1886.] President's Address, liii 



Independently of his literary work, Cape Botany owes miicli to 

 Dr. Harvey. Whoever at the Cape was interested in the science was 

 sure of sympathy and help from him. He would carefully name hun- 

 dreds of specimens for the veriest tyro, point out and excuse his errors 

 in the kindliest manner, and keep up the beginner's enthusiasm by a 

 reflex of his own. No task evea of a mechanical kind seemed to dis- 

 may him. He learned the art of lithographic drawing to illustrate his 

 books, and when the Cape Grovernment became possessed of the large 

 herbarium of the late Dr. Pappe, he volunteered to take it in hand 

 and mount up selected types as his work on the Flora Capensis pro- 

 ceeded. I estimated this labour to have extended over nearly eight 

 thousand sheets, and it will remain as the best monument of his learn- 

 ing and industry that the Colony he loved so well could possibly 



De mortuis nil nisi honum, but of the living let us say absolutely nil, 

 good or bad ; lest in the one case we cause such modesty as they have 

 to blush, or in the other case we make an enemy. Therefore I must 

 stand excused if to-night I say nothing of the small band of living 

 collectors who are following in the steps of the men whose labours 

 have been chronicled to-night. Let it be sufficient to say that though 

 few, they are enthusiastic, and are not likely to let the lamp of science 

 that has been handed on to them go out for want of careful tending. 



VOL, IV. ti 



