612 



Letter from Dr, Wight to J. M'Clelland, dated Coimbatore, 10th 

 September 1845. Received through Dr. Wallich, October 1845. 



My dear Sir, — Your last number (22nd) reached me last night. On 

 looking over the extracts from my letters, regarding the preservation 

 of Griffith's Herbarium, one passage struck me as objectionable, and 

 which must, most inadvertently, have dropped from my pen, in the 

 hurry of unpremeditated composition, and which, at the time of writing, 

 did not present itself to me in the same light that it now does. 



On reperusal at this distance of time it immediately struck me 

 as objectionable, inasmuch as it appears to convey an unmerited 

 reflection on Dr. Wallich, which I certainly never intended. The 

 passage to which I allude, is in these words — " If sent to the garden, 

 it (i. e. Griffith's Herbarium) might chance some years hence to suffer 

 the fate of Roxburgh's, which would be bad indeed." 



The fate which befell Roxburgh's Herbarium, that of being sent to 

 England, and, as it were, swamped among nearly 10,000 species of 

 plants, and finally transferred from India to England, is what, when 

 writing, I considered bad ; as I have long thought that that Herbarium 

 ought, in a most especial manner, to have been preserved for the 

 Calcutta Garden, as furnishing the only really unquestionable autho- 

 rity for the names of many of his plants still growing there, and still 

 more for others which have died out and been replaced by others 

 supposed to be the same. But, at the same time, I do not attach 

 much blame to Wallich for the share he had in the transfer. His 

 error in the first instance was one of judgment, which the most 

 sagacious and judicious of men might easily have fallen into, and is 

 therefore a venial one. But, I believe, from what I know of the 

 circumstances attending the transfer of the entire Indian Herbarium 

 to the Linnean Society, partly originated in circumstances not at the 

 time under his control. 



But be that as it may, I wish you to make known to all who take 

 an interest in such matters, that when writing the words above quoted, 

 I was unconscious that I was doing Wallich an injury, and had 



