362 Analysis of Books. 



descriptions are written with care and minuteness, while the uses to 

 which the planls are applied are explained in a manner that might 

 serve as a model for a modern flora. These two works, with the 

 Thesaurus Zeylanicus, of Burrnann, compiled in 1737, from the ma- 

 terials collected by Paul Hermann, a Dutch Physician ; the Flora 

 Zeylanica, of Linnaeus ; and the Flora Indica, of Burmann, the 

 younger, were the basis, till of late years, of our knowledge of Indian 

 botany. 



The whole of these publications did not, we believe, carry the 

 flora of India beyond two thousand species, of which, those only 

 that had been well figured could be said to be known to science, 

 so defective were the 'modes of description formerly employed. 

 Thus, after two thousand years that India had been constantly open 

 to Europeans, or in three hundred years from the period that the 

 Cape of Good Hope was first doubled by the Portuguese, the total 

 number of species that the enterprize of naturalists and the wealth 

 of their patrons, had accumulated in the boundless regions compre- 

 hended under the name of India, did not equal one half the flora of 

 France. Modern botanists have done in a few years what their 

 predecessors had failed to accomplish in centuries. 



The principal cause of this progress is attributable to the powerful 

 patronage of the English East India Company, who, from the 

 period of their foundation of a botanic Garden at Calcutta, about the 

 year 1785, have been the constant promoters of investigations of the 

 natural history of their Indian possessions. Under these auspices 

 collections of great extent were formed by several individuals in 

 their service, particularly by Drs. Roxburgh, Russell, and Hamilton ; 

 while the addition of native draughtsmen to their botanical esta- 

 blishment laid the foundation of a series of drawings, unrivalled 

 for extent and accuracy. A portion of these was published several 

 years since, under the title of' Plants of the Coast of Coromandel,' 

 in three volumes folio, containing three hundred coloured figures ; 

 and vast quantities of dried specimens were deposited, by the Com- 

 pany's orders, in the hands of the Linna?an Society, and of the late 

 Sir Joseph Banks; among whose unarranged collections, we under- 

 stand, they still are to be found. 



It was not, however, till the year 1815 that the powerful impulse 

 was communicated to the prosecution of botanical researches in 

 India, which has led to its present remarkable state. At that time 

 a Danish gentleman, whose works stand at the head of this article, 

 was appointed to the charge of the Calcutta garden ; and from this 

 period new vigour seems to have been infused into every depart- 

 ment. The preparation of drawings in the garden was prosecuted 

 with increased energy, and, under the new direction, with an 

 accuracy and beauty which had never before been seen in India. 

 The collection of living plants augmented rapidly, as was attested 

 by large and constant exportations of seeds and plants, as presents 

 from the Company, to public and private gardens in Europe. Irt 

 this way great benefit has accrued to Great Britain : independently 



