AUG. 1 1 1894.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
7/ 
the centre of the Racket Court Gardens, never 
to be forgotten by those who saw it ! 
We have not entered on details of Dr. Thwaites' 
career, because we have two sketches from the P en 
of his accomplished successor, Dr. Trimeu, f.r.s 
one of which (accompanying the engraving which 
we reprint) was given- in the Gardeners' Chronicle, 
and one appeared in the local press. Both of these 
we now append verbatim et literatim : — 
("From the " Gardeners' Chronicle," April 4th 1874.) 
This distinguished botanist began life at Clifton 
as an accountant, during the intervals of business 
applying himself to the pursuit of botany. In 
conjunction with Mr. Broome he made great 
accessions to our knowledge of fungi, especially 
amongst the Tuberacei, being quite indefatigable 
in the search for these curious productions. His 
attention was not, however, confined to Fungi. 
He made many interesting discoveries amongst 
Algfc, the result of which appeared in the supple- 
mentary numbers of Englisli Botany. An intimate 
study of the more obscure Algre led him to the 
brilliant discovery that each tribe of Lichens is 
represented by some particular Algoid form, which 
appears to be the true interpretation of what has 
lately been brought forward respecting the con- 
nection of Alga; and Lichens. The most important 
observation, and one perfectly original, which 
was the reward of his studies, was the discovery 
of the mode of propagation in Diatomacete, which 
would alone give him a very high place amongst 
botanists. He also made many important obser- 
vations amongst Desmidiacea?. In Phamogams he 
made the curious observation that from a single 
seed of a Fuchsia containing two embryos, two 
entirely distinct varieties might be raised. His 
skill and ingenuity in the preparation of micros- 
copical specimens for preservation are not the 
least valuable part of his services, though apt to be 
overlooked by the rising generation. 
His botanical studies while still at Clifton had 
become of such importance, that he was selected to 
succeed Dr. Gardner in the important office of 
Superintendent of the Botanic Garden at Ceylon. 
The duties of this office were such as to confine 
him principally to the Phamogams, in which line he 
has discovered many new genera, and he has contri- 
buted many interesting plants to our collections, 
as well as an enumeration of the plants occurring 
wild in Ceylon, the frist complete modern tropical 
Flora. Though necessarily called off from the 
study of Cryptogams, he made a very large collec- 
tion of Fungi, causing most accurate drawings to be 
made of the greater part. Messrs. Berkeley and 
Broome have described these in the Journal of the 
Linncan Society. Nearly 1,200 species have been 
already described, and there are still more in hand 
for a supplementary report. The diseases to which 
cultivated plants in the island are subjected have 
been the object of Dr. Thwaites' careful investi- 
gation. Thwaites has also rendered important 
service to horticulture and agriculture in his capa- 
city of Director of the Paradeniya Garden, by means 
of which a large number of useful tropical plants 
have been cultivatedand dispersed, as, for instance, 
Chocolate, Tea, and Cinchona. The first seeds 
from imported plants of Cinchona are supposed lo 
have been raised in the Ceylon garden. During his 
twenty-four years' tenure of office he .'ias never left 
the island, and has scarcely taken a holiday un- 
connected with his professional work. Those who 
are best acquainted with Dr. Thwaites have not 
only a very high opinion oi him as a botanist, but 
aaamost amiable, excellent, and devoted friend. 
(Memoir written in 1882 by Dr. Trimen, F.R.S.) 
By the recent death of Dr. Thwaites, Ceylon 
loses one of its most eminent men. Perhaps, 
indeed, there was no : person in the colony 
whose name was better known beyond its 
limits than that of the unassuming savant whose 
sudden departure from among us (briefly chro- 
nicled in a newspaper paragraph) seems scarcely 
to have arrested public attention. Yet it is but 
a little over 2£ years since he retired from a 
public position, intimately connected with the 
most important interests of the country, which 
he had held with great distinction to himself, 
to the benefit of the public and the prestige of 
the colony for an unbroken period of more 
than thirty years. Truly, "a prophet is not 
without honour, save in his own country." 
His friends had hoped that, freed from the 
numerous and petty worries of an official life 
which had for some years been pressing hardly 
upon him, Dr. Thwaites would in his pleasant re- 
treat above Kandy have continued his favourite 
studies ; but the infirmities of age gained on him, 
the stimulus to work was gone, and he did none. 
Some of this mental lassitude was due to circum. 
stances attending his retirement. All that could 
be said of him with propriety at that time was 
that an old and eminent public servant clung too 
closely to the office which had become part of 
himself — a tendency so natural that it is generally 
to the young alone (to whom it is of no personal 
interest) that it is obvious as a fault. In a 
sense, however, he may be said to have lived 
too long, for, sudden as his death seemed to us 
out here, in the world of science — where men's 
names are coeval only with their work — surprise 
may perhaps be felt in learning that the man 
who was taking the lead as a microscopist when 
many of the now leading biologists were in the 
nursery, has been living so recently. 
To those who have known Dr. Thwaites only 
during the latter years of his life, it may perhaps 
be news to learn that, long as he lived here he 
was, before he came out to Ceylon, a mart of 
mark in science. Among the small band of ad« 
vanced workers with the microscope at that time 
in England — of whom Carpenter and the vener- 
able Berkeley are now the chief survivors 
Thwaites was prominent, Then a young man 
living near Bristol, he devoted all his leisure 
to the investigation of the lower organisms. In 
1841 he began to publish papers in the "Annals 
of Natural History," and previously to that his 
reputation as a biologist was such that he was 
employed by Dr. Carpenter to revise the second 
edition of the "Principles of Physiology," the 
standard book of the time on its subject. He 
paid special attention to the fresh- water AWcq 
and was in constant correspondence with the chief 
English and foreign cryptogamists of the day. 
His discoveries in this group were notable, and 
were embodied in papers in the "Annals" for 
1S44 to 1849. Of these the most important was 
on the discovery, in 1847, of the fact that the 
Diatoms (then considered animals) were true A1"m 
an immense step forward in our knowledge*© 
these minute organisms, which finally settled 
their position in nature ; and his papers generally 
though few and dealing with special pofnts, were 
of that kind which point out the way to im- 
portant generalizations. They gave him an 
European reputation. In 1840, the great Freucli 
cryptogamist, Montague, dedicated to him a "enus 
of zygnematous Algie, Tkwaitesia. 
At this period Thwaites was a Lecturer on 
IJotany at the School of Pharmacy in Urislol and 
afterwards at the Medical School there ; and in 
