GRIFFITH, WILLIAM, F.L.S., a medical officer of the Madras army, author of numerous works on Indian botany. He accompanied the army which marched in 1838 – 39 from Sind through Quetta and Kandahar to Ghazni and Kabul. From Kabul he crossed the chain of the Hindu Kush to Band= and Singhau, and spent some time in the Kuner valley ; his collections there amounted probably to about 1000 species, many of which axe deposited in the Royal Her barium at Kew. His collections from Malacca, Tena.sserim, the Khassya mountains, and the whole Assam valley, Mishmi and Naga Hills, and Upper Irawadi, Calcutta, Bhutan, Simla, Sind, and Af ghanistan, are probably not under 9000 species, which is by far the largest munber ever obtained by individual exertions. He also made a collection of birds in Afghanistan. His posthumous notes and journals were published in Calcutta, edited by Dr. M`Clelland, under the auspices of the Iudian Government. A mural tablet, erected to his memory in the cathedral church of Madras, says he was born at Ham in the county of Surrey, March 1810. He had attained to the highest
eminence in the scientific world, and was one of the most distinguished botanists of the age. He azquired his knowledge by personal investigation in the different provinces of British India and in the neighbouring kingdoms, from the banks of the Helmand and Oxus to the Stmits of Malacca, where, in the eapacity of Civil Assistant Surgeon, he died 9th February 1845, in the 35th year of his a„,,cm, and the 13th year of his public service in India. 'His early death is deeply deplored by num erous private friends ; and his loss to the cause of science elicited a public and emphatie expression of regret from the Governor-General of India. This tablet is erected as an humble tribute to his memory, by a few of his medical brethren of the Madras service.'—Hooker f. et Thomson.