LINKEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. 



XCV11 



lightened Governor, Baron van der Capellan, to inquire into the 

 remedies in use among the natives, with a view to the introduction 

 of such as might prove available into the European Pharmacopoeias. 



Having been thus induced to turn his attention more particularly 

 towards botany, he soon became so entirely devoted to its pursuit, 

 that all the time he could spare from his professional duties was 

 occupied in the investigation of the plants of the country, of which, 

 with the assistance of some European fellow-labourers and of native 

 collectors, he amassed in a few years about 3000 species. 



In the year 1824, while on a visit to Nusa Kambangan (a pecu- 

 liarly unhealthy island on the south coast of Java), he lost nearly all 

 his companions, and was himself brought to the point of death by a 

 violent attack of fever, the frequent recurrence of which for some 

 years afterwards very seriously affected his health. Nevertheless 

 he worked continually at the publication of his botanical discoveries, 

 commencing in 1823 with a Catalogue of the Botanic Garden at 

 Buitenzorg, and several Memoirs in the ' Batavian Transactions, ' 

 and following these up with a far more important work under the 

 title of ' Bijdragen tot de Flora van Nederlandsche Indie,' published 

 at Batavia in seventeen fasciculi, during the years 1825 and 1826. 



It may naturally be supposed that, with the small assistance 

 from books which could be obtained at that time in Java, nume- 

 rous errors would occur in the determination of the multitude of 

 species described in this valuable work, many of which the author 

 himself afterwards took occasion to correct. But the wonder is, 

 that under such unfavourable circumstances so extensive a work 

 could have been produced with no greater or graver errors. In the 

 year 1826, his health still continuing to suffer greatly from peri- 

 odical attacks of fever, he returned to Europe, and immediately 

 commenced an i Enumeratio Plantarum Javse et Insularum adja- 

 centium,' of which two fasciculi (the first containing the Ferns and 

 allied orders) appeared in 1827 and 1828. In the latter year, 

 having obtained a liberal allowance from the King of the Nether- 

 lands, he greatly enlarged his plan, and began the publication of a 

 splendid work in folio, illustrated with coloured plates, entitled 

 ' Flora Javae et Insularum adjacentium,' of which forty fasciculi, 

 containing many of the most important families, appeared during 

 that and several subsequent years. On the suspension of this work, 

 the author proceeded with another, on a nearly similar plan and, 

 like the former, supported by royal munificence, under the name of 

 < Rumphia,' a title suggested by the designation given to him \ n 

 1818, on his election into the Academia Naturae Curiosorum. Of 



