icer of
engineers. I only ask any one who thinks that I may be in the
right, to glance through the lists of useful vegetable products
given in Lindley's "Vegetable Kingdom"--a miracle of learning--and
see the vast field open still to a thoughtful and observant man,
even while on service; and not to forget that such knowledge, if he
should hereafter leave the service and settle, as many do, in a
distant land, may be a solid help to his future prosperity. So
strongly do I feel on this matter, that I should like to see some
knowledge at least of Dr. Oliver's excellent little "First Book of
Indian Botany" required of all officers going to our Indian Empire:
but as that will not be, at least for many a year to come, I
recommend any gentlemen going to India to get that book, and while
away the hours of the outward voyage by acquiring knowledge which
will be a continual source of interest, and it may be now and then
of profit, to them during their stay abroad.

And for geology, again. As I do not expect you all, or perhaps any
of you, to become such botanists as General Monro, whose recent
"Monograph of the Bamboos" is an honour to British botanists, and a
proof of the scientific power which is to be found here and there
among British officers: so I do not expect you to become such
geologists as Sir Roderick Murchison, or even to add such a grand
chapter to the history of extinct animals as Major Cautley did by
his discoveries in the Sewalik Hills. Nevertheless, you can learn--
and I should earnestly advise you to learn--geology and mineralogy
enough to be of great use to you in your profession, and of use,
too, should you relinquish your profession hereafter. It must be
profitable for any man, and specially for you, to know how and where
to find good limestone, building stone, road metal; it must be good
to be able to distinguish ores and mineral products; it must be good
to know--as a geologist will usually know, even in a country which
he sees for the first time--where water is likely to be found, and
at what probable depth; it must be good to know whether the water is
fit for drinking or not, whether it is unwholesome or merely muddy;
it must be good to know what spots are likely to be healthy, and
what unhealthy, for encamping. The two last questions depend,
doubtless, on meteorological as well as geological accidents: but
the answers to them will be most surely found out by the scientific
man, because the facts