Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 18.djvu/165

 at the Forres grammar school and at the university of Aberdeen, where he graduated M.A. in 1826. He showed great powers of memory for languages, as well as a marked taste for botany and zoology, with a penetrating intellect, genial humour, and a frank, winning disposition. In 1826 he entered as a student of medicine at Edinburgh University, where he graduated M.D. in 1829, and was at once nominated as assistant-surgeon on the Bengal establishment of the East India Company. Being under the required age of twenty-two, he spent the interval in London, assisting Dr. Nathaniel Wallich in the distribution of his great Indian herbarium, and studying geology, and especially Indian fossils, under Mr. Lonsdale at the Geological Society's Museum. Arriving at Calcutta in September 1830, Falconer at once showed his bent by giving an account of some fossil bones from Ava, in the possession of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, which was published in the third volume of ‘Gleanings in Science,’ an Indian journal edited by Mr. James Prinsep. Early in 1831 Falconer was ordered to Meerut, and in pursuance of some consequent duty happened to pass through Saháranpur, where he met Dr. Royle, superintendent of the botanic garden. Congenial tastes led to Royle securing Falconer as his deputy during leave of absence, and in 1832 the latter succeeded his friend in charge of the botanic garden. The locality was most favourable for all kinds of natural history pursuits, and the proximity of the Siválik hills, as yet little explored, not only led Falconer to the determination of their tertiary age, but also to his discovery of a vast series of remarkable fossil mammals and reptiles. This discovery was a notable result of scientific prevision, for in 1831, when he determined the age of these hills, Falconer had been led to the conclusion ‘that the remains of mastodon and other large extinct mammalia would be found either in the gravel or in other deposits occupying the same position in some part of the range.’ His friend, Captain (afterwards Sir Proby) Cautley [q. v.], joined him in making extended researches, and from 1832 onwards the ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal’ and ‘Asiatic Researches’ contained numerous memoirs on their discoveries. By the labours of Falconer, Cautley, and Lieuts. Sir W. E. Baker and Sir H. Durand [q. v.], a vertebrate fossil fauna was brought to light, unexampled for extent and richness in any region then known. It included the earliest discovered fossil quadrumana, many species of mastodon and elephant, several species of rhinoceros, new subgenera of hippopotamus, the colossal ruminant sivatherium, species of ostrich, crocodiles, the enormous tortoise colossochelys, and numerous fishes. The task of preserving and determining these fossils, far from museums and books, was most difficult, and in order to obtain material for comparison Falconer, with rare energy, prepared skeletons of the living animals around him. Such work was not long in obtaining recognition in England, and in 1837 the Geological Society of London awarded the Wollaston medal, in duplicate, to Falconer and Cautley.

In 1834 a commission was appointed by the Bengal government to report on the fitness of India for the growth of tea, and by Falconer's advice experiments were ordered, and were conducted under his superintendence in sites selected by him. The first tea was manufactured under him, and the produce declared equal to the best China tea. He also made large additions to Indian botany, which were acknowledged by Dr. Royle (Illustrations of the Botany of the Himalayas, 1839) in naming a new genus Falconeria after his friend. To gain new specimens he travelled much in the rainy season at great risk to his life. In 1837–8 he visited Cashmere, on the occasion of Burnes's second mission to Cabul. In 1838 he crossed the mountains to Iskardoh in Balkistan, and traced the Shiggur branch of the Indus to its source, examining the great glaciers of Arindoh and of the Braldoh valley, and returning to Cashmere by the valley of Astore. In the latter he discovered the assafœtida plant of commerce, which he was the first to describe. During his stay in Cashmere, although interrupted by prolonged illness, Falconer sent to the Saháranpur gardens 650 grafted plants, including all the most valuable fruit trees. In 1840 his health gave way after frequent severe attacks consequent on incessant exposure, and in 1842 he returned to England on sick leave, bringing with him seventy large chests of dried plants and five tons of fossil bones.

From 1843 to 1847 Falconer remained in England, publishing numerous memoirs on the geology and fossils of the Siválik hills, which have been reproduced in his collected works, and also contributing several important botanical papers to the Linnean Society. His botanical collections having partially suffered from damp on the voyage to England, were deposited at the East India House during Falconer's second absence in India, and suffered greatly from neglect. In preparing the ‘Flora Indica’ (1855), Dr. (now Sir J. D.). Hooker and Dr. Thomson recorded that it was the only herbarium of importance to which they failed to procure access, and they were thus unable to do Falconer full justice as the discoverer of many of the plants they