148 JACK'S LETTERS TO WALLICH, 1819-1821. 



and thence the following statements have been taken. William 

 Jack, the younger, was born in King's College on January 29th, 

 1795, and at the age of six was sent to the Grammar School. At 

 the age of twelve he proceeded to the University, and at fourteen 

 commenced the study of medicine. Mr. Mclachlan, the Head- 

 Master of the Grammar School, seems to have given him an ex- 

 cellent grounding in latin, and at the same time Mr. Duncan, 

 Professor of Natural Philosophy, taught him to apply his know- 

 ledge by reading descriptions in the latin botany books of the period 

 of the wild plants which already interested him. There were two 

 other Aberdeen botanists of the time who are said to have helped 

 him — Dr. Beattie and Dr. Knight: but the first named can have 

 had little influence as he died when Jack was eight. William 

 Knight must have had much more influence : he was a young man, 

 nine years older than young Jack; and from 1811 to 1815 he 

 taught Botany in Aberdeen privately. 



At the age of sixteen Jack graduated M. A. in Aberdeen, and 

 was preparing to proceed to Edinburgh to go through the Medical 

 Schools there, when scarlet fever laid him up, and caused him to 

 lose the session. During this break Mr. Duncan having been 

 paralised, young Jack taught the university botany class for a short 

 time. In October, 1911, he proceed to London to finish his medical 

 training there, and on the last day of January, 1912, he was orally 

 examined by the Court of the College of Surgeons, and admitted 

 a Fellow. 



His friends, chiefly the eminent judge Sir Vicary Gibbs and 

 Lady Gibbs, at once sought for him a surgeonship under the 

 Honourable East India Company, but he preferred to defer his 

 departure, and remained in Britain until the sailing of the Com- 

 pany's ship "Baring" on January 29th, 1913. 



Published with the memoir from which the above facts are 

 drawn are extracts from letters, which show that after his arrival 

 in Calcutta, he was attached to a regiment stationed at the ad- 

 joining cantoonment of Dum-Dum, and was then sent out with 

 troops which fought in the Nepalese war. It is recorded that on 

 January 9th, 1815, he was encamped on the Chorea ghattee hills 

 with the force advancing on Khatmandoo, but he had not been in 

 zfche fight at Pursua. A month later he was at Bichiakoh, encamped 

 in the broad stony bed of the stream which debouches from those 

 hills at that halting place. In May he was back at the cantoonment 

 of Dinapur, near Patna. 



Prom Dinapur he wrote to his parents as follows " I have 

 lately opened a correspondence with Dr. Wallich the Superinten- 

 dent of the Calcutta Botanic Garden, from which I expect to 

 derive both pleasure and advantage. Till now I have always felt 

 at a loss in my botanical researches, from not being acquainted with 

 the progress of the science in India, and particularly with Eox- 

 burgh's extensive labours and discoveries, so that I could never 



Jour. Straits Branch 



