The late Mr. William Griffith. 305 



would be more economical to make the box six feet high at once ; 

 mine are adapted for travelling ; that would be a standing one ne- 

 ver to be moved. The location of such a collection is of some mo- 

 ment ; I would suggest that it form an appendage of the Medical 

 College. 



" If sent to the Garden, it might chance some few years hence to 

 suffer the fate of Roxburgh's, which would be bad indeed. Suppos- 

 ing these suggestions adopted, it then follows, as a matter of course, 

 that the MSS. referring to each family should be printed, and two 

 or three copies deposited in the Herbarium for the information of 

 Botanists, who might at any time have to consult the plants. The 

 easy way of course to provide these would be, by printing the whole in 

 a continuous series in the Journal, and striking off twenty or thirty 

 spare copies to serve for both this country and Europe. The ori- 

 ginals could then without risk be sent for deposit in the Museum of 

 the India House. The expense of these arrangements would not ex- 

 ceed a few hundred rupees, and, to say the least, is a mark of res- 

 pect which the Government owes to one of its most zealous ser- 

 vants, — a more zealous one, I am convinced, it never had. But leaving 

 that out of the question, I apprehend that, as being, of all existing 

 Governments, that which has, throughout, been the most steady and 

 consistent promoter of science and scientific men, it owes it to itself 

 for its own credit ; as there does not at this moment exist a single 

 doubt, in the mind of any competent living Botanist, that Griffith at 

 the time of his death stood second only on the list of truly philosophical 

 Botanists, exclusive of his high attainments in other branches of natu- 

 ral science ; and to fail in giving every facility to the posthumous 

 diffusion of his unpublished labours, would be a blot on its hitherto 

 untarnished character as the most liberal supporter of Indian science, 

 the more indefensible too, as all that is required could be accom- 

 plished at so small a cost, that I would myself, at my own charge, 

 undertake all I have suggested should be done, had the donation 

 been made to me in place of to the Government. These suggestions 

 though hurriedly written, are not the off-hand reflections of the mo- 

 ment, but the result of much consideration of the subject to which 

 they refer ; such being the case, you are quite at liberty to make use 



