820 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [June i, 1888. 
changed to salicylic acid in the body, as all attempts 
to prove its presence in the urine were fruitless. 
The statement made by MacEwan, to the effect that 
winter-green oil is very largely adulterated with 
camphor oil, seemed so improbable to Messrs. 
Schimmel & Co. that they made inquiries on the 
subject in New York, and received the answer that 
their New York firm had never met with any such 
adulteration within their experience. — Chemist and 
Druggist. 
f, 
ANNUAL BEPOET OF THE EOYAL BOTANIC 
GARDEN FOR THE YEAR 1886-87. 
Calcutta, the 21st May 1887. From— Surgeon- 
Major G. King, M.B., ll.d., &c, Superintendent, Royal 
Botanic Garden, Calcutta, to the Secretary to the 
Government of Bengal, Financial Department. 
I have the honour herewith to submit the Hun- 
dredth Annual Report of the Royal Botanic Garden. 
It may not be inappropriate to begin the hundredth 
annual report of the garden by giving a brief account 
of its history, which is, to a very great extent, history 
of Indian Botany. 
1. The suggestion to form a Botanic Garden here 
was first made to the Government in Calcutta in 
June 1786, by Colonel Robert Kyd, then Superin- 
tendent of the Hon'ble Company's Dockyard at Kid- 
derpore. The proposal was favourably entertained by 
the Governor-General, and its adoption was recom- 
mended to the Supreme Board in London during 
the same month, practical effect being given to it dur- 
ing the following year by the selection, as a site, of 
a largo piece of land immediately below Colonel Kyd's 
private garden at Shalimar. This piece of land, be- 
sides the Botanic Garden as it is now limited, included 
about fifty acres which form part of the grounds of 
the present Engineering College. Colonel Kyd was 
himself an ardent horticulturist, and he had brought 
together in his private garden at Shalimar a large 
collection of exotic plants, chiefly from the Straits. 
He was therefore very appropriately appointed the 
first Superintendent of the Botanic Garden which had 
been founded at his suggestion. Colonel Kyd continued 
to perform the duties of Superintendent until his death 
in 1793. On Colonel Kyd's death, Government decid- 
ed to put the garden under the charge of a special 
officer who should have no other duty. Dr. William 
Roxburgh, the Company's Botanist in Madras, was 
therefore transferred from that Presidency, and was 
installed at Seebpore in November 1793. No better 
selection than that of Dr. Roxburgh could have been 
made. Dr. Roxburgh, for many years prior to his trans- 
fer, had been engaged in studying the then little- 
known Flora of the Northern Circars in the Madras 
Presidency. He was a most ardent and enthusiastic 
botanist, and a good gardener. Dr. Roxburgh continued 
to be Superintendent until 1814, when he was obliged 
to proceed to the Cape on account of his health. 
From the Cape he went on to St. Helena, and from 
thence to England, where he died during the follow- 
ing year. Dr. Roxburgh was the first botanist who 
attempted to draw up a systematic account of the 
plants ef India. During his busy life in this country 
he prepared a Flora Indiea, which contained system- 
atic descriptions of all the indigenous plants known 
to him, as well as of many exotics then in cultivation 
in the neighbourhood of Calcutta. The manuscript 
of this work he took with him when he left India, 
intending to publish it during his residence in Eng- 
land. His death prevented the execution of this 
plan ; and, with the exception of the first volume, 
which was printed with some additions and interpola- 
tions by Drs. Wallich and Carey in 1820, the book 
remained unpublished until 1832. In the latter year 
it was printed, exactly as the author had left it, by the 
piety of his sons, Captains James and Bruce Roxburgh, 
neither of whom was a botanist. This book is the basis 
of all subsequent Indian botanical works. It is an 
admirable production : the descriptions are accurate 
and graphic, and its authorship justly entitles Rox- 
burgh to his title of the Father of Indian Botany. 
