XCVl PEOCEEDINGS OF THE 



the same Society he contributed in 1847 a paper on " Athalamia, a 

 new genus oi MarcJiaiitiece'''' (Linn. Trans, vol. xs. p. 397) . 



In 1848, on the retirement of the late Dr. Wallich, Dr. Falconer 

 was appointed his successor as Superintendent of the Calcutta 

 Botanic Grarden, and Professor of Botany in the Medical College. 

 In 1850 he was deputed to the Tenasserim Provinces to examine 

 the Teak-forests, Avhich were threatened with exhaustion from 

 reckless felling and neglected conservation. His report, suggest- 

 ing remedial measures, was published in 1850 in the ' Selections 

 from the Eecords of the Bengal Grovernment.' In 1852 he com- 

 municated a paper on the quinine-yielding Cinchonas and their 

 introduction into India (Journ. Agr. Hort. Soc. of India, vol. viii. 

 p. 13) ; and in the same year the writer of the sketch (Dr. Mur- 

 chison), from which this account is chiefly drawn, saw, in the 

 Calcutta Botanic Grarden, a Wardian case containing specimens 

 of Cinchona calisaya, in which Palconer took great interest. Dr. 

 Palconer was not at the time cognizant of Weddell's accurate de- 

 termination of the species ; but he recommended a trial, and indi- 

 cated the hilly regions in Bengal and the Neilgherries in Southern 

 India as the most promising situations for experimental nurseries. 

 The subject was taken up independently of this recommendation 

 some years afterwards ; the bark-yielding Cinchonas were then 

 introduced from South America, and arc now thriving in India. 

 In 1854, assisted by his friend the late Mr. Henry "Walker, he 

 undertook a ' Descriptive Catalogue of the Possil Collections in 

 the Museum of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,' which was pub- 

 lished as a distinct work in 1859. In the spring of 1855 he retired 

 from the Indian service, and on his return home visited the 

 Holy Land, whence he proceeded along the Syrian coast to 

 Smyrna, Constantinople, and the Crimea during the siege of Se- 

 bastopol. 



Soon after his arrival in England he resumed his palseontolo- 

 gical researches, and in 1857 communicated to the Geological 

 Society two memoirs " On the Species of Mastodon and Elephant 

 occurring in the Possil State in England" (Quart. Journ. Greol. 

 Soc. vol. xiii. p. 308). Besides attempting to discriminate with 

 precision the three British fossil elephants till then confounded 

 under the name of Elephas primigenms, Dr. Falconer produced 

 for the first time a synoptical table, showing the serial affinities of 

 all the species of the Proboscidia, fossil and living, then known, of 

 the former of which a large number were either discovered or de- 

 termined by him. The same year he gave an account of the re- 



