Falconer, HUGH

Falconer, HUGH, an eminent botanist and palæontologist, was born at Forres in Elginshire, 29th February 1808. He graduated M.A. at Aberdeen in 1826, and M.D. at Edinburgh in 1829, and joined the medical service in Bengal of the East India Company. Appointed in 1832 keeper of the botanic garden at Saháranpur, he distinguished himself by the discovery of a large number of fossils in the tertiary deposits of the Siwálik hills. It was under his care that the first experiments were made by government in the growth of tea in India; and it was he who discovered during a journey in Cashmere the asafétida plant of commerce. Overwork told upon his health, and in 1842 he had to return to England, whither he carried five tons of fossil bones and seventy large chests of dried plants. In England Falconer devoted himself to writing memoirs and papers on Indian botany and palæontology, to arranging the Indian fossils in the British Museum and East India House, and to preparing his great illustrated folio, Fauna Antiqua Sivalensis (parts i.-ix. 1846-49). He returned to India in 1847 to become superintendent of the botanic garden and professor of Botany in the Medical College at Calcutta. He came home finally in 1855, and in spite of failing health continued his palæontological studies with heroic energy. He died in London, 31st July 1865. A fund of £2000 was raised to provide a memorial of this devoted martyr to science. A memorial fellowship was also founded at Edinburgh University to promote the study of palæontology and geology. The Palæontological Memoirs and Notes of the late Hugh Falconer were published in 1868.