Linruean Society, 223 



called Dowm ; " but Dr. Nicholson states that wherever the tree is 

 found in the North-western provinces, the bazaars are supplied with 

 the gum from it ; and that he never heard the tree called Dowm in 

 Arabia, although he has been in many parts of that country, where 

 he has seen the Googul. Dr. Ainslie again quotes Sprengel, who 

 erroneously states that Dowm is the Arabic name for Borassus fla- 

 belliformis, and cites Ksempfer and Rumphius in proof that Bdellium 

 is procured from that tree ; but Dr. Nicholson believes the Arabic 

 name Doom to be exclusively applied to the dividing-stemmed Palm 

 (Hyphcene Thebaica, Gsertn.), which is common on the banks of the 

 Nile, in the Thebaid and Upper Egypt, two or three trees of which 

 he has seen growing at Mocha, and a single tree at the west end of 

 the native village opposite to the Portuguese settlement in the Island 

 of Diu in Kattiawar. He has frequently examined this Palm without 

 detecting any gum ; -and it is well known in India that the Tari, 

 Borassus flabelliformis, does not produce gum. Another Palm, Cha- 

 mcerops humilis, L., has been also affirmed to produce Bdellium, and 

 Matthiolus is quoted as having witnessed the fact at Naples ; but 

 Dr. Nicholson states that he particularly examined this Chamcerops 

 at Girgenti in Sicily in all stages of its growth, in flower, in fruit, 

 and without either, and never observed anything like gum. 



After refuting these erroneous notions as to the origin of the gum, 

 Dr. Nicholson proceeds to state that he met with the Googul plant 

 for the first time in 1832 on the Hills of Balmeer, in the Chotee 

 Thur or Little Desert, on taking and sacking which town large 

 quantities of the gum were found in several of the Banyan houses. 

 The bush is also plentiful about Joolmaghur, thirteen miles south- 

 west from Balmeer ; and the author has observed it on the Kulinjur 

 Hills in Parkur, as w^ell as on those of several parts of Kutch and 

 Wangeer. Having been shipwrecked in 1836 on the southern coast 

 of Arabia, about 200 miles east of Cape Furtash, and being carried 

 by the Arabs to the town of Geda, about three miles distant from 

 the coast, he observed that large quantities of the gum Googul, 

 there called Aflatoon, were brought to Geda by the Bedouins from the 

 interior, where he was informed that the tree producing it was very 

 plentiful, and that the gum is annually carried thence to Mocha on 

 camels, and exported from Mocha to Bombay and other places. He 

 subsequently found the Googul bush on the hills of Yemen, and in 

 1841 on the hills above Wankaneer in Kattiawar. The gum is 

 chiefly used as a frankincense ; but the natives of Guzerat, and pro- 

 bably of other provinces where the tree is found, collect and bruise 

 the recent berries and twigs, boiling the juice out in cauldrons, and 

 having mixed it with their chunam (lime), to which it imparts in- 

 creased tenacity, commence all their dwellings with lime thus mixed, 

 it is said from a religious motive. The gum is found most abun- 

 dantly after the rains, when it is collected in pieces as it exudes 

 from the tree, and is often very dirty from the careless way in which 

 it is gathered, being mixed with the bark and twigs, and sometimes 

 even with the subjacent soil. The harder and nearly transparent 

 drops are picked out by the Banyan merchant, and fetch a higher 

 price than the rest. 



