Page:Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Vol 7.djvu/305

 according to official reports, the astonishing number of 190,000 live plants were distributed in the short space of five years, to upwards of 2000 gardens in India, Europe, North and South America, North and South Africa, and Australia. In 1835 he undertook to conduct a deputation to inquire into the prospects of tea cultivation in Assam, a most unhealthy country, and on this occasion superintended a botanical exploration of the whole valley. On his return to Calcutta he was again obliged to leave India for his health, and he repaired to the Cape of Good Hope, much enfeebled and in a very critical state; there however, with a partial restoration to health, his latent zeal revived, and he accompanied our eminent Fellow, Mr. Maclear the Astronomer Royal, upon an extensive journey into the interior of the colony, botanizing diligently as he went, and transmitting his collections to Europe for distribution with his wonted liberality.

After another short sojourn at Calcutta and ineffectual attempt to resist the effects of a climate which five times drove him from India, Dr. Wallich finally returned to England in 1847, relinquished with regrets (that he never could banish) his arduous duties, and retired upon the pension of his rank as Surgeon in the Bengal army, after forty years of such incessant toil both of mind and body as has never been paralleled in the history of botanical science.

After his return to England Dr. Wallich's health gradually declined, but his love of botany and earnest desire to promote it never forsook him. He took an active part in the meetings of our own and other societies, and contributed, chiefly literary notices, to various botanical periodicals. He maintained an extensive correspondence and became a medium of communication between men of science in all its branches, in this country and on the Continent; and up to within a few weeks of his decease, which took place at his residence in Gower Street on the 28th of April, he was actively engaged in establishing a correspondence between the museums and gardens of his native and adopted countries. Dr. Wallich published several important works on systematic botany in India, and a magnificent one in this country, to which allusion has already been made; he has further the merit of having introduced the art of lithography into the East. His acquirements as a botanist were both varied and sound, and not confined to a familiarity with species; VOL. VII. 2 F