CURATORS AND SUPERINTENDENTS. 
105 
less. Wallich gave up hope of entering the Company’s service 
on regular terms, and in 1813 he resigned his appointment at 
Serampore and established himself in Calcutta in independent 
medical practice. By this time he was well known for his 
scientific attainments, was in touch with most of the men 
in India who shared his scientific interests and was a member 
of the Asiatic Society. It was in connection with this Society, 
and while engaged in medical practice in Calcutta that Wallich 
made a proposal which has had wonderful developments. 
The propriety of establishing a museum in the Asiatic 
Society’s rooms had been informally suggested by the secre¬ 
tary^ H. H. Wilson, and others, but it was Wallich who gave 
the essential impetus to the proposal in a letter dated the 2nd 
Februaryj 1814, to the Council of the Society. In that letter 
after adverting to the advantages to science that would ensue 
from the establishment of a museum, Wallich offered his ser¬ 
vices to the Society and the few articles that remained of his 
own collections. The Society heartily supported the proposal 
and resolved to fit up the hall on the ground floor of its 
rooms as a museum and to appoint Wallich to be ‘‘ Superin¬ 
tendent of the Oriental Museum of the Asiatic Society.” 
Meanwhile, unknown to Wallich, the obstacles that had 
prevented his appointment as an assistant-surgeon in the 
Honourable East India Company’s service were surmounted, 
and in August, 1811 his name appeared in a list of appoint¬ 
ments of assistant-surgeons, and thenceforth he was in 
the Company’s service, and subject to the inconveniences 
as well as the advantages of such a position. The former 
were more apparent at the offset, for Wallich received orders 
to join the expeditionary force then proceeding against Nepal. 
In consequence of these orders he offered in December, 1814 
his resignation of the Superintendentship of the Society’s 
Museum. It is doubtful if his resignation actually took effect, 
for a fresh set of circumstances evolved to prevent Wallich’s 
joining the Nepal force. 
Francis Buchanan (afterwards Hamilton), then officiating 
as Superintendent of the Company’s Botanic Garden, was 
about to retire from the Company’s service and as Wallich 
was practically the only qualified officer available at the Presi- 
