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Dr. WigliCs Prospectus 



[Oct. 



many others endowed with the most valuable medicinal properties, of 

 which 1 have received, from really competent observers, accounts so 

 satisfactory, that they could not fail to produce a strong feeling of re- 

 gret, that the narrators were unqualified to give me more perfect in- 

 formation regarding them. Specimens of such, gathered when in 

 flower, and dried between the leaves of a book, or a few sheets of 

 paper, in the manner detailed in a former communication,* might easi- 

 ly be transmitted from any part of India, if packed between the boards of 

 an old book, or in stiff paper, and prove of the greatest value, especi- 

 ally if accompanied with notes detailing their uses, and mode of pre- 

 paration ; and as, in the composition of these notes, no scientific know- 

 ledge is required, I trust I shall be favoured with many such commu- 

 nications. 



Botany has hitherto spread with tardy steps among us, the catalogue 

 of Indian botanists having never, at any one time, comprised more 

 than a few names : her most palmy days having undoubtedly embraced 

 the concluding years of the last, and first quarter of the present centu- 

 ry; during which, Koenig, Roxburgh, Rottler, Klein, Heyne and Bucha- 

 nan Hamilton flourished. 



When we contemplate the impediments which these truly great men 

 had to surmount in arriving at the eminence they justly attained in 

 their favourite pursuit, partly originating in the imperfection of books 

 treating of Indian plants, and partly from the engrossing duties they 

 had to perform, the intervals of which, only, they could devote to bota- 

 ny, we cannot too much admire their perseverance and devotion to 

 science; while they afford a striking example of how much maybe 

 done by a skilful division of our time, and a careful appropriation 

 of our leisure to scientific pursuits. 



While we thus admire their industry in obtaining knowledge, we 

 equally regret that, with the exception of the illustrious Roxburgh, 

 leisure sufficient was not granted to any one of them to leave a com- 

 prehensive written record of the extent of his acquirements, for the 

 benefit of succeeding labourers in the same field : hence, we are con- 

 strained to acquire much of our knowledge of Indian plants, in the 

 same roundabout way that they did, that is, from general systems of 

 Botany (greatly enriched by them, certainly), in place of local Floras. 



These systems, embracing as they do the vegetation of the whole 

 globe, are necessarily very concise, and the species so briefly described, 

 as not seldom to render it next to impossible to identify the plant from 

 its specific character. One object of the present work is to remedy, in 



* See No. 15, p. 439. 



