings, most of which have been litho- 
graphed as the illustrations to a book published in the ‘ Annals’ of the Garden, as the 
‘Orchid Flora of Sikkim ;’ of Mr. Kunstler, a collector in the Malay Peninsula; and 
last, but by no means least, of a trained band of aborigines of Sikkim named Lepchas 
who possess keener powers of observation of natural objects, more patience, sweeter 
tempers, avd, [am bound in fairness to add, dirtier clothes than any race I have ever 
met—black, yellow, or white! In addition to their liberal grants to the Garden and 
Herbarium, the Bengal Government, twelve years ago, sanctioned the publication, 
at their expense, as occasion might offer, of monographs of important families or 
genera of Indian plants. These monographs are printed in quarto, and they are, 
with one exception, profusely illustrated by plates drawn and lithcgraphed by 
Bengali draughtsmen. The series is known as ‘The Annals of the Royal Botanic 
Garden, Calcutta,’ and it has now reached its eighth volume, the ninth being in 
active preparation. These ‘Annals’ have been contributed to by Dr. Prain (my 
successor at the Calcutta Garden), by Dr. D. Douglas Cunningham, Mr. J. 8. 
Gamble, Mr. R. Pantling, and myself. 
About ten years ago, it occurred to the Supreme Government of India that it 
might be to the interest of Science if the four Botanical establishments at Calcutta, 
Seharunpore, Madras, and Poona were to be formed into a kind of hierarchy under 
the designation of The Botanical Survey of India, without removing either 
the officers or the four institutions to which they were attached from the 
financial or general control of the local administrations within which they are 
respectively situated, the Supreme Government making a small contribution of 
money for the purpose of exploring littlé-known districts and making itself 
responsible for the cost of a publication called ‘The Records of the Botanical 
Survey.’ The four institutions just mentioned continue, therefore, to be paid for 
and controlled by the Governments of Bengal, the North-West Provinces, Madras, 
and Bombay, but their Superintendents are placed on the cadre of the Botanical 
Survey. The published Records of this Survey now extend to twelve numbers, 
each of which is devoted to an account of the Botany of some part of the enormous 
and continually expanding area to be explored. 
1899. 3N 
