JACK'S LETTEKS TO WALLICH, 1819-1821. 227 



No. 1 must I fear have fed the fishes. I know not whether my 

 letters have been more fortunate: those from P. Mas &c. have 

 probably made a very circuitous passage. 



I now send you Xo. 2 and 3 of Malayan plants, 273 and I am 



273. Just as parr 2 of Jack's Descriptions of Malayan Plants was 

 put into print and held up for revision on criticism from Wallich (vide 

 note Xo. 'loT on p. 21S) so this above-named "Xo. 3" was prepared and 

 held up. Under the date of May 1st, 1821 the part was sent to Wallich. 

 But there is an earlier letter printed in the Memoir of the Life of Sir 

 Stamford Baffles, at p. of the first edition, under which Baffles sent 



this ' ' Xo. three ' ' to Marsden with the following lines ' ' I have now the 

 pleasure to send you the third paper on our Malayan plants. These are 

 only to be considered notices of the moment, where we have not the ad- 

 vantage of reference to late publications, or communications with scientific 

 friends. The paper contains an account of the nepenthes, sago, camphor, 

 several new mangifera. many ligna-vita 3 . the melastomas, etc." The letter 

 continues ' ' You will recognise many of your old friends particularly the 

 kayu gadis. or virgin tree. Under Styphelia you will find an interesting 

 observation respecting Singapore. 



The date at the head of this letter in Lady Baffles ' Memoir of her 

 husband is October 9th, 1820. Xow on September 19th. 1820, Jack wrote 

 to Wallich that he had decided to put everything into print for preserva- 

 tion and was making up a " number ' ' containing Styphelia. This he 

 actually did; and it is the second of his papers instead of the third. More- 

 over this second paper contains the description of the kayu gadis. So 

 that we have in Baffles' letter to Marsden two plants mentioned as if des- 

 cribed in the ' ' third paper ' ' which we know were described in the second. 

 The date of the letter i.e. October 9th, 1820, is certainly a reasonable one 

 for the forwarding to Marsden of the second paper; and fortunately it 

 is easy also to explain how Baffles could have had then the third paper 

 also, whereas Jack only sent it to Wallich under date of May 1st. 1821, 

 for we must recollect that immediately after September 19th, 1820, Baffles 

 sent Jack with Prince to effect an agreement with the chiefs of Pulau Xias, 

 and that it was January 1821 before he returned, whereafter, as he explains 

 himself, four months passed without any communication with Bengal. 



Jack would take the very first opportunity of sending these descrip- 

 tions to Wallich which the scant shipping afforded. And he sent at the 

 same time a clean copy of the second paper which was not out of the press 

 at the time of his departure for Pulau Xias. Baffles' allusion of Stypheba 

 and Kavu Gadis is to be explained bv his sending also part 2 along with 



"Xo. a." 



The so-called "Xo. thiee'' bore as a title Appendix to the Malayan 

 Miscellanies. We find that it was printed in 1820, and we have the testi- 

 mony of Baffles and Jack that there was no intention of publication at 

 the actual time of printing. It is therefore correctly quoted as "ined. " 

 in our dictionaries of plant-names, but the date should be 1820 and not 

 1823. A copy fell into the hands of Sir William Hooker who printed from 

 it in his Companion to the Botanical Magazine, vol. 1, in 1835. As Sir 

 AVilliam was able to draw on private letters from Jack to his family, it 

 appears probable that he got the copy from which he printed also from 

 the family. 



This Appendix to the Malayan Miscellanies is quite distinct from Jack's 

 third series of descriptions of Malayan Plants, which appeared as part 7 

 of the second volume of the Malayan Miscelhniies ; but in Singapore there 

 are not the books wherefrom to ascertain how much Jack may have taken 

 ■out of the Appendix for this other paper. He sent the descriptions of the 

 Xlelastomas from the appendix to Lambert in a paper which was published 

 after his death in the Transactions of the Linnean Society of London ; 

 and in that same periodical by the help of Jack 's friends another series 

 of his descriptions appeared. 



H. A. Soc, No. 73. 1916. 



