f the bits of wood, the duplicates will
be sent on the 28th or 29th: on this latter day I leave for Peshawur, and
right glad am I that the time has come at last. I will send you the same
woods from Peshawur, but shall scarcely be able to send you pomegranate
from any thing like a cold place.

"On receiving your specimens of vine, the following question occurred to
me. If wood is a deposit from the leaves or fibres sent down from the
leaves, how is the presence of wood to be accounted for in tendrils,
which have no leaves, but yet which are evidently branches? The theory
of the formation of wood, which considers it as above, is deemed
ingenious, but it will not I think be found to be true. The bark
evidently has a great deal to say to the matter.

"I shall be most rejoiced at a remote prospect of again setting to work.
I take no interest now in the vegetation of this country. I hope to be
at Loodianah _early_ in November; my present intention is to run up to
Simla, thence to Mussoorie, and descend on Seharunpore. If I do this, I
shall only leave one point unfinished, and that is the Hindoo-koosh
Proper, where however I shall have the advantage of Major Sanders of the
Engineers, who will pick up a few plants for me. I wish much to take
notes of the vegetation about Simla and Mussoorie, this I can do at a bad
season. I shall afterwards be able to compare the Himalayan chain at
very distant points."

* * * * *

_Serampore_, -- 1841.

"I will send you to-morrow dissections of Santalum if I can get a small
bottle for them: under .5 inch lens you can easily open the pistillum of
Santalum having previously removed the perianth: it is a concial body;
you must take care to get it out entire, especially at the base, then
place it in water, and dissect off the ovula of which there are three or
four, as per sketch. I shall not say what I see, as I want to have your
original opinion unbiassed, etc.; but whenever you see the tubes with
filaments adhering to their apices, pray mark attentively what takes
place, both at the point and at the place where the tube leaves the
ovulum; your matchless 1/1500 would do the thing. Try iodine with all
such, after having examined them in water.

"Should you find any difficulty in dissecting away the ovula, light
pressure under glass will relieve you. I shall be very anxious to know
what your opinion is, particularly with regard to the tubes