48 FLORA INDICA. 



Malayan plants were published in the ' Malayan Miscellanies/ 

 and have been reproduced by Sir William Hooker in the 

 ' Companion to the Botanical Magazine/ and by Dr. M'Clel- 

 land in the Calcutta Journal of Natural History. 



Dr. William Jack was appointed to the Bengal Medical 

 Service in 1813, and was in the earlier part of his career em- 

 ployed in the ordinary duties of his profession. During the 

 Nipal War of 1814-15 he was attached to the army under 

 General Ochterlony, and had an opportunity of seeing the 

 outer valleys of Nipal, a country which at that time was a 

 terra incognita to science. In 1818, while at Calcutta, on a 

 visit to Dr. Wallich, he met with Sir Stamford Raffles, the 

 Governor of the British settlements in Sumatra, who at once 

 appreciated his great merits, and offered him an appointment 

 on his staff, promising him every facility for the exploration 

 of the natural history of that island. This promise was most 

 fully kept ; and under the enlightened patronage of one of the 

 most liberal Governors whom the Indian service has ever 

 produced, Jack devoted himself with zeal and success to re- 

 searches in all branches of natural history. Unfortunately 

 his career was a very short one, as he sank under the effects 

 of fatigue and exposure on the 15th September, 1822, on 

 board the ship on which he had embarked on the previous 

 day to proceed to the Cape of Good Hope. It is evident, 

 from his published papers, unfortunately far too few, that Dr. 

 Jack's botanical talents were of the first order, and that he 

 had thoroughly familiarized himself with the structure of all 

 the remarkable forms of vegetation which presented them- 

 selves to him in the peculiarly rich and varied Malayan flora. 



Wight and Axnott's 'Prodromus Florae Peninsulae Indise 

 Orientalis' appeared in 1834. We have already characterized 

 this work as the most able and valuable contribution to Indian 

 botany which has ever appeared, and as one which has few 

 rivals in the whole domain of botanical literature, whether we 

 consider the accuracy of the diagnoses, the careful limitation 

 of the species, or the many improvements in the definition 



