172 EETUKN TO ENGLAND : AND VISIT TO PAKIS 
and beautiful plants, and the number of species I collected, 
on examination far exceeds my most sanguine expectations — 
330 in all ' (September 1844). Sending his notes to Boss in 
November 1844 he writes : 
These have been drawn up in the rough for some time, 
but the most important parts, concerning the proportional 
amount of the different orders, present such curious results, 
that I was anxious to go over all the figuring again, which 
is (as you may perhaps remember) to me very laborious 
and slow work. As it is I do not know w^hether they are 
too short, but the vegetation was so ver7j remarkable and 
so unlike any other flora to compare with it, that I feared 
making so prosy a thing longer. On the other hand they 
may be too long, but I did not know how to say less. All 
I can do is to repeat my hopes that you will use your 
discretion with it. My Father has looked it over and 
approved it, but says wdth me that the Flora is too novel 
to say less of, and by being so, too unintelligible to 
most to render much more readable. So I hope I have 
steered a middle course. Certainly no spot on the globe 
has so large a proportion of new plants and far less of 
. such beauties. 
The last of these botanical sketches asked for by Koss 
was that of Cockburn Island. This took some time, for 
(December 15, 1845) he had to compare the species with the 
Polar ones before venturing to write anything definite upon 
them. 
As the book went through the press he saw proofs of the 
earlier part, and to his horror found that Boss had reproduced 
his account of the Fossil Tree which had appeared without 
his wish or knowledge in the Tasmanian Journal. It had not 
been written for publication, and with Eonald Gunn's con- 
jectural emendations, was in places unintelligible. The great 
Bobert Brown on seeing this had dubbed it ' a very careless 
production.' He at once begged Boss (January 30, 1847) 
to correct the unintelligible words, offering as an alternative 
to rewrite the whole thing. 
On the other hand, he helped Boss materially by lending 
