Mr. Marsden, my book certainly never would have been written, or even attempted.
Next to Mr. Marsden, I am indebted to my friend Professor Horace Hayman Wilson, of Oxford, for it is to his unrivalled oriental learning, that I owe the Sanskrit etymologies of the dictionary, and whatever may be found of value, connected with the great recondite language of India, in the preliminary Dissertation.
During the progress of my work, I have had the good fortune. to enjoy the correspondence of my friend J. Robert Logan, of Singapore, the editor of the Journal of the Indian Archipelago, a work abounding in original and authentic communications. Our present rapid intercourse with India has enabled me, when at a loss, to refer to Mr. Logan; and I have received from him elucidations of grammar, and additional words, accompanied by definitions.
In passing the sheets of my book through the press, I have been assisted by the supervision and corrections of an acute orientalist, who has made the Malayan and Polynesian language an object of special study, my friend Captain Thomas Bramber Gascoign.
In the nomenclature of plants, my own imperfect know- ledge has been more than compensated. by the science of my friends Robert Brown, George Bentham, and Nathaniel Wallich. In the department of zoology, my chief obligations are to a highly esteemed friend, whose acquaintance I had the happiness first to make in Java, more than forty years ago, Dr. Thomas Horsfield, one whose knowledge of every branch of the natural history of the Archipelago is well known to the public.
