XXXvi BIOGKAPHICAL SKETCH. 



Kew. Eespecting this collection, Dr. Hooker and Dr. Thomson 

 thus wrote in the ' Flora Indica,' published in 1855 : — 



' We cannot conclude this comprehensive catalogue Tvith- 

 out an allusion to the labours of Dr. Falconer, one of the 

 most estimable, able, and accomplished of Indian botanists ; 

 to whose liberality and good offices we were in many ways 

 indebted as travellers in India, and are still as workers at 

 home. Dr. Falconer was one of the first botanists who 

 visited Cashmeer and Little Tibet, where he formed magni- 

 ficent collections, as he also did in Kumaon and the Punjab, 

 illustrating his specimens with voluminous notes and details 

 of their structure. His collections are, we believe, still in the 

 India House, where they have been for many years. They 

 constitute the only herbarivim of importance to which we 

 have failed to procure access, and we are hence unable to do 

 our friend that justice in the body of this work to which, as 

 the discoverer of many of the plants described, he is pre- 

 eminently entitled.' ' It may be added, that since his death 

 Dr. Falconer's voluminous botanical notes, with 450 coloured 

 drawings of Cashmeer and Indian plants, have been deposited 

 in the Library at Kew. 



But his main work during his residence at this time in 

 England Avas the determination and illustration of the 

 Indian fossils in the British Museum and in the East India 

 House. Captain Cautley, in 1840, had presented his vast 

 collection, the result of ten years' unremitting labour and 

 great personal outlay, to the British Museum, the Geological 

 Society having declined to accept it, as it was beyond their 

 means of accommodation. Its extent and value may be 

 estimated from the fact that it filled 214 large chests, the 

 average weight of each of which amounted to 4 cwt., and 

 that the charges on its transmission to England alone, which 

 were defrayed by the Government of India, amounted to 6021. 

 Dr. Falconer's selected collection was divided between the 

 India House and the British Museum ; the great mass was 

 presented to the former, but a large ntimber of unique or 

 choice specimens required to fill blanks or improve series 

 were presented to the latter.^ Other collections of the 



' ' Flora Indiea.' By J. D. Hooker, collection ■which were figured in the 

 M.D., and Thos. Thomson, M.D. Lond. I ' Fauna Antiqna Sivalensis ' were subse- 

 1855, pp. 67-8. ' quentlj' removed to the British Museum. 



* All the specimens in the India House 



