538 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
to prevent the gradual deterioration and ultimate extinction of the 
forests still existing in these provinces, and which were rapidly 
disappearing before the axe of the woodman, no measures being 
in the meanwhile taken to replace the trees that were felled. We 
quoted largely the opinions submitted to Government by Dr. Fal- 
coner, Captain Cautley, and Mr. Neave, and also adduced the 
reasonings embodied in a paper drawn up for a similar purpose by 
the writer of the present article. We moreover took frequent op- 
portunities of recurring to the subject, in the hope that repeated 
agitation might at length open the eyes of the authorities to the 
necessity of active interference, and were at one time so far suc- 
cessful, that a subordinate officer was appointed to the charge of 
the Dhera Dhoon forests, while Mr. Vansittart was superintendent; 
but the severe sickness of the first incumbent, and the subsequent 
occurrence of grave political events having intervened, the atten- 
tion of Government was diverted from this very important sub- 
ject. We are, however, happy to learn that the matter has been 
revived, and that a committee has lately been appointed, consisting 
of Colonel Boileau, superintendent engineer N. W. provinces, 
Mr. Edwards, superintendent of Simla, and Dr. Jameson, super- 
intendent of the Botanical Gardens, North-west Provinces, to 
report on the forests in the Simla jurisdiction, as wood is be- 
coming scarce in the neighbourhood of cantonments, and will of 
course become daily more so, if Government do not take immediate 
steps to remedy the evil. Dr. Jameson proceeds shortly to Simla, 
to meet his colleagues, and we hope soon to hear of some effectual 
measures being devised. In former days, the British Government 
considered the Hills so useless, that they actually searched every- 
where for the heirs of the former hill chiefs, who had been driven 
from their possessions by the Goorkas, in order to re-instate them, 
and the result is, that even a few miles of hill land are procurable 
with the utmost difficulty, and that all the wood now supplied to 
the hill sanitaria is purchased from foreign states. Ere long, a 
large tract of hills, viz., the whole country between the Ganges 
and Jumna, will lapse to the Government, as the present Teeree 
Rajah is old and feeble, and cannot live much longer. On his 
