Sir George King. 



xxm 



this King considered a purely incidental result. The object he strove, and 

 strove successfully, to attain was to habituate his pupils to the art of observiug 

 natural facts, and to accustom them to the ordeal of giving reasons for the 

 faith that was in them when confronted with objects that, though similar in 

 externals, were essentially different. 



The exercise of King's business capacity was not limited to the departments 

 which he administered. His local Government appointed him a member of 

 the visiting Board of the Bengal Engineering College, an institution with 

 whose objects as a technical school he was in entire sympathy, and in whose 

 progress he took a warm and effective interest. He was appointed by its 

 Chancellor a Fellow of the University of Calcutta, and was long a trusted 

 member of the Senate, for a time also representing the medical faculty on the 

 Syndicate. He represented the Supreme Government as a Trustee of the 

 Indian Museum, an institution for which he did much important work, 

 especially during a number of years when he was Chairman of the Trustees ; 

 from his resignation of that office till his retirement from Indian service he 

 was Vice-chairman. When in 1894 the Government of India organised an 

 enquiry into the indigenous drugs of the country, King was appointed 

 Chairman of the Central Committee, and served in this capacity till he left 

 for Europe. He took a deep interest in the welfare of the Asiatic Society of 

 Bengal, and although he did not often accept a seat on its Council, he was 

 always the trusted adviser of the Society's officers in matters relating to its 

 natural history side. He was an active member of Council, and at one time 

 President of the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of India. 



It is somewhat interesting to observe that, in spite of his early distaste 

 for business, King's public services should have derived their chief value 

 from his remarkable business aptitude, and that although the extent and 

 gravity of his official duties did not prevent the simultaneous prosecution of 

 purely scientific studies, the possession of this business aptitude deprived him 

 for many years of any opportunity of presenting ordered statements of his 

 results. It is equally interesting to find that, as regards his scientific work, 

 the line which he took was not that towards which his tastes naturally led. 

 When King reached India in 1866 his botanical interests were centred on 

 physiological and morphological problems, and especially on those connected 

 with cryptogams. Here, again, circumstance proved stronger than pre- 

 dilection. The comparative poverty of the floras of Central India and 

 Bajputana led him to expend his surplus energy in important zoological 

 studies ; during the rest of his career these were given to systematic work 

 connected with flowering plants. His practical mind realised, from the time 

 he took charge of the Saharanpur garden, that however enticing his favourite 

 studies might be, the path of duty for him led elsewhere ; that the immediate 

 needs of people and Government alike demanded that every official Indian 

 botanist should devote himself to aiding Hooker in the prosecution of his 

 fundamental undertaking of providing recognisable descriptions of Indian 

 phanerogams ; and that until this floristic study was completed, the time for 



