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



till I go home. Such is the present whim, whether ever to be 

 executed is another question; but the result of the change of plan 

 is, that I shall confine myself at present to detached papers as 

 opportunities of printing them occur, and make my botanical 

 collections and observations as extensive as I can, with the ulti- 

 mate view of combining the whole into a Catalogue Raisonnee of 

 Malayan Flora secundum ordines naturales with stupendous elu- 

 cidations and illustrations!! I have gone through ail my collec- 

 tions here, and arranged them in the most beautiful order, and 

 mean to go through the whole again genus by genus, putting to- 

 gether all I know and have upon each, by which means every 

 future acquisition will at once find its proper place. Now I find 

 that I carried up and left with you many specimens of which I 

 have no duplicates, and that several genera are in consequence 

 less complete than they might have been. What T would therefore 

 propose, in the event of your still having my collection, would be, 

 instead of sending the whole home, to make the first and most 

 perfect set for me, with all your own annotations and remarks, 

 and to send home only duplicates. Thus I shall be enabled to 

 complete my arrangement of all I ever collected, have the advan- 

 tage of your observations, and in the case of those of which I may 

 have kept duplicates, they can form part of the first dispatch I 

 send from hence, and there is every probability of some direct 

 occasions. It will also enable me to name a great many that I 

 have since described or ascertained, before sending them away. 



I hope you have not forgotten a request I formerly made for 

 the Menang Kabau specimens 208 to be all returned : they were put 

 up separately in a different kind of paper from the rest. I have 

 held my tongue to Sir S. about their being left behind. 



Let me also refer you to a list of desiderata given you in my 

 letter of Feb. 1820, from on board ship. 



There is another thing I must mention, I received the work 

 of the writer 204 to Gynandria, but you must know that he did the 

 whole of Gynandria for me before I left Calcutta, therefore when 

 you set him to work again he must not begin where he left off, 

 but at Ficus (F. comosa is the last written), where his previous 

 copy stops. I could wish however that he would copy first Brown's 

 remarks in the appendix to Tuckey's Narrative, which I am anxious 

 to have. You see there is no end of my requests, but I must let 

 you breathe before I come with more. 



By the Eepulse I also received a very kind letter from Mr. 

 Colebrooke in which he says he has proposed me a member of the 

 Geological Society, and given them something about Malay geology 



293. Baffles' own collecting. See note 135 on p. 185. 



294. Writer - clerk. 



Jour. Straits Branch. 