Until the year 1872, when the publication of the 
"Flora of British India" was begun by the distin- 
guished botanist Sir Joseph Hooker, Roxburgh's was 
the only single book through which a knowledge of 
Indian plants could be acquired. A 6ecoud edition of 
tliis excellent manual was issued by Mr. 0. B. CI irke 
in 1874 at a merely nominal price, Mr. Clarke's desire 
being to put the book within the reach of the poorest 
student. Besides the Flora Indiea, Roxburgh published, 
at the expense of the Honourable Company, in tnrte 
large folio volumes, his Plnata Coromandeliatice, being 
descriptions with figures of three hundred of the 
most striking plants of the Coromandel Coast. Dr. 
Roxburgh was immediately succeeded in the Superin- 
tend en tship of the Garden by Dr, Francis Buchanan 
(afterwards Hamilton), who at the time was on special 
duty in connection with an extended enquiry into the 
agriculture of Iudia and in the collection of materials 
for a Gazetteer. Dr. Hamilton, who was an accom- 
plished botanist and zoologist, collected a vast mass 
of material, part of which was published in his own 
name, but the bulk of which, after many years' sup- 
pression, was published under the title of Montgom- 
ery Martin's History, Topography and Statistics of 
Eastern India. Dr. Buchanan-Hamilton held charge 
of the garden for only a short time, and he was 
succeeded in 1817 by Dr. Nathaniel Wallich, lately 
Surgeon to the Danish Settlement at Serampore. 
Dr. Wallich was an able and most energetic botanist ; 
and, during the earlier part of his term of office, he 
organised collecting expeditions into the remote and 
then little known regions of Kumaon, Nepal, Silhet, 
Tenasserim, Penang, and Singapore. Dr. Wallich in 
fact undertook a botanical survery of a large part of 
the Indian Empire. The materials (in the shape of 
dried specimens of plants) thus accumulated were 
taken by Dr. Wallich to London, and, after being 
named there by himself and by other botanists, they 
were distributed in numbered collections to the lead- 
ing botanical institutions in Europe. In this great 
distribution, Dr. Wallich included the collections of 
several other botanists which had been made over to 
him for the purpose. The liberality with which these 
specimens was given away was so extreme that, in the 
garden report for the year 1843, we find Dr. Griffith 
(who had been appointed to officiate for Dr. Wallich 
during his absence in England) complaining that the 
herbarium had been completely denuded of every 
specimen collected during the first fifty years of the 
existence of the garden. Besides distributing these 
enormous collections, Dr. Wallich was enabled, through 
the munificence of the Honourable Company, to pub- 
lish, under the title Plantee Asiatics Rariores, three 
superb volumes illustrated by coloured figures of a 
high degree of excellence. Dr. Wallich retired in 
1846 and died in 1854. During the lengthened absences 
of Dr. Wallich in Europe, his place at the garden 
was filled by Dr. W. Griffith, whose premature death 
deprived Botanical Science of one of its ablest and 
most industrious votaries. Dr. Griffith'6 extensive 
notes and numerous drawings were, after his death, 
published by Government in nine volumes. Dr. Wallich 
was succeeded by Dr. Hugh Falconer. Dr. Falconer was 
a Paleontologist, well known by his researches on the 
Sivaiik Fossil Mammalia. In 1855 he left the conntry 
on account of ill-health, and was succeeded as Superin- 
tendent by Dr. Thomas Thomson, a traveller and 
botanist of much ability, the coadjutor of Sir Joseph 
Hooker in the collection and distribution of an ex- 
tensive and well known herbarium of East Indian 
plants, and the joint author of the first volume of a 
new Flora Indiea. Dr. Thomson retired in 1861, and 
was succeeded by Dr. Thomas Anderson, whose un- 
timely death in 1870 was caused by disease contracted 
during his efforts for the introduction of the quinine- 
yielding Cinchonas into the Sikkim Himalaya. For 
the two years subsequent to Dr. Anderson's departure 
from India, Mr. C. B. Clarke acted as Superintendent, 
and during his incumbency he began the series of 
botanical publications which has earned for him so 
high a scientific reputation. 
2. From the first foundation of the garden, it was 
understood that it was to be made a source of bota- 
nical information for the possessions of the Company, 
and at the same time a centre to which exotic plants 
